Last week, the Senate passed, on a bipartisan basis, the $1 trillion dollar hard infrastructure bill, the one covering roads, bridges, ports, and the like. The vote was 69-30, with 19 Republican Senators voting for the measure.
Promptly after the bill’s passage, President Biden declared that the 19 Republican Senators who voted for it showed “a lot of courage” in doing so.
The president’s declaration, while politic, is unworthy of credit, because it greatly devalues the concept of political courage by ignoring that a basic element of such courage is personal risk. For the 19 Republican Senators, that meant exposing themselves, in the next election cycle, to a serious primary challenge or meaningful risk of loss in the general.
There was no such exposure here.
Of the 19 Republicans voting for the bill, only three (Mike Crapo of Idaho, John Hoeven of North Dakota, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) are definitely running for reelection in 2022, though a fourth (Chuck Grassley of Iowa) may well. But Mssrs. Crapo and Grassley face only anemic primary challenges, Mr. Hoeven none at all, and all three would occupy safe Republican seats in the general. The primary challenge to Ms. Murkowski is heartier, mostly because the former guy has already endorsed her challenger. But as the endorsement establishes, Ms. Murkowski long ago burnt her bridges to the dominant Trumpist wing of the G.O.P. She therefore assumed no additional personal risk in voting for the bill.