The Price of a Yes

Lisa Murkowski looked genuinely offended.

Senator Murkowski looked genuinely offended.

Spare us the false outrage, Senator.

You weren’t shocked because it wasn’t true. You were shocked because someone finally said it to your face.

Because the truth is: you didn’t vote for what was best for Alaska. You voted for what was just barely good enough for Alaska—while the rest of the country was left to drown.

You will not be remembered for your courage, though you’ve worn it like a scarf for years—thrown over your shoulder when convenient, bundled tight when cold winds blew. No, you will be remembered for the quiet treachery of July 1, 2025—the night you sold the country for a whale tax deduction.

For decades, you played the role of the “moderate Republican”—a label that once meant something. You voted to preserve the Affordable Care Act when others buckled. You cast a guilty vote at Trump’s second impeachment trial. You were the kind of senator people pointed to and said, “See, there’s still hope.”

But hope doesn’t mean a damn thing if you fold when it matters most.

And that’s what you did. Folded. Not out of fear, but calculation.

Make no mistake: Lisa Murkowski was bribed. The GOP didn’t twist her arm—they padded her pockets with pork. They carved out exemptions for Alaska from the bill’s most brutal cuts, not because Alaska deserved them, but because Alaska was cheap. It’s easy to cut a deal when your state’s small enough to ignore and remote enough to disguise. That wasn’t representation. That was extortion dressed up as governance.

And the bargain? Medicaid and SNAP gutted nationwide. Work requirements and reduced aid shoved down the throats of the vulnerable. Families across the country told to work harder for less help, while Murkowski walked away with a clause protecting Alaskan whaling captains and a temporary exemption for her state’s administrative failures. A loophole so cynical it had to be expanded to cover other incompetent states just to pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian.

This wasn’t legislative strategy—it was policy laundering. They found the vote they needed and paid for it in carve-outs and cover stories. Murkowski called it “agonizing.” The rest of the country will call it betrayal.

And what’s worse—she knew it. She said it. “This bill will harm Americans.” She said it before she voted yes. That isn’t bravery. That’s cowardice. That’s the politician who tells you she’s sorry as she signs the death certificate.

This wasn’t just a bad vote. It was her legacy vote. The one historians will underline, the one that explains everything that came before. Her whole career—a balance of symbolism and leverage—was a prelude to this moment. When the last bridge burned, and she was the one holding the match.

The tragedy here isn’t just procedural. It’s moral.

This wasn’t moderation. It was a betrayal.

A betrayal to the child at Nationwide Children’s who will lose their DMD medication. To the grandmother in Mississippi who will skip dinner to afford rent. And the veteran in Arizona who will wait months longer for care. They weren’t invisible. They were just expendable. Their futures traded away for maritime carve-outs and political cover.

Lisa Murkowski may retire with honors, wrapped in the flag of “pragmatism,” toasted at galas in Anchorage for “fighting for Alaska.” But the rest of us will remember: when the country needed courage, she wrapped herself in excuses—and struck the match.

And that’s the price of a “yes.”

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Coda: “Friction” by Television

Friction isn’t just a song—it’s a fight. Guitars clawing at each other, drums refusing to settle down, and a voice that doesn’t sing so much as scratch at the walls. You can almost see the Senate floor in every slashing chord. Every tangled riff a deal cut behind closed doors.

And then there’s Lisa Murkowski—wandering through that noise like a chromatic run that can’t decide where to land. Dizzy, dazzled, maybe even proud of how lost she is. Until Verlaine spits it out:

"I knew it must have been some big set-up."

And just like that, it’s not music anymore—it’s confession. Lloyd comes in like a cross-examiner, guitar biting, snarling. The two of them circling, call-and-response turned knife fight.

The whole thing sounds like bribery. Not the envelope-under-the-table kind, but the public kind. The kind we all see and can’t stop. Television didn’t just play it. They predicted it.