Mike the Mad Biologist

Last week, one senate Democrat* explained his vote to advance the nomination of Sen. Markwayne Mullin to head DHS (boldface mine):

“This is going to surprise some people, but I consider Markwayne Mullin a friend. We have a very honest and constructive working relationship. We have authored legislation together, such as the Tribal Buffalo Management Act, and we crafted the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill together this year. We often disagree and when we do, we work to find whatever common ground we share.

“I have also seen first-hand that Markwayne is not someone who can simply be bullied into changing his views, and I look forward to having a Secretary who doesn’t take their orders from Stephen Miller.

“For five years, under this and the previous Trump Administration, I have lacked any constructive relationship with the Secretary of Homeland Security. This is despite my state being home to hundreds of TSA, CBP and Border Patrol constituents and many miles of the U.S./Mexico border. I want someone who recognizes the necessity of judicial warrants, as he has. I would like a Secretary who I can call and have a constructive conversation with about my state and the unique terrain that exists in the southwest and the proper mix of structure, technology and personnel necessary to effectively secure our border.

“For these reasons, I will vote to confirm Markwayne Mullin to be Secretary of Homeland Security.”

I have included his entire reasoning out of fairness, but I want to focus on the boldface part. Without engaging in too much late-night bong-influenced pseudophilosophy, there exist multiple Mullins. The Mullin the Democratic senator experiences is a principled opponent who is willing to “work to find whatever common ground we share.”

But the Mullin many, many other people know is not that man. He is a bloviating confabulist, who is terrified of being carjacked in D.C., who seems to like other people’s nostrils way too much, and also likes to pick fights with Congressional witnesses. Importantly, Mullin has not broken with Trump and his fascism in any meaningful way, and in 2021, refused to accept the validity of Biden’s presidential win.

Our Mullin, the one the overwhelming majority of us experience is not a principled opponent. He is a partisan hack who says absurd things and is, at best, a fascist appeaser, if not an outright fascist. There is no reason to think that the Democratic senator’s Mullin is the ‘real’ one, the one that will surface if Mullin becomes DHS Secretary. The Mullin the majority of Americans experience might be the one that is germane to how Mullin would perform his duties.

As I noted after Trump’s most recent State of the Union address:

But there are two things that sorry spectacle* revealed about professional Republicans.

First, they hate their Democratic coworkers. When Trump pointed at Democrats and said Democrats are “crazy… We’re lucky we have a country, with people like this. Democrats are destroying our country, but we stopped it, just in the nick of time”, Republicans went wild with glee. They were behaving like it was the pregame for a pogrom. This is who they really are, and this is what they really think.

Second, it’s still not clear to me if Democrats comprehend the Republican hatred. The superficial acts of civility by their Republican coworkers are a mask over the hatred Republicans have for Democrats, including their supposed ‘colleagues.’ While a willingness to pretend otherwise is humiliating for professional Democrats, it’s dangerous for the rest of us.

It obviously has not occurred to the Democratic senator that his coworker** might be playing him in private to get some legislation that Mullin himself wants, and that his public face is the real one. Professional Democrats need to figure this out, and fast.

*Since this is a vice that afflicts many, if not most, federal Democrats, I see no reason to focus on the particular senator, in this case New Mexico’s Senator Heinrich.

**No reason to refer to the overwhelming majority of Republicans who defended the insurrectionists that tried to overthrow the government and threatened to lynch Democratic lawmakers as colleagues. FFS, show some damn self-respect.