In what is probably a coincidence, the New York Times and the Washington Post each ran articles Monday on how the Republican Party is now more firmly than ever the Party of Trump. However, the articles differ from each other in that the Times focuses on the House while the Post focuses on the Senate.
Both chambers will be transformed in the next Congress, and while there is some overlap in the causality, there are also important differences that will become more noticeable over time. One common factor is that many of Trump’s harshest critics chose to retire. In the Senate, this includes Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee. In the House, we can look at Reps. Charlie Dent and Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida.
In the House, retirements played a much bigger role. One reason there were so many Republican retirements in the House is that, unlike the Democrats, they have term-limits for their chairmen, and that largely explains why so many (eight) of their committee chairs chose not to seek reelection. But there were two other factors that drove chairmen to retire. One was that savvy political observers could anticipate that there was a good likelihood that the Democrats would take over the chamber, and certainly a better chance of that outcome than in the Senate. Therefore, all House GOP chairmen faced a good prospect of losing most of their power irrespective of whether they were term-limited. Another factor was that some of those chairmen, like Darrell Issa of California and Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey, were personally endangered.
Among the rank-and-file, there were probably a lot of members who opted to retire rather than risk the indignity of electoral defeat, but there were more who ran and were defeated. Unlike in the Senate, those losses in mostly moderate and diverse districts were not offset by wins in more conservative areas. This left a much smaller GOP caucus in the House, but also a caucus that mostly represents constituencies that support President Trump.
Turning to walk into the House chamber to cast one of her final votes this week, [Rep. Ros-Lehtinen] noted that many of her remaining colleagues hail from overwhelmingly conservative districts.
“Where they stand is how they see the world,” Ms. Ros-Lehtinen said. “And the world is not their congressional district. But that’s who’s left. So they’re all dug in. I don’t expect many changes.”
It stands to reason that politicians will be less inclined to challenge the president if their constituents support him, but Republican lawmakers have the additional problem that the Republican base is sticking with Trump even when their districts are not. This creates fear of a primary challenge of the type that took out Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, but it also creates a disconnect. In one of the biggest upsets of the midterms, the Democrats picked up Sanford’s seat. That was just one of the more extreme examples, but dozens of Republican candidates lost at least in part because they did not convince their constituents that they would serve as a check on the president. The Republicans who remain in the House represent districts that don’t want Trump checked.
We can’t really the same thing about the Senate, at least not to the same degree. This is primarily because only a third of the Senate faced the electorate in the midterms, so the sorting there was minimal. It’s also because there are proportionately more safe Republican seats in the House than in the Senate, where constituencies are state-wide. Recent election results in the Senate have sent a mixed message. On the one hand, Democratic senators like Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota were unable to overcome the pro-Trump tilt of their states. On the other hand, that didn’t prevent politicians like Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana for winning another term, and the Democrats’ win in a Alabama special election and near-wins in Texas and in a Mississippi run-off showed that it would be foolish to assume that any place is truly safe statewide for a Republican in the Trump era.
At the Post article points out, this has not necessarily been internalized by Senate Republicans.
“This is the president’s party now. It really is. I don’t think you can read it any other way,” said Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who is retiring and has frequently voiced concerns about Trump…
…The electoral contours of 2020 are expected to prompt Republican senators to keep relations warm with the president. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his top deputy, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), are up for reelection in states the president is an early favorite to win.
Whichever chamber of Congress you choose to focus on, there’s powerful evidence that can be marshaled to argue that Trump has more support after the GOP’s large midterm electoral losses. There may be some Coriolis effect or centrifugal force at play here that helps explain why the Republicans appear to be circling the drain rather than running for cover. But all of this is going to get put to the challenge in the next Congress as the country attempts to deal with the Special Counsel’s conclusions in the Russia probe.
Even prior to Mueller making his big mark and the Democrats taking the helm of the House, there are forces working against Trump. The Republicans know that the midterms revealed weaknesses that will not self-correct and that will grow over time. In California, they have all but been wiped out, including in their former stronghold of Orange County. They are now losing suburban districts not only in Detroit and Chicago but also in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City. Sticking with Trump after Mueller drops his bombs is not going to improve that situation.
