Sometimes I think progressivism and depression must be linked characteristics, carried on the same gene or something. How else to explain those poll results to your right, which show that more than half the participants think the Republican Senate will never turn on Trump? (Had it been an option, I would have picked “when it’s too late.”) Our readers’ pessimistic outlook borders on morbid, assuming as it does that the 50-plus Republican members of the Senate, like suicide bombers, will give up their lives, or at least their careers, out of extremist fervor.
Forgive me for tossing some optimism into this gloom, but this notion defies not just the evidence, but everything we know about politicians.
I don’t know about the hardcore loons of the Tea Party stripe, but most senators, even the Republicans, are driven not by fanaticism but by a keen sense of self-preservation and self-promotion. Most are, by the very definition of their jobs, people who seek public approval, even if only at six-year intervals. Given the cult-of-personality popularity of Trump, they support him for the most basic of reasons: Their voters want them to. Because voter approval is their surest route to re-election — particularly if they live in a red state and have more to fear from a primary than a general election — that’s a strong motive. They learned this lesson by watching poll numbers nosedive for Bob Corker and Jeff Flake after their mild criticism of Trump, and it was buttressed when Lindsey Graham was rewarded by the polls for his truckling turnaround after John McCain’s death.
But voter approval is not their only motive. I pointed to a bit of evidence last week that illustrates my point: 56 senators voted for a resolution to end support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. That means five Republicans were willing to incur Trump’s wrath over this — and you’ll notice that the wrath has failed to materialize. Trump’s whim-of-the-moment decision to pull out of Syria will cause even more consternation for the many Republicans who support, and are supported by, America’s war apparatus.
The lesson of Corker, Flake and Graham is that individual resistance by Republicans to the unpalatable parts of Trump’s agenda won’t work, because each was singled out by Trump for retaliation by his rabble. But the five votes against Saudi Arabia went unpunished, partly because Trump has bigger problems now but partly because that’s a lot of names to squeeze into a tweet.
Trump’s position has deteriorated even since the midterms, and Democrats haven’t taken control of the House yet. His weakness becomes more glaring by the day. Under 40% of the voters say they’ll vote for him again, a number below even his perpetually poor approval rating. All but the dimmest party hacks can do that math. Trump won’t have coattails in 2020; he’ll be lucky if he still has a coat.
The math has always been the same: Elected Republicans will stick with Trump until they realize they have to choose between him and their own survival, at which point it might be too late. Either way, the moment that reality dawns on them draws closer every day. If events play out as I think they might, Trump could become so toxic that Republicans will want him removed from office more than Democrats do. I don’t think that’s likely, but it’s in the realm of possibility. The public showed on Nov. 6 that it was already sick of this circus. They aren’t going to like it better 22 months from now, and I think they’ll like it a good bit less once Mueller’s findings come out.