We begin today’s roundup with The New York Times and its editorial on the Trump enablers in the Republican Party:
It’s less striking that a few Republican congressmen have publicly denounced President Trump’s conduct than that most of their colleagues have not. Their fellow legislators have silently accepted his outrages in exchange for policies they’ve always wanted. [...]
Still, Republicans in Congress have yet to achieve some of their grandest dreams, like huge tax cuts for the wealthy, and they are counting on Mr. Trump to deliver. Spoilsports like Senator Jeff Flake, Republican of Arizona, may fret about the small stuff, like, as he said on the Senate floor on Tuesday, “the threats against principles, freedoms and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency.” But what’s all that compared to a bonanza for special interests?
E.J. Dionne Jr.:
Trump’s GOP opponents can still hope to demonstrate that the negative impact of how the president operates matters far more than any ideological victories he might deliver to conservatives. Trump daily proves Corker’s point that it’s foolish to expect he’ll ever change.
But it will be an uphill struggle. Republicans such as Flake and Corker have reason to worry their party is so profoundly Trumpified that it is lost to them. At some point, they may just have to walk away.
Amber Phillips at The Washington Post:
From Congress's perspective, it makes sense to leave Trump out of policymaking and ignore his tweets, no matter how declarative they are.
Ten months in, Trump has no working relationship with Congress and no reputation as a trustworthy dealmaker. He has taken little to no interest in policy. Actually, he consistently demonstrates he doesn't have a grasp on a lot of it. This spring and summer, he largely outsourced Obamacare repeal to the Hill, created a bunch of distracting self-inflicted controversies, then publicly bashed his own party for falling short by one vote in the Senate. He switches his positions on basic issues as often as Katy Perry changes costumes in a show.
Here is Ryan Lizza’s take at The New Yorker on why Congress won’t stand up to Trump:
Most of the actions, short of impeachment, amount to a Republican Congress that views itself as being more in opposition to the executive branch—in other words, acting similarly to how it would act if a Democrat were in power. “There are actually plenty of straightforward things to do in the form of what once would have been pretty routine oversight and accountability,” Bill Kristol, the founder of The Weekly Standard, said.
Republicans speaking out in the way Flake has, acting as a check on the White House, rather than collaborators, could mitigate the worst-case scenarios that Flake described on Tuesday. But, so far, the overwhelming majority of Republicans are declining to serve as Trump watchdogs. As Kristol noted, “one of the corruptions of the moment is that many Republicans in Congress have totally abdicated that responsibility.”
Thomas Edsall:
Last year, as it became clear that Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination, analysts on both the right and the left speculated that millions of regular Republicans would be repulsed by his ethnonationalism and misogyny. [...]
Come Election Day, however, Republican voters did not abandon their party. The Republican share of the electorate grew slightly, from 32 percent in 2008 and 2012 to 33 percent in 2016, and Trump carried these voters 11 to 1.
This pattern has continued into the present and shows no signs of letting up. In recent days, prominent Republicans, including George W. Bush, Bob Corker, John McCain and Jeff Flake, have warned in various ways that Trump is leading their party and the country in a very dangerous direction. For the moment, however, it is the president’s critics who are butting their heads against a brick wall. The reality is that neither Flake nor Corker is seeking re-election, and both would have struggled to win renomination if they presented themselves as adversaries of President Trump.
In short, the Trump-Steve Bannon-Laura Ingraham wing of the Republican party is ascendant.
On a final note, don’t miss Rex Huppke’s piece at The Chicago Tribune:
So you see, the pres’dent is a perfect role model for children because he’s teaching us bettr ways to spel words AND, along with the first lady, showing us that bullying is totally unacceptable, unless it’s directed at a sitting U.S. senator who criticizes him or a Gold Star family member who criticizes him or a pope who criticizes him or a woman who criticizes him or a journalist who writes something he doesn’t like or a business leader who criticizes him or a former president who criticizes him or a black person who criticizes him or a world leader who criticizes him or a U.S. general who criticizes him or a celebrity who criticizes him or the mayor of a hurricane-ravaged city who criticizes him or a late-night television show host who criticizes him or a former secretary of defense who criticizes him or anyone who criticizes him.