In any impeachment process, the House Republicans will be largely irrelevant, although they can do real damage to themselves and to their Senate colleagues if they refuse to take the charges seriously and dig in. If there is a trial in the Senate, the Republicans there will be in a real quandary that will be made much more complicated if they get no cover from their House colleagues.
There will be 53 Republican senators in the next Congress, but I suspect that no more than one or two them (if that) genuinely wants to defend Trump against the charges Mueller will bring, and they don’t want to go into 2020 with Trump as their standard bearer either. If the Trump/Russia conspiracy is proven to the degree that I anticipate and the obstruction case is as compelling as I expect, these won’t be plausibly defensible crimes.
In truth, I very much doubt that the Republican-controlled Senate would have a trial because it would be better for all involved to convince Trump to step down. Where things will get sketchy is if Trump refuses that request and forces the Senate Republicans to take a public stand. He could conceivably be acquitted in those circumstances, even though it’s hard to imagine a super-minority of U.S. Senators voting to let Trump stay in office if the case against him is as solid as I believe it will be.
I’ll save my prediction of what the eventual charges will be for another post, but the midterm results had three major repercussions for a potential impeachment process. They made it harder for Republicans in both the House and Senate to hold him accountable, and they made it clearer than ever that a party that sticks with him will go down with the ship.
In the end, I can’t see how Trump can overcome having lied about his dealings with Russians, being completely compromised by the Russians, and having committed a plethora of criminal acts varying from witness tampering to obstruction of justice. If any group of people could look at the evidence that is coming and give the president a good bill of health, it’s the modern day GOP. And that’s why I understand the widespread skepticism that Trump will be removed from office.
I guess we will all know soon, but one way or the other I do not believe that the GOP will remain the Party of Trump for too much longer.
If they won’t get rid of him, the American people will.
Either way, we will find out what it’s like for the GOP to be the party of Trumpism without Trump.
Well, or he could, in a fit of narcissistic pique, step down on his own, hoping for a pardon to clean the slate of all his crimes. I do so wish you would start factoring in his Narcissistic Personality Disorder into your predictions, BooMan.
No doubt that Mike Pence is studying the various provisions of the 25th amendment even as we speak.
You write (Emphasis mine):
I think that if Trump “refuses” that request…if of course it even goes that far…he will have consciously and quite purposefully precipitated a constitutional and social crisis in the country.
Have you been following the Paris riots recently? ( ‘Yellow Vests’ Riot in Paris, but Their Anger Is Rooted Deep in France) This is article seems to me to be another rare instance of the NY Times getting it right, even if most likely for the wrong reasons.
These rioters are very similar to the U.S. flyover voters who largely elected Trump. The main difference? The U.S. versions are much better armed, have transportation and also harbor a longer, more deeply-rooted tradition of violence.
Think about riots in say Washington DC, NYC, the cities of the Pacific northwest and the midcountry agricultural lands!!! Trump wanted to mobilize the troops to deal with a bunch of mainly penniless and unarmed Central Americans. Imagine how he could tweet-fan those flames!!!
Gonna get nasty, I think.
Soon.
AG
More predictions of outcome-changing mass violence by our resident Ron Paul evangelist. He’s made these sorts of pronouncements over and over here. We can recognize the poorly disguised wishes behind his consistently unfulfilled fantasies.
It seems a show down is coming, an iconic “shit or get off the pot” moment when all we be forced to lay their cards on the table. For Senate Republicans, this will be for many of them a very tough moment. As much as I hate McConnell (and hatred is too weak a word for what I feel toward that reptile), I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes — caught between an angry Republican party whose rank and file have long seen him as a sellout, and a state that, even at its conservative worst, still has a modicum of respect for the rule of law.
I think the choice is far easier for a Mitt Romney or a Lisa Murkowski. Chances are good that their constituencies will support them after voting for impeachment (should such a vote be required). Lisa’s already showed the ass wipes that she need not be scared of ’em and whatever you think of Mormonism, it’s a religion that hasn’t completely divorced itself from a sense of objective standards.
