Senator Marco Rubio’s Tampa office is beige. Here are some things Marco Rubio and the color beige have in common:
-Both are simple.
-Both are frequently associated with khaki pants.
-Neither are going to be president.
On Thursday afternoon, a group of veterans delivered over 6,000 Floridian-signed petitions to the senator’s Tampa office, urging him to denounce Donald Trump as the Republican nominee.
The group consisted of just three brave souls: Dessia Laxton-Reinke, who served for 10 years as an Army intelligence analyst, her husband, Andrew Reinke, who served two tours in Iraq and Ali Samiian, an Iranian-American veteran.
They forged into the office carrying three cardboard boxes marked “Sen. Rubio Dump Trump Now,” which were empty except for a single flash drive. Laxton-Reinke explained that the empty boxes represent how many pages of signatures they’d have if they were printed out. Ah, trees. Another thing our senator possibly doesn’t care about. Here are some ways trees differ from Marco Rubio:
-Trees give oxygen, Marco Rubio, entitled taker he is, consumes it.
-Trees are sorely lacking, unlike Marco Rubios.
Once the office door buzzed open, the exchange goes something like this:
Laxton-Reinke: “As proud veterans, we are delivering 6,000 signatures to ask Republican leaders like Marco Rubio to denounce Donald Trump for the way he has treated our veterans and our service members.”
Rubio office staffer: “K thx bye.”
This experience likely mirrors that of the group who delivered the 110,000 total signatures to Republican offices on Capitol Hill earlier this month.
The MoveOn.org petition was created by veteran Perry O’Brien in response to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s attack on the family of Humayun Khan, a U.S. soldier who died in Iraq. It states: “If Republican leaders do not outright disavow Trump’s dangerous rhetoric, they are not only endorsing Donald Trump’s candidacy, but also his attacks on veterans.”
Laxton-Reinke’s daughter deployed to Afghanistan, and her son is currently attending Coast Guard boot camp. “
Khan paid the ultimate sacrifice for his country, and his family should have been treated with respect,” she said. “I don’t want Donald Trump making decisions to put my children’s lives on the line, then treat them that way when they return.”
Samiian drove all the way from Jacksonville after hearing about the event the previous night.
“The way Donald Trump talks about other faiths and cultures is a betrayal of American civil virtues. For any public official to support this guy is a betrayal of those same virtues,” he said.
During his presidential campaign, Marco Rubio described Trump as a “con artist,” and “the most vulgar person ever to aspire to the presidency.” He stands by these claims. And yet, when the time came, Rubio did as Rubio does. He went half-sies.
Prominent members of the Republican party who refuse to endorse their nominee but will still vote for him have been christened “Half-Trumpers.” They dislike Trump, but they don’t want to be blamed for Clinton’s win. Conveniently, this allows them to fall in line with the party without seeming crazy. Marco Rubio + Half Trump – Half Trump = Marco Rubio + (backbone x 0).
It’s possible we’ll see the Senate minus Marco Rubio soon enough, assuming whoever ultimately becomes the Democratic candidate for the seat can pull that off. But until then…
Here’s what Marco Rubio and the group of veterans I met today have in common:
-They are humanoid.
-[Crickets]
This article appears in Aug 18-25, 2016.
