The Lady Is A Trump

Martha McSally Prefers Trumplandia to Arizona

Will the gentlelady yield? Seriously, yield your unearned Senate seat the way you’ve yielded your honor, self-respect and reputation. Now that you have yielded completely to Donald Trump, Senator McSally, it’s time to yield your political office and, absent rediscovery of your courage and independence, your political career as well.

She’s much too hungry for dinner and fame
We used to like her, but she’s not the same
Her soul was captured and that’s just a shame
That’s why the lady is a Trump.

Didn’t you learn anything from your loss to Kyrsten Sinema? She defeated you because she ran as an independent, not beholding to Donald Trump or anybody else. To paraphrase Santayana, those who do not remember electoral mistakes are condemned to repeat them. You hitched your star to the Trump wagon and lost, and yet you have only nourished your inner Trumpiness instead of carving out your own independent image.

Won’t answer questions and dodges the facts
Takes a position and promptly retracts
Then runs for cover when facing attacks
That’s why the lady is a Trump.

Martha McSally’s refusal to answer questions was apparent in 2014, when she ran for Congress against Ron Barber. Linda Valdez, writing in The Arizona Republic, credited McSally with “a lot of passion” but noted she “doesn’t have a lot of answers.” In 2018, when McSally was running for the Senate against Sinema, reporter Jim Nintzel, when asked why she was avoiding a debate with her opponent, observed that “it’s typical of Martha McSally,” adding, “She’s not the most approachable person when it comes to sitting down for interviews…” McSally would not even answer questions in the friendly confines of Laura Ingraham’s program on Fox News, refusing to indicate whether she supported or opposed calling witnesses in Trump’s impeachment trial. “Pretty easy question, don’t you think, Senator?” asked a visibly irritated Ingraham.

She likes the fresh, green, cash in the bank
Donors to thank
She’s broke
No joke
Won’t ask “how high?” when the POTUS says “jump”
That’s why the lady is a Trump.

McSally raised a bit more than four million dollars in the fourth quarter of 2019, a nice sum but much less than her opponent, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, who brought in nearly 6.3 million. Kelly began 2020 with nearly twice as much cash on hand. Not only is Kelly outraising McSally, he is overtaking her in the polls. The nonpartisan Cook Political Reports currently rates the contest as a “tossup” and McSally seems to be panicking. Consider her recent clumsy fund-raising stunt, an on-camera attack on a CNN journalist, who, like Ingraham, asked the same “pretty easy question.” She could have demurred, claiming she was waiting for a list of witnesses to be formally presented, but a reasonable response would not have satisfied Trump. So, she went on the attack. “You’re a liberal hack,” she told CNN’s Manu Raju. “I’m not talking to you. You’re a liberal hack.” Video of the exchange ran on every news network and both McSally and the President used it for fund-raising. Within hours of the exchange with Raju, McSally’s campaign registered the domain name “liberalhack.com” and began selling t-shirts that read, “You’re a liberal hack, buddy.” The shirts cost at least $35 apiece; Martha desperately needs the money. McSally doesn’t even have the courage to defend her actions, telling Trump sycophant Sean Hannity, “I decided to call a liberal a liberal.” No, Senator, you called a reporter a hack. Not the same thing. No wonder Arizona Republic columnist Laurie Roberts recently asked, “How tone deaf can she be?”

Don’t ask her questions, she’ll call you a hack
Seek her opinion, she goes on attack
Naively certain that Trump has her back
That’s why the lady is a Trump.

Bill Kristol, a pioneer of political conservatism, defended CNN’s Raju. “McSally calling a reporter a ‘liberal hack’ for asking a question,” he noted in a tweet, “and then taking high fives from today’s ‘conservatives’ for doing so, tempts me to say: If it’s liberal to hold public officials in our liberal democracy accountable for doing their job, then I guess I’m liberal.” Note Kristol’s use of quotation marks around the word “conservatives.” Trump and his followers are not political conservatives. Many commentators, including former Trump associates Michael Cohen and Lev Parnas, have described the President’s followers as a “cult.” Steve Hassan, a cult expert agrees. “I knew that Trump fit the stereotypical profile of all cult leaders,” he told Business Insider, “which is essentially malignant narcissism, which is the narcissism — plus the psychopathic elements of feeling above the law, the pathological lying, paranoia, the jealousy, the harassment.”

She’s long abandoned the things she believes
She’s tied her future to sharpies and thieves
They won’t be with her the day that she leaves
That’s why the lady is a Trump.

Martha McSally was already in trouble before her carefully orchestrated outburst against the CNN reporter. Not only has her opponent outraised her, he has worked to capture the political center – the independents – as Sinema did. Mark Kelly’s wife, former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, was a “blue dog” Democrat and Kelly is likely to follow her example. McSally, on the other hand, became a Trump barnacle, and will sink into the abyss with the rest of the cult.

Arizona will reject McSally because she is no longer one us of.  The lady is a Trump.

(Inspired by the classic song, “The Lady Is A Tramp,” originally from the 1937 Rodgers and Hart musical, “Babes in Arms.”)

© 2020 by Mike Tully

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