Senator Roger Marshall is like most Senators rich. Not uber rich, but with a net worth of over six million dollars he’s richer than 99 percent of us. He doesn’t have to worry about paying for his homes (more than one of course), his electric bill, buying groceries, putting gas in the car and so on. It seems since he doesn’t have to worry about money he either doesn’t ‘get’ or care that most of us do. And he’s flat-out just said so! At a time like this Marshall defends the Trump policies that have most of us struggling by lecturing us that we should accept there are more important things than money!
It’s not like Marshall hasn’t already shown how tone-deaf he is. His lame explanations for hounding patients to the point of suing them (he’s an ObGyn) over unpaid medical bills, some less than a hundred bucks is a matter of record. Money sure seemed to matter him then. Every single dollar! Just who the hell does he think he is to now tell us to suck it up and accept the economic struggles Trump has inflicted? HE won’t be doing without! Marshall is taking being tone-deaf and failing to read the room to a new level as this HuffPost article explains:
“Certainly the cost of gas is an issue, but now people are coming home saying, ‘Oh, what’s more important than money?’” Marshall told The Topeka Capital-Journal in a clip from Oct. 8 released Monday. “There are things more important than money to Kansans.”
Yet back in June, the senator said that the cost of gas is “absolutely the barometer for this election.” A month later, he told “Mundo in the Morning” that “the price of gasoline in October” would decide whether Americans have had enough of high prices under President Donald Trump amid his costly war on Iran.
Granted, Marshall is a doctor and not an economist. However in addition to his medical practice he branched out into business ventures too. Between that and running a medical practices he’s well aware of things like fixed expenses and costs. Plus, he’s a sitting U.S. Senator. He for damned sure should understand issues like the cost of living the voters he needs have to struggle with. Either he doesn’t, or doesn’t care. Or is too afraid of Trump to have stood up to him on the BBB, this disastrous war that has driven up prices on numerous things voters must pay for daily and weekly.
Also, as a sitting Senator even if he’s not an expert on oil production, getting crude to refineries and their turning it into gas and diesel (with winter coming up let’s add in home heating oil) he’s got Senate pals who are. The fact is, and Marshall surely knows it is that if the war ended tomorrow and global oil shipments returned to pre-war levels before the end of this week it will be many months before gas and diesel prices come back down to the levels Trump promises will happen.
I can’t help but wonder if Marshall is at whistling past the graveyard stage:
Marshall seemed to acknowledge this to the Topeka Capital-Journal.
“So, certainly, the cost of gas is a problem, is a concern for everybody,” he said. “But what I’m hearing more and more now is the Republicans saying, ‘Oh yes, I remember that national security is what’s really important.’”
So Marshall is playing Trump’s ‘Iran can’t be allowed to have a nuclear weapon’ card. He wants everyone to think HE was the one who realized this and chose to make that a top National (and world) Security goal. However you should keep a couple of things in mind. That sentiment has driven policy both here and in countries around the world for decades. And using various strategies and tactics Iran has in fact been prevented from developing one. Under Obama former Secretary of State John Kerry worked out a deal that would have ensured Iran wouldn’t engage in acquiring nukes, and one important provision allowed for unlimited international inspectors to go where they wanted whenever they wanted.
The problem had been handled, then Trump took office in 2017 and tore it up. THAT is why Iran has made the progress it’s made. Trump has petulantly refused to enter into a similar agreement, and so here we are. Diplomacy had done, and could again do what Trump has spent tens of billions of dollars and worse, American’s (and allies in the region’s) lives by ignoring the less costly option of putting people who are actually knowledgeable and capable of negotiating a new non-nuke treaty with Iran.
Instead we have war, and it’s costing Americans big time. They are pissed and polling data indicates it will factor into their midterm voting. Marshall may or may not believe most of his constituents are saying they’re ok with their cost of living, the difficulties they are enduring to throttle Iran’s nuclear capability. Yet that’s what Marshall claims is the case, and that the folks back home are telling him (or his staffers) that.
I for one doubt Marshall is hearing that from all that many of his constituents. Maybe the ones with at least six figure incomes he hands out with when back home. I’m pretty sure his variation on Trump’s ‘people say’ theme is any people who actually tell him they’re ok with things, and that they’re willing to suffer so Trump can keep up this stupid war are other rich people like him. Like that old REO Speedwagon song: ‘Heard it from a friend; who heard it from a friend…’
I won’t deny there have been times in our history when widespread sacrifice was necessary. WWII being the best example. This however is not one of those times. This war, and the impact it’s had on the cost of living was avoidable. It remains to be seen how many seats it will cost the GOP and not just on Capitol Hill. It’s filtering down into state races too. Could it be that voters, even conservative ones realize we’d controlled Iran’s nuclear ambitions for decades using means other than a costly war? We’re about to find out.
It’s incredible to think about Kansas, for the first time in a century electing a Democrat to serve them in the Senate. Then again, it wasn’t that long ago the thought of Kansas putting a Democrat in their Governor’s Mansion was equally crazy. However that Kansas Gov. Mansion is currently occupied by Democrat Laura Kelly! Maybe the old saying taken from the title of a book, ‘What’s the Matter With Kansas?’ has started turning to people there starting to ask themselves ‘What the hell have we been thinking, and DOING to ourselves all this time?’
Marshall I gather has all the charisma as a mop that just got used to clean the restroom at a football stadium after a game. And, he seems to go looking for piles of sh!t to step in. My guess is that with less than a month to go in a campaign he’s in serious danger of losing he’s done so again. Trump and the GOP are trying to prop him up but with him making himself a wet spaghetti noodle it’s going to take a lot to succeed. Maybe it will work out for him, and maybe not. This is Kansas after all but as I’ve noted the voters aren’t quite the automatic GOP voters they once were.
At the very least it’s another headache the GOP has to deal with. I’m sure they’ll put out some of the fires but in an election where Democrats, at least this spring were expected to be back on their heels we see Republicans desperately trying not to fall backwards on their butts.
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise, among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
