How do you feel about Senator Kyrsten Sinema leaving the Democratic Party?

I mean, she has been voting against the democrats the whole time already. Her slapping a different label on herself changes nothing, but it would be better if she was just honest and joined the republicans already, because that is where she belongs, really.

I don’t think it should be allowed to change party affiliation after a person has been voted in. You’ve used the parties money to get voted in, so perhaps you should be be made to pay the party back. Our governor did the same thing.
As for Sinema, I have not paid any attention to her, so I can’t really say that I feel one way or another about her.

She did it for the publicity. Many times she voted Republican to block legislation favored by Dems. It changes nothing.

One more example of why the Democratic Party is a neoliberal wasteland of corruption. If voters want policies left of Reagan, they need to stop donating to Democrats and vote 3rd party.

This is about the only way to be elected to a third party. You claim to be a republican or a democrat but vote like a third party would.

In terms of significance, there is none. Other than that it will probably wreck her career. She has said she plans to still caucus with the Democrats, so the effect is fairly mild.

My views on moderates has changes over the years. When I was in college in the early 90s, and even shortly after leaving college I viewed moderates as people that didn’t have strong political beliefs and were mostly in congress just to milk the taxpayer. And to be honest, there were alot of those back then. There was a bipartisan middle that largely governed the country. Who was in power only very slightly changed things.

But now, we’ve become so hyperpolarized. Both parties have gone out to scrub moderates from their ranks as much as they can. Obama turned the Democratic moderate into the Dodo bird, and the Republicans followed suit and did the same with the rise of the ‘Freedom Caucus’. Paul Ryan was forced out as Speaker (yes, I know he retired, but we all know he didn’t reach that decision in a vacuum) because the reliable conservative was deemed too moderate.

Both parties have run to their extremes with computer-aided gerrymandering making competitive general elections rarer, and primaries guaranteeing that the only threat to a candidate comes from the party’s extreme wing…thus encouraging them to never cooperate and govern more extreme.

And so in the rare cases when a party member tacks AGAINST their party like Sinema and Manchin did (to some extent) in the last term, or how Liz Cheney did in criticizing the election steal loudly rather than under her breath like most moderate Republicans…or staying silent and far too many of them did…I view those moderates very very VERY favorably because of how rare they’ve become. Mindless loyalty and devotion to your extreme base has become the norm. We need more Sinema’s who are willing to look their own party in the eye and say “No.”

But going ‘Independent” seems politically suicidal. She probably doesn’t think she’ll survive her next election anyway, because doing this means the D’s will likely run someone against her in the next general election, and that will weaken her against whatever Republican is running. It’s HARD to win as an independent in our system. It was DESIGNED to be hard.

BRAVO!!!

Arizona politicians have always had hidden agendas and hidden loyalties. No surprise.
She votes how she votes.

She was barely a democrat for the last couple years. This won’t change her behavior, only her label.

Good riddance. Manchin next?

She seems to be an attention seeker. I hope she is hoist by her petard in the next election.

@mazingerz88. Heck no! Most of WV thinks he is he second coming of Christ. I do not.

To my mind Sinema is a required study on both political reality and more importantly, the significance of class regarding that reality. Her transformation from solid dedicated progressive to unidentifiable on the political spectrum exemplifies what I believe the key to why it’s tough to revise our setup for the better. In many ways her story is exemplary. She began with a hard knock impoverished existence and struggled to obtain an advanced education. She (admirably) drew conclusions from her experience regarding the way things are ordered and threw herself into the fight where she distinguished herself as champion of progressive causes. So why the shift, and why now? A realist might look at this then conclude it is simply the reflection of political survivability in current day Arizona. But I believe it goes beyond that. We’ve seen this sort of thing before. And for reference, consider Ronald Reagan. And here is my view of it. Nothing in existence erodes progressive leanings more dependably than the incorporation of advocates for the cause into the ruling class.

A report I read some time ago said that, in reality, about 50% or Republicans are actually Moderates while about 60% of Democrats are Moderates. So it figures. And it seems she is telling the truth about people in general.

(Moderate = Independent = Centrist, etc.)

IMHO, she left 6 years ago!!!

No real feeling. This way she can, and will according to her, vote with the dems. It seems the only reason to go to independent is to have no one to answer to for certain things. If that is true. Seems like it would be.

She’s up for reelection in 2025 & she’s pandering for votes. She’s pissed off her Dem base & she’s NOT good enough to go it alone as a Rep. So claiming to be an Independent seems logical to her. At this point she wants to keep her committee seats & we can’t know how she plans to vote until she actually does vote. In other words, she’s being a typical politician who is coming up for reelection.

She’s not getting reelected. She’s going to take a 7-figure job as a lobbyist, a coordinator for a think tank, a political consultant or some other revolving door scheme. She did what was asked of her and she’ll be handsomely rewarded for it.

Here’s the gig Eric Cantor got out of office as an example.

That’s right. If you manage to join the winners, your perspective shifts accordingly. How many of those former progressive causes might you suppose will be footing her lobbyist salary?