It may be hard for future generations to believe this, but Marco Rubio was at one time one of those politicians whom people regarded as a relatively "reasonable" Republican. For years of my professional life at an advocacy organization, we always included Rubio on the short list of potentially "persuadable" GOP senators whom we hoped we might win over on this or that human rights issue. This was all based on Rubio's earlier improbable history as one of the "gang of eight" senators who co-sponsored comprehensive immigration reform back in 2013. Based on that one glimmer of bipartisan collaboration, we always held out hope the senator from Florida might break in our direction.
Of course, he never did. Yet somehow, that didn't diminish the vague feeling that he might. He was like one of those antiheroes in a TV drama—a Jimmy McNulty or a Tony Soprano, say—who always seem just likable enough that you think they must be about to redeem themselves in some way. But they never do. Still, none of this stopped me from ranking Rubio as better than the rest of his party. I even briefly considered registering as a Republican in 2016 just so I could vote for him in the primaries. This was not because I wanted him or any other Republican to be president (horrors)—it was simply my notion of doing everything in my power to stop Trump from ending up at the top of the ballot.
(I didn't end up doing it, by the way̦—and it clearly would not have changed the outcome anyway, if I had; just as the progressives who crossed party lines to vote for Nikki Haley in the 2024 primaries made no difference either.)
But now all that is gone, utterly gone. What sealed it was Rubio's interview last Wednesday with Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo. The senator made a point specifically of defending Trump's claim that immigrants are "poisoning the blood" of the nation. Moreover, Rubio didn't even attempt to pull the J.D. Vance move of reinterpreting the comment before endorsing it. Unlike Vance, he did not pretend "Oh, Trump was just talking about fentanyl." Instead, Rubio basically just seems to agree with Trump on the merits. "The country is threatened by this influx of people," said Rubio, "which we now know even includes criminals and terrorists." He backed Trump's mass deportation plan too.
A Democratic spokesperson put it well when she observed—of this display: "Marco Rubio is willing to defend him just for the chance to be Trump's running mate [...] Rubio has lost his last shred of dignity[.]" Indeed. It's hard to think of a more abject or debasing spectacle than someone prostituting their conscience in this way for a racist demagogue (one who has, moreover, specifically and repeatedly treated Rubio himself with contempt in the past). Rubio is licking the hand that beats him. And for what? "Just for the chance to be Trump's running mate." Just to play second-fiddle to a man who despises him. "Just for a riband to stick in his coat," as Browning once wrote—of an earlier age's political betrayal.
That's the really pathetic thing—how cheaply he sold himself in the end. It's all just to angle for a shot at a measly runner-up position that Trump might not even grant him in the end. It really is all for love of a riband—less, indeed, than that. When Browning wrote his poem, he evidently had in mind how easily the great poets of an earlier generation—the Wordsworths, the Southeys—had sold their birthright of liberalism for the laurels bestowed by reaction and monarchy. At least they got a "riband," however. Rubio, even if all his plans go right, will be offered at most the glorious privilege of being Donald Trump's Vice President. And maybe he should ask the last one to hold that office how it panned out.
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