GOP in ‘realignment,’ says Marco Rubio

Sen. Marco Rubio isn’t getting involved in the spat between Pres. Donald Trump and his GOP Senate colleagues, Bob Corker and Jeff Flake.

Instead, as USA Today reported Wednesday, Rubio is standing athwart the maelstrom, which the Republican Senator positions as a larger process of “realignment” — both in the party and nationally.

“The Republican Party is going through a moment of realignment internally, an internal debate about what the party is going to be about and what it’s going to represent in the years to come.” Rubio said Wednesday.

Then, as is sometimes the case when Rubio speaks directly, he issued qualifiers.

“So is the Democratic Party. And, by the way, so is every institution in America. From higher education to the media, everyone is going through the exact same internal debate and that is what is our role and function in this new era, cultural, societal and economic,” Rubio said.

That GOP realignment, Rubio said, includes a “populist backlash that is both economic but also cultural.”

“They are tired of being lectured to and told that their values are wrong, and not only wrong but they need to go away and be quiet. I think political correctness in this country went way too far and people got tired of it. And (Trump’s) become a vessel to respond to that. And that’s a real sentiment in our country that can’t be ignored.”

Rubio went to Arizona earlier this month to campaign for Sen. Flake, who has since opted to stand down for re-election.

Rubio, re-elected in 2016, doesn’t have to face voters for five more years. By then, perhaps the realignment will have wrapped.