Minnesota’s Junior Senator Tina Smith recently announced that she will not run for reelection in 2026, and nobody should be particularly sad about it. Smith hasn’t been a terrible rep., per se., but also not a great one. She achieved a few policy wins and displayed some admirable qualities while in Washington—yet ultimately became complicit in the institutional rot destroying this country.

We can begin with the positives though. Since her appointment to the Senate in 2018 following the resignation of Al Pervert Franken, Tina Smith has naturally had a hand in many policy issues, and she should be commended for some of them. As a former Planned Parenthood executive, she unsurprisingly advocated for reproductive rights. She was also a reliable vote for Biden priorities like the hilariously titled Inflation Reduction Act. And she delivered some wins for Native peoples like returning land to the Leech Lake Reservation in Northern Minnesota.

Smith has also shown a refreshing level of humility during her time as a senator. While most of her colleagues seem preoccupied with chasing the limelight or gaining even greater power, Smith has often taken a quiet, unassuming, heads-down approach to the job. Just compare her to Minnesota’s version of Diane Feinstein if you want evidence. Unlike Smith, Amy Klobuchar has long favored her career ambitions over her current job, with book deals, Trump inauguration speaking gigs and quixotic runs for the presidency seeming to be her primary concern.

Even still, it can’t be denied that Smith also became mired in Washington’s rot. For one thing, she let the military industrial complex further disembowel the country. With her help, Congress fleeced the taxpayers for $175 billion for the war in Ukraine,¹ accomplishing nothing aside from leaving the country in ruins, a generation or two of Ukrainians dead, and, of course, our beloved weapon manufacturers a hell of a lot richer.² She also took AIPAC money and voted for $12-17 billion for the genocide in Gaza³—which to my mind, makes her more deserving of a cell in the Hague than a government pension at the end of her term.

By all accounts, she even took a page out of old Nancy Pelosi’s playbook and did a little inside tradi … I mean, uh, had some of the most spectacular luck with the stock trading market that the world has ever seen. According to one report, in 2023, Smith posted a portfolio appreciation of 35%—a full 10% above “the average S&P 500 return rate of 24.8%.”⁴ Suspicions continued last year as well when Smith’s husband, good ol’ Archie, purchased $200,000 worth of a stock in a medical device company called Artivion, Inc., which would then appreciate more than 100% less than a year later.⁵ Again, I am sure all of this was just luck and raw market acumen. It was totally not related to her sitting on some of the Senate’s most powerful committees and having access to information well in advance of poor slobs like us.

All of this is a pretty serious stain on her record. It contributes to the delegitimization of our political system, a process which precedes Smith, obviously, but has ramped up considerably during her time in power. People aren’t dumb, and when they see such flagrant corruption going on, they rightfully lose all faith that politicians are actually concerned about solving their problems. As my cranky old uncle Chris Hedges always says, this leads to people engaging in magical thinking out of sheer desperation. Eventually, they even become willing to surrender their agency to a cult leader like the one we have now in the Oval.

So, while Grandma Tina should be celebrated for some things, her complicity in the rancid, belching, bubbling swamp that is Washington makes her largely undeserving of any plaudits. If there is a silver lining here, however, it is that Smith’s service can be instructive for how we choose her replacement. Already, several Smith-like figures have slithered out of the woodwork and thrown their hats in the ring, with Angie Craig being perhaps the most formidable candidate. Yet if we want to save the country, it’s clear we need someone who will not only work within the system but also actively prosecute its greatest failings.

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1. https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine
2. https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/ukraine-war-orders-starting-boost-revenues-big-us-defense-contractors-2023-10-27/
3. https://www.cfr.org/article/us-aid-israel-four-charts
4. https://racketmn.com/hmm-how-is-mn-sen-tina-smith-so-incredible-at-stock-trading
5. https://x.com/QuiverQuant/status/1893688092701122663