Krysten Sinema has been extraordinarily naive

Shortly before Republicans blocked the bipartisan border bill, Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona lambasted her GOP colleagues.

“If you want to continue to use the southern border as a backdrop for your political campaign, that’s fine, good luck to you,” she said. “But I have a very clear message for anyone using the southern border for staged political events: Don't come to Arizona. Take your political theater to Texas. Do not bring it to my state.”

The words were particularly harsh for Sinema, the often mercurial Democrat-turned-Independent, and had the tone of a friend betrayed. Ever since she won her election in 2018 and, in doing so, became the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Arizona in 30 years, she has enjoyed a warm relationship with Republicans. And that tendency led to her being able to produce results.

But the collapse of the bill that she brokered with Republican Senator James Lankford and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy — one that would have put in place additional restrictions to immigration in exchange for aid to Israel and Ukraine, as well as support for Taiwan — saw many of her usual GOP negotiating partners oppose her legislation. For a senator like Sinema, who always sees a deal to be made or a compromise to be struck, this was devastating. It crystallised her impotence in the face of a Republican Party under the spell of Donald Trump.

Progressives have long disliked Sinema. A former Green Party activist who once protested against the Iraq war in a tutu, she changed her tune in the Senate. Most infamously, she voted down an attempt to raise the minimum wage in the early days of the Biden administration. Her support for the filibuster — even in the case of restoring the Voting Rights Act — and