There's No Way Republicans Will Truly Confront Trump on His Scandals. It Would Destroy Their Party

[babylonsister]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/trump-congressional-republicans-russia-comey-flynn-scandals


There's No Way Republicans Will Truly Confront Trump on His Scandals. It Would Destroy Their Party.
Can GOP leaders really take on the most vengeful man in politics?

David Corn
May 18, 2017 2:52 PM


snip//


The Republican establishment has already demonstrated that political calculations, not principles, are its driving force. And one calculation is easy to process: if the GOP breaks rank with Trump on any of these scandals, there will be no turning back. An irate (and irrational?) Trump would demand retribution. A base already suspicious of GOP insiders could become furious. Tax cuts and the like would be at risk. The party itself would be endangered. Of course, as is so often noted, if the Republicans start to feel Trump-related electoral pain—say, they lose one of the upcoming special House elections in GOP-leaning districts—they might reevaluate their situational loyalty to Trump. But the smart ones know the costs of such a course—even if necessary for survival—could be exceedingly high.

There is no good answer for congressional Republicans facing the dilemma of what to do about Trump. They long ago decided to lash themselves to a man with a decades-long record of dishonesty, arrogance, bullying, sleazy deal-making, and score-settling. There are no easy escape routes. No convenient off-ramps. No lifeboats on this ship. He made the bed, and they leaped into it. (Oh, Donald!) Now they're screwed. The old cliché is that you don't go after the king unless you can kill the king. But for Republicans, the situation is worse that that: it may not

[tanyev]

1. Refusing to confront him could destroy their party, too.

The real question is which one happens first?

[Siwsan]

2. They set this disaster into motion, back in 2000. Now it's 'Train, meet the Station Wall' time.

And, unfortunately, the Station is United States.

[beachbum bob]

3. the most interesting and woderful aspect of the trump shitshow is how it places

many conservatives in a no-win position and WHY DEMOCRATS MUST pounce and pounce hard in 2018...every single conservative must lose in every congressional district that they won by 7 or 8% in 2016

every one and if we can't pull that off...well we deserve all of this

[Honeycombe8]

4. True. Nixon was still popular with his party after being forced to resign.

These current Republicans are much much worse. Most (not all) seem devoid of sense of duty to country and our democracy. They seem all about party and money for the very wealthy, and that's it. Paul Ryan and his "family" were joking about Trump being paid by Putin. They thought that was so funny. And they ran with it, not caring, because Trump became part of the family and they'd all work toward enriching even more the very wealthy and sticking it to the poor and working class and middle class.