Last night Lawrence O'Donnell highlighted this op-ed in the Washington Post by former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, in which Gerson lambasted the Republican Congress for not standing up to Donald Trump.
Why can’t Republican legislators see the personal damage this might cause? Trump has made a practice of forcing people around him to lower their standards and abandon their ideals before turning against them when their usefulness ends. His servants are sucked dry of integrity and dignity, then thrown away like the rind of a squeezed orange. Who does Trump’s bidding and has his or her reputation enhanced? A generation of Republicans will end up writing memoirs of apology and regret.
What a terrible punishment for the crime of supporting Donald Trump. Your memoir will have regrets and apologies and a publishing contract with Regnery Press and you'll get interviewed by Chris Matthews about "Lessons Learned."
No shaved heads through the streets of Paris? Why the hell not?
In addition to a regretful memoir, they might just get a job being a pundit on MSNBC. Like all the conservatives who supported George Bush and the WMD War in Iraq that we are still paying for. Let's have on Max Boot. Or Michael Gerson, Hugh Hewitt, Nicolle Wallace, Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson, Michael Steele, Jennifer Rubin. Etc. Etc. Etc.
All so horrified at Donald Trump and his lack of norms. Not so horrified at the tax cut for billionaires and attack on the safety net that the Republican Party will get with a so-called president Trump or a President Rubio, Kasich, or "Jeb!"
Really, this segment lambasting the Republican Congress is great. They are a bunch of cowards, but it's important to remember who really terrifies them.
1. Big Donors
2. Republican Fox News Addicted Trump Voters.
They're afraid of losing their donor base (less of a problem since they passed the GOP Tax Scam) and right now they are especially afraid of Fox News Addicted Trump Voters. Who are Republicans.
Remember, don't you dare call it Trumpism. People voting in Republican Primaries...
...didn't just register to vote this year or fall off a truck into the Republican Party. They voted for Bush, twice. They voted for McCain/Palin. They voted for Romney. And they're tired of losing and being embarrassed by their votes, so embarrassed that they fell for a "Tea Party" rebranding just so they would not have to associate themselves with Bush.
And then the establishment had the nerve to suggest they vote for Bush's brother.
Donald Trump lies about a lot of things, but he is not lying when he says he received more Republican Primary votes than any other candidate in US history. That statistic is skewed by how many Republicans voted "Not Trump," but the fact that the race boiled down to Trump versus not-Trump is not helpful to the "Trumpism" argument. Republican voters selected Trump as their candidate, in state after state after state.
The beltway news media is terrified that the Republican Party will be forever tarnished by this Trump candidacy. Why? Because Trump-as-Republican busts open their "both sides" myth, that "both sides" of the political spectrum are equally bad, equally wrong and right, equally to be blamed for the "mess" in Washington.
And how does Cable News prop up the myth that really, it's not ALL Republican voters who are screwing our democracy? By giving voice to the entire George Bush administration. People who worked tirelessly to get Sarah Palin one heartbeat from where Trump is sitting now.
Max Boot, Michael Gerson, Hugh Hewitt, Nicolle Wallace, Steve Schmidt, Rick Wilson, Michael Steele, Jennifer Rubin. Etc.
Remember this real ad from Spring/Summer 2016?
Stop making a place at the table for Republicans regretting Trump. They built this with 25 years of dependence on Fox lies to stay in power for Billionaires and "small" government taking away from the poor.