Der Trumper’s support, after all his boobery, chaos, incompetence and willful spite, still hovers around 40%, plus or minus. These radical reactionaries have not the slightest concern about Trumpers’s (obvious) derangement. As armed American Irreconcilables, they are utterly unpersuadable by any amount of evidence Mueller reports, that’s a given. They will be enraged (some to violence) by any effort to remove him by Dems. They will (quite plausibly) threaten to electorally annihilate any elected Repub that does anything to take the Mueller report/charges seriously. And EVERY elected Repub depends utterly on the support of these barbarians, barbarians that the “conservative” movement did so much to manufacture and radicalize over the last 30+ years.
The length of time Mueller has taken will also play against removal by conviction, as we are already coming up on the 2020 prez campaign season. I take it for granted that the report will still be damning and undeniable enough for Pelosi’s Dems to approve Articles of Impeachment. But since no charges (however treasonous) could alter the support Trumper has from his braindead “conservative” base, the DC Repubs cannot act to save the country from Trumper–to do so would be to sign their own death warrant(s), perhaps literally!
So Repub senators from Trumpite states (the Neo-Confederacy, MO, IN, ND, etc) will vote that the charges do not constitute high crimes, and Repubs from states like PA, WI, ME, FL, etc will likely decline to convict, arguing that “it’s up to the American people!” to determine Trumper’s fate.
The reality is that the horrendous “conservative” movement has wrecked the federal government, almost certainly permanently. The bottom line is that, after 30+ years of “conservatism”, we would have to be able to substantially alter the Constitution to return to a functioning government. Just like the Civil War era, just like the (first) Gilded Age. Anything less than that is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, unfortunately.
Before the base were Trumpists they were tea baggers. And the core characteristic of tea baggers is they were imbecilic, bigoted assholes.
Now they are Trumpists, and that’s because, finally, they have a leader who is one of them — an imbecilic, bigoted asshole.
Its the only difference, and the only explanation for the Never Trumpers. They were fine with the tea party, and all its ugliness, so long as leadership hid behind dog whistles and were not publicly the imbecilic, bigoted assholes in their hearts they were — by their deeds ye shall know them!
And when Trump passes from the scene, in whatever form that passing takes, post Trump the party will continue to be the party of Imbecilic, Bigoted Assholes.
The GOP party of Trumpism without Trump is called the Newt Gingrich-Tom Delay GOP. Trump has been too lazy, his “thinking” too muddled to do much more than obsess about his wealth and his and his family’s various grifts.
Hence “Trumpism” really is the entirety of what the GOP Congress has told him to do combined with the vicious racism, xenophobia and lies peddled by Fox and Breitbart. These aren’t going away even if Trump disappears so we pretty much already know what Trumpism without Trump will look like.
The white base now clearly loves the much more open and obvious appeals to racial division and proud white supremacy that has been Trumper’s Trademark. Does the Gingrich/Delay version of “conservatism” return to “subtlety” and dog whistling instead? As long as the Repub War Against Democracy(tm) is maintained, I suppose the white base remains satisfied.
They’ll also have to jettison Trumper’s deep, deep Kim, Kremlin & Putin-love, but that can be accomplished pretty easily, since militarism and saber-rattling is always the name of the game. Trumper’s Saudi-Kingdom/Netanyahoo-Israel adoration and Iran hatred is bog-standard for the entire course of the “conservative” movement.
Other than those, the deranged Trumper’s “policy” is pretty much standard “conservatism” which Repubs have been delighted to advance….but Trumper has shown them that “conservatism” needn’t fear openly harassing and harming non-white minorities.
I am amazed every now and then to discover Trump supporters within our Asian-Indian community!
Some were Republicans, and reluctantly are now switching their votes.
Others move in conservative circles, being fed Breitbart and Faux Noise disinformation by their colleagues.
We have still remained good friends with them.
But recently on our extended family WhatsApp group, one of my wife’s first cousins wrote something so egregiously supportive of Trump, that my wife immediately declared he is persona non grata with us!
