It's pretty stunning to find out some Republican lawmakers actually inhabit the same planet we do, but their reaction to news that White House Economic Adviser Gary Cohn is resigning suggests that our worlds do, in fact, intersect with the GOP. Unsettling, to be sure, given how many harrowing developments the GOP has managed to snooze through. They didn’t seem to blink during Trump's nuclear brinksmanship with North Korea's "little rocket man.” The notion that Russia attacked our democracy and our pr*sident is acting like an agent of Vladimir Putin hasn't really captured their imaginations. But the resignation of a free-trader ... (gasp) ... could apparently hold calamitous consequences for the nation. Politico writes:
“He’s a voice of reason on economic issues and a big picture guy who paid a lot of attention to what some of these policy decisions and implications are for the larger economy,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.). “I don’t know who replaces that.” [...]
In interviews with a half-dozen Republicans in the aftermath of Cohn’s resignation announcement, the anxiety in the Republican Party was plain: If the tariffs get out of hand, a trade war could commence and cripple the U.S. economy as well as the GOP’s electoral prospects.
As Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) deadpanned, “A depression wouldn’t be a good thing.”
Cohn's exit certainly isn't good news for a White House with an unprecedented amount of turnover that will soon be overrun with lightweights.
But, c’mon now—Trump might be trying to set up back-channels to Russia and Republicans have finally awoken from their slumber because a free-trader's leaving the White House?
Yep.