Left: U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Alabama, speaks to the Alabama House of Representatives on April 17, 2025 in Montgomery, Alabama. Right: U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama, greets an audience at a fundraiser for the Alabama Republican Party on August 4, 2023 in Montgomery, Alabama. (Britt photo: Brian Lyman/Alabama Reflector; Tuberville photo: Stew Milne for Alabama Reflector)
I have no inside sources in the White House.
I do not have access to military intelligence. Or any expert knowledge of the Middle East.
But I’ve spent my adult life watching American presidents try to bomb the region into peace. It never works.
Which leaves me wondering how Alabama’s senators, who on paper have better sources than us Goat Hill wretches, think that President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iranian nuclear facilities solved anything.
“President Trump is going to win the Nobel Peace Prize, no doubt,” U.S. Sen. Katie Britt said on Fox News last week. “He has brought peace to a region that needed stability.”
The bombs were still falling as Britt spoke.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
“President Trump blew the hell out of them,” said Britt’s colleague, U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, on another Fox News network that same day. “And it’s obvious that that worked.”
That’s not at all obvious, actually. But it’s not international affairs that concern me here.
These are two of the most powerful people in the nation, with a responsibility to our state and an unparalleled opportunity to improve the lives of nearly 5.2 million Alabamians.
And what are they doing with that power?
Debasing themselves in public worship of a man with a bottomless sense of victimhood and a thoroughly selfish view of the world and those in it.
Of course, it’s no secret that Britt, Tuberville and almost every Alabama Republican gush over Trump and attack his enemies with the fervor of a Justin Bieber fan on Twitter in 2009. The median Republican position is that the president is infallible in word and deed.
That belief means embracing Trump’s fantasies. And prioritizing them over the needs of Alabama.
It’s not just Tuberville praising a military deployment against largely peaceful protestors holding “non-American flags.” Or Britt cheering as Trump attacks the federal department that feeds a lot of children in poverty in Alabama.
Just look at this congressional budget bill, looming over us like an avalanche.
They call it the “big beautiful bill” because Republicans never contest Trump’s perceptions of reality. Big, certainly, but not beautiful. The legislation contains provisions that are likely to do major damage to health care in the state and make it harder for hundreds of thousands of Alabamians to get food.
Tuberville has expressed some mild concern over cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the bill, less for the effect it could have on 752,000 Alabamians who depend on it for food than the costs Trump has proposed shifting to state government, which Tuberville would like to lead in about two years. Britt on Sunday said that would encourage states to put “skin in the game.” I don’t think a Legislature that refused federal aid to expand Medicaid can be trusted to do what Washington won’t.
But neither Tuberville nor Britt appear overly concerned over the bill’s broader rollback of health care provisions. The legislation proposes cutting over $820 million in state funding for Medicaid, which covers about 20% of Alabama’s population, most of them children, the elderly or those with disabilities.
That will curtail health care access, particularly in rural areas where hospitals are already struggling to survive and health care providers are few and far between. Nor does the bill extend enhanced tax credits set to expire at the end of the year that give 170,000 Alabamians access to Affordable Care Act plans. All of this will mean less preventive care; sicker people; more emergency room visits, and greater strain on state hospitals.
The administration is also cutting billions of dollars in grants from the National Institutes of Health, money that supports institutions like the University of Alabama Birmingham, the state’s largest employer. Britt has signaled some unease about that, but the most she’s done is get HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — not someone whose word can be trusted — to mildly praise the work done at UAB. The administration shows no signs of backing off the cuts.
Neither Britt nor Tuberville seem interested in confronting Trump over any of this. Their priority is keeping the president happy. Tuberville even adopts Trump’s dehumanizing rhetoric about immigrants.
But the president is never happy. His re-election campaign ran on conspiracy and fear-mongering. Trump sees invisible cabals out to get him at every corner. He posts angry screeds at the slightest criticism. And he surrounds himself with flatterers who only speak in superlatives.
Our senators have joined this fawning choir. At our expense.
They’ve made Trump’s priorities — the ceaseless aggrandizement of Donald Trump — their own. Our senators have little to show for their time in office than an affirmation of the president’s paranoia and delusions.
So we get U.S. senators calling a man who unleashed bombs a peacemaker. Who shrug as he plans a major assault on Alabama’s well-being.
But no praise chorus can reverse the reality of the suffering the bill will unleash. Or erase the memory of who was responsible.
From Alabama Reflector Post Url: Visit
Author: Brian Lyman