It started with a simple forward that my wife did from another WA group. That was somewhat funny.
In response he started by saying
Chinese are PINGing fast to become the largest economy …
Which was fine. But then came his full throated defense of Trump. Our nephew in London just said that this was so wrong on so many levels, he did not know where to begin.
My sister-in-law had a similar experience in one dance class, where the instructor came out so forcefully for Trump that she had to scamper away!
I have a feeling that there are more Trump supporters than are characterized here in the original post and responses! That is most disheartening!
I never refer to “Trumpism.” For me, it simply does not exist. I ONLY refer to Republicans or conservatives because that IS what exists.
Trump, as a figurehead, is the logical outcome of where the Republican party has been gleefully and joyously headed ever since I can remember (and I’m OLD). What’s “new,” really isn’t new at all, other than that the very last teeny tiny vestiges of dog whistles were replaced with bullhorns and sound systems.
Remember Eugene McCarthy? What was so different from him and Trump, really? The John Birch society took off during 1960s and never truly went away. Now it’s back larger than life in dozens of Nazi/white supremacist groups across the country.
All Trump has done has made it appear “popular” and acceptable to be an out loud bigoted, racist, sexist, homophobic Nazi asshole. So bigoted, racist, sexist, homophobic Nazi assholes across the land LOVE this two bit worthless POS because he has lent them some patina of credibility and validity for their disgusting viewpoints and attitudes.
But make no mistake, it’s not just “economically anxious” assholes in the “heartland” who LOVE the way Trump thinks and behaves. Almost anyone who belongs to a high falutin (or even mid-falutin) country club thinks the same way.
So that’s why you see the 40% approval rating for this jerkwad. It’s abundantly clear that they could give a shit about our nation as a whole, how we fare globally, etc. It’s all and only about MEEEEEEEEEEEE! Just like their “fearless” (ha ha) Dear Leader.
The party without Trump will carry on in the EXACT same way because it’s no different from how they’ve carried on all my life. Just beware that the next Dear Leader will undoubtedly be smarter, more capable and much more clever than Trump. THAT is the person to really watch out for. We will really be in danger from such a mad man (and make no mistake, because we’re talking about Republicans, their next leader will be male). Trump’s a fool and possibly has dementia. He has effed up a lot of stuff, but he’s no really true “leader.” It’s the next one to be really scared of.
And the Republican party will most definitely come up with someone much more effective. That’s my concern.
you mean Joe McCarthy not Gene.
Thanks for correctly my hastily written error. You’re correct.
. . . not conservatives are “what exists” currently, regardless whether you mean Trump’s Dupes or Banana Republicans overall. What pass for “conservatives” these days are in fact extreme, radical regressives/reactionaries, with the added “bonus” of a massive infection of bigotry, i.e., The Deplorables.
Exhibit A for the necessity of those “scare quotes”: “Conservatives against Conservation” is both an oxymoron and a core pillar of the modern “conservative” movement. Other examples abound.
I still think we should all just start calling them regressives/reactionaries. Certainly the news media should start doing this. If they did the democrats could also start using the term.
. . . give media “permission” to do so by doing it ourselves without waiting for them. IOW, I think you have this reversed:
Rather,
Seems to me that’s a more realistic expectation from how these things actually work in the real world.
And who knows, I could be right. It could happen! Stranger things have.
That could work too, but someone has to start it. Too bad it wasn’t Hillary, instead she chose the term “deplorables”.
There, FTFY.
The GOP has LONG been the ‘party of Trumpism’, they just called it ‘Republicans’
Trump IS THE SYMPTOM NOT THE DISEASE!
Mitch McConnell won’t even schedule an impeachment trial. It’s NOT constitutionally required that the Senate hold such hearings before voting.
Well, obviously they do have such jurisdiction, but there if the Senate refuses to consider a trial, nothing and nobody can force them.
During the trial of Clinton in the Senate, Senate Democrats deliberately took the proceedings seriously, because they are Democrats and it’s important to Democrats to uphold the rule of law, even when it goes