Cynthia Hyde-Smith, the current junior Senator from the great state of Mississippi, has a television campaign ad in which she brags that she votes with Donald Trump “100% of the time.” This statement is not from the mouth of Hyde-Smith — no, she does herself one better by showing video of Donald Trump at one of her political rallies making that statement. (This is the same political rally where Trump made fun of Christine Blasey Ford, but that’s a different story.) Lest voters think Trump is exaggerating in his usual manner, on August 22, Ms. Hyde-Smith separately released a tweet and video touting her “100% Trump rating”:
As your U.S. Senator, I'm working to #MAGA. Since my appointment, I've backed @realDonaldTrump's agenda 100%, voting to strengthen our military, stop wasteful spending, secure our borders, and appoint constitutional conservative judges. #cindy2018
I don’t hide my dislike for Donald Trump. But setting partisanship aside, this is an insane political statement. Hyde-Smith says she votes with Trump 100 percent of the time. This is the same as saying that she exercises no judgment whatsoever in her senatorial votes. What Boss Trump wants, Boss Trump gets.
This isn’t political representation. It isn’t even democracy. Vladimir Putin claims the same kind of loyalty from his minions, as does the Chinese Communist party, and the Royal House of Saud. This isn’t Mississippi. This is the Mafia.
If I were a Republican, even a rock-ribbed conservative-to-the-last-breath Republican, I can’t image a circumstance where I would want my representative in the Senate to pledge to vote with the President 100 percent of the time. I am fairly certain I would want my representative in Congress to at least consider the other side of the discussion and occasionally vote independently.
The U.S. Senate has to be more than a presidential rubber stamp. Two hundred thirty years of democracy has to amount to something more than 100 percent of the time, I do what the president tells me to.
It is strange enough that Hyde-Smith would include this statement in her political ads. But it is even more bizarre that she would allow the President to say it for her. It is difficult to imagine a more passive and brain dead political stance, and it says a lot that a politician would be so desperate to maintain political power that she would be willing to sign away her independence to do so.
What make it worse is that she thinks it is a winning argument. Elect me, I am Donald Trump’s pooch.
But worst of all, I can’t tell that it has hurt her in the polls.
Dictators often come to power not through military force, but because people decide they are happy to give up their rights to leaders in exchange for the opportunity to be part of the ruling mob. It is a way of thinking I don’t understand; I have never wanted to belong to the political governing class so badly that I would trade away my right to think for myself to in exchange for a membership card. But there are people out there who think this way.
Democracies have collapsed before and likely will collapse again. Maybe the next time will be in Mississippi.