What 'maddening' Kyrsten Sinema gets wrong about Washington’s 'dysfunction': analysis

06 March 2024

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona) made a major announcement on Super Tuesday: the centrist senator won't be seeking reelection this year.

Arizona residents were looking at a possible three-way Senate race in 2024 that would have found the independent Sinema up against the major parties' likely nominees: Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego and far-right MAGA Republican Kari Lake.

But with Sinema's announcement, Gallego is expecting his only real competition in the race to be Lake. Sinema, announcing her retirement, expressed her frustration with the bitter partisanship plaguing Washington, D.C.

But journalist Jill Lawrence, in an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on March 6, offers some reasons why many Democrats have found Sinema to be "maddening" as a senator.

"Kyrsten Sinema is absolutely one of the most maddening people ever to serve in the Senate," Lawrence argues. "So it is not surprising that her retirement announcement is, well, maddening. Americans don't want compromise anymore, it's 'a dirty word,' says the centrist, independent, former Democrat from Arizona in a video released on Tuesday…. But wait, hold on — that doesn't sound like America."

Lawrence continues, "It sounds like Donald Trump, who recently ordered House Republicans to kill a bipartisan immigration deal that Sinema and two colleagues had toiled over for four months — because he wanted to run for president on problems at the border, not solve them."

Lawrence agrees that Washington, D.C. is "dysfunctional," but she criticizes Sinema for not adequately highlighting the role that the far-right MAGA movement has played in that dysfunction.

"To be clear," Lawrence writes, "Sinema's not entirely wrong: Washington really is dysfunctional. Congress is struggling this week to pass the first of two enormous federal funding bills that would prevent a government shutdown…. Again and again, it's obvious that the dysfunctionality originates with Trump and his MAGA fans, in the House and across the country."

Jill Lawrence's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

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