What Radicalized Me: Rubio Edition
2025 betrayal by a national hope after my Texas GOP & Bush Disillusionment
Before my 2025 journey, there was both early idealism from high school and college political activities in Virginia. After going to law school, I was quickly disillusioned by both the Bush era and the Texas Republican Party as a whole so I shifted towards a legal career.
During that period, I only had one ray of hope in a national candidate: Marco Rubio, a young legislator in Florida when I first heard of him in 2009. Sixteen years later, he became part of this years events that “radicalized” me, in part, by leaving me no heroes that I feel haven’t betrayed both the country and me personally. This is Rubio part of the story.
Radicalized?
What do I mean by radicalized? I don’t mean I adopting extreme policies or lawlessness. It’s that the sense of betrayal, complicity, and the existential nature of the threat we face has forced me to shed everything that is not essential and also choose which relationships to lean into, which to abandon, and which to turn into foils.
In doing so, I’ve had reexamine every political ideology, party, religious belief, and even our nation’s history in light of the demons and underpinnings that the chaos and corruption of 2025 has exposed. That includes looking at some of the most radical text books out there: the Gospels & the writings of the Founders.
Ultimately, I’ve gone from being just merely disillusioned with the Republican party to realizing that our entire political structure is but an interface for the real power, and the underlying system means us grave harm - fast. This is the story of the early disillusionment and a figure I placed hope in who betrayed his country this year and helped turn me into a ‘radical.’ Even though Marco Rubio isn’t as prominent as some other factors, he’s a significant part of my transition from apathetic to apoplectic.
Texas Turning Point
After the rush of being part of the historic Republican takeover of the Virginia House of Delegates and supporting George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign in Virginia, I moved to Texas for law school assuming that I’d fit right into Texas Republican politics.
While I mainly focused on school, I co-hosted one of the early fundraiser mixers for Greg Abbott’s first attorney general campaign and became friends with his eventual chief of staff Daniel Hodge - a law school classmate. That same year, Republicans won the Texas legislature for the first time in 130 years in an echo of the Commonwealth’s shift.
Then came 2003 and the immediate Republican push to gerrymander Texas congressional districts mid-decade. It struck me as pure power over principle. Further, as the Iraq invasion went on without WMDs and we eyed Afghanistan it became clear that something was amiss beyond just the mistake or lie of certainty in Saddam’s weapons program. Bush and Delay being Texans didn’t help Texas’ political appeal.
Law school opened up both my mind to the law and my connections and opportunities for a legal career that I never expected. So, unfortunately, I just checked out of political participation and tackled the legal profession, but not without some interim hope in politics.
Florida Firebrand Versus the Establishment
In 2009, I started supporting a 38 year old Cuban immigrant taking on popular incumbent Florida governor Charlie Christ to be the Republican Senate candidate. On its face, it seemed he was charging a windmill, but there were signs it could work.
I saw Charlie Christ’s “moderation” as just being another instance of Republicans and Democrats just being slightly right or left leaning versions of the same overspending, overreaching mediocrity. In a wild series of events, he ended up winning a three way race to become Senator and then went on to be in the final three in the 2016 Republican Primary with Donald Trump and Senator Ted Cruz.
Supporting Trump wasn’t an option and I was also out on Cruz because I didn’t believe him to be genuine in the least based on my Texas exposure to him. During the primary, Rubio was blunt about his assessment of what kind of person and President he would be, comparing him to a “third world strongman” asking the country to put their faith in him alone.
I fully concurred with Rubio’s assessment of Trump and was hopeful that could help curb Trump’s authoritarian instincts in the Senate even if Trump won. Rubio and a host of others largely did keep President Trump in check during the first term.
In the interim between the 2016 election and 2025, Rubio showed flashes of leadership both in the Russia election interference investigation as well his continued principled speeches, including this notable address at 2002’s Conservative Political Action Conference:
“Very few people call themselves Marxists. That’s the criticism when I say that. Oh, but they’re not self described Marxists. Marxists are never self described Marxists.
Go back and read the articles from 1956 and ‘57 and ‘58 when the New York Times sent the reporter to interview, Fidel Castro. He didn’t say I’m a Marxist. You know what those articles said is he was a romantic figure with a big beard and he wears a rosary and he believes in God, and he’s only going to be in power for a year and then he’s going to go off and I don’t know he’s going to have a farm.
That’s what he said. They lie. Marxists lie. And the reason why they lie is because if they told you who they were, you would never let them get where they want to get. And so they lie….There are now certain things that you’re not allowed to say on a college campus. They won’t give you a permit to speak about it; they certainly wouldn’t hire you to do it.
And so, that’s the first time people really come face to face with that reality. It’s the first time when we’ve seen basically digital mobs descend on people and say let’s let’s destroy this person’s reputation. Let’s take away their livelihood, let’s close down their business, let’s take away their voice because we don’t like the approach of something they said even if it’s totally out of context.”
Marco’s 2025 Marxist Turn
Right before April’s “Liberation Day” and NORRA prompted me into action, I knew something was very wrong I saw Marco Rubio exhibit the very Marxism he’d warned about. A Tuft’s University PhD exchange student was detained by masked agents and whisked away to detention in Louisiana for writing an opinion in the student newspaper. The opinion piece asked the Tuft’s President to adopt a student resolution regarding Israel’s genocide in Gaza. That’s it.
Nothing violent, not anything racist — an opinion in a newspaper addressed to the President of the school she paid tuition at. I can’t think of anything more American than what she did and nothing more foreign than what Rubio did.
Worse, Rubio bragged about detentions related to opinions offensive to Israel in a press conference. Even after a scathing judicial opinion, Secretary Rubio not only defended it in Congress, but said he was going to do more. This video summarizes the contrast between Rubio before and after gaining power:
The Radicalization Impact
Coupled with other near simultaneous betrayals, it’s hard to overstate how deeply this not only impacted me, but frightened me for the country. Years of Marco’s speeches were still in my head when I saw his press conference touting what he was doing. The people I was counting on to limit damage from this administration were engaging in their own tyranny. That only left Congress, the Courts, and the People to be the guardrails against what I vividly remember Marco warning about in 2016:
I’ll address other impacts in future articles, but needless to say that combined the course of my life changed this spring. Not everyone can dramatically alter their life due to a politically imposed existential crisis, but everyone’s life will be altered by choice if the country does not act in masse soon.
You can help by sharing this article, becoming a paid subscriber, and following along @resistancerabbit on social media for the coming practical advice on how to be part of charting the country’s future on a daily basis instead of just on election day. I’m excited about coming collaborations with
and others.As a final note, I’d like to thank
for the Rubio update which prompted me to finally get this article and the social media companion video that I’ve been meaning to do for months.