Trump's Treason - Even The Seditious NRA Abandoning Ship

Trump's Treason - Even The Seditious NRA Pedophiles Abandoning Ship

These are dark times in Trumpworld. Politico reports that President Trump
�is using his relatively light schedule to watch TV and fume about the
latest scandal,� which makes him sound very relatable but also very sad.
The New York Times, meanwhile, offers a portrait of a White House
crippled
by infighting and completely unable to keep its story straight in the
wake
of new revelations about Donald Trump Jr.�s apparent eagerness to
cooperate�some would say collude�with the Russian government to give his
father�s presidential campaign a boost.

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I have no insight into what the Trump clan will do to contain the damage
in the days to come. What I�m more interested in is how Republicans in
Congress might react to the ongoing Trump meltdown. Will they abandon the
president en masse? Will they stick with him until the bitter end? I�d
divvy GOP lawmakers up into three main categories: those who see
themselves as potential Trump successors; swing staters who fear for
their
political survival; and the GOP leadership in the House and Senate, who
care first and foremost about passing legislation.
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A short while ago, I argued that ambitious Republicans should start
laying
the groundwork for a 2020 campaign right now. The obvious counterargument
is that even contemplating a primary challenge against Trump is
hilariously premature, as he continues to enjoy the support of the vast
majority of Republican voters. That�s certainly true, and it remains a
decent reason to hang back.

As the events of the past few days remind us, however, it�s not clear the
president is all that deft when it comes to handling a bona fide
political
crisis, and tying yourself too closely to Trump�s political fortunes is
looking less and less like a safe bet. And besides, could anyone blame a
politician for setting himself or herself up as a Plan B for Republicans
in the event of presidential self-immolation? The challenge is that if
you�re going to run for the GOP presidential nomination, you�ll need to
win over people who at one point or another supported Trump. That means
there might be such a thing as being too eager to abandon the president
outright. The decision to throw Trump under the bus will have to be made
more in sorrow than in anger.

The deeper problem for those pushing the GOP agenda is that it�s not all
that popular, Trump or no Trump.

Consider the tack taken by Ben Sasse, the youthful senator from Nebraska,
who�s already being asked about his presidential ambitions, and who is
already artfully dodging questions about his intentions. On one level,
Sasse has been quite quick to condemn Trump, rapping him across the
knuckles for intemperate tweets and cozying up to Vladimir Putin, and
going so far as to describe the president�s attacks on the hosts of
MSNBC�s Morning Joe as �beneath the dignity of your office.� But he�s not
sticking his neck out by, say, calling for impeachment.

How might Sasse and others in the same boat, such as Florida Sen. Marco
Rubio, start ramping up their criticism? Raising questions about the
propriety of keeping Jared Kushner as a senior adviser to the president
might be a good place to start. Sticking up for Robert Mueller in his
role
as special counsel is a no-brainer. And if Trump and his allies can�t
right the ship in a week or two, and if the president starts bleeding GOP
support? That�s when the gloves can come off.

Now, say you�re a backbencher who cares about nothing more than getting
re-elected. Has the time come to distance yourself from the president? If
your seat is even remotely competitive, the answer is clearly yes. There
is a reason why Rep. Lee Zeldin, a Republican representing a swing
district in New York�s Long Island, felt the need to scold Donald Trump
Jr. in a tweet. To have any hope of winning re-election, Zeldin knew he
had to demonstrate some modicum of independence. This is part of a larger
pattern: Many of Trump�s most frequent GOP critics, among them Arizona
Sen. Jeff Flake and Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, are up for re-election in
2018 in states where Democrats are gaining ground. Mind you, many anti-
Trump Republicans in Congress are as motivated by ideological or
character-based objections to Trump as they are by political calculation.
But don�t be surprised if Republicans representing purple and blue states
are the ones who are keenest to take Trump to task.

Then there are the Republicans, led by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who are primarily focused on passing
legislation that will move the country in what they take to be a more
conservative direction. The goal of pushing through the GOP�s long-
standing domestic policy priorities has given Republicans reason to put
aside any concerns they might have had about Trump.

By now, however, it�s become clear that an understaffed and inexperienced
Trump White House is incapable of knocking heads together and moving the
GOP agenda forward. To the contrary, mixed messages from the president
(one day the GOP�s Obamacare overhaul is terrific, the next day it�s
inexcusably mean) and the constant whiff of scandal have stopped the GOP
agenda dead in its tracks. A cynic might say that Trump�s incompetence
could be a blessing in disguise, as passing unpopular legislation could
bite Republicans in the behind come 2018. But that�s small comfort to GOP
lawmakers who care most of all about having legislative accomplishments
to
crow about.

Will these Republicans leave Trump twisting in the wind? I�m not so sure.
The deeper problem facing those who care about pushing through the GOP
agenda is that it�s not all that popular, Trump or no Trump. A weak Trump
has at least some reason to play ball with a GOP Congress. He doesn�t
have
much of a substantive agenda of his own, and he�s in no position to cut
deals with Democrats. If Trump is ensnared in ever more investigations,
or
if he is somehow removed from office, the Ryan-McConnell agenda may well
be doomed. That means Ryan and McConnell will likely prefer the devil
they
know, at least for now.