After Donald Trump’s stunning win over Hillary Clinton on November 8, 2016, the majority of Americans braced themselves for the worst. Yes, a Trump presidency promised to be bad, but how awful could it possibly be? And if it devolved into a true horror show, Congress (i.e. Republicans) would impeach Trump and hand the reigns of power to Mike Pence (their preferred guy, anyway).
Only 118 days in office, we now know Trump’s “Reign of Error” is much worse than anyone could have imagined. His administration simply careens from one scandal to another. In just the past week, Trump committed what many are calling “obstruction of justice” by firing FBI Director James Comey and “treason” by revealing classified information to a foreign enemy, Russia.
But just as Trump boasted on the campaign trail he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose supporters, nearly all congressional Republicans are sticking with their bumbling president. The “I” word is only being mentioned by a growing number of congressional Democrats.
True to form, it’s been a classic case of party over country for our nation’s Republican “leaders.”
The realization has sunk in among many Democrats the only way to send Trump to an early retirement is to win back the House in 2018 and begin impeachment proceedings.
There are two big problems with that assessment.
One, at the rate Trump and his administration are going, can the country even survive another year and a half of the Trump regime? And two, what makes Democrats believe that voters will be so sick of Trump they will punish Republicans by voting them out of office?
If history is any guide, Republicans will employ every dirty trick at their disposal to stay in power. A doubling down on their voter suppression tactics? You betcha! A ramping up of their propaganda machine (conservative news outlets) to keep voters misinformed? Why of course!
All one has to remember is that as disliked as George W. Bush was going into his 2004 reelection campaign, having an overall approval rating of under 50% (which normally spells doom for an incumbent), he beat the “swift-boated” John Kerry.
It is possible many of the party-loyal Republicans will go down in defeat in 2018 because of their support, and enabling, of what perhaps is already the most incompetent, dangerous and corrupt presidential administration in American history. But then again … they’ve been in dire situations before and have come out smelling like roses.
Photo | Liberal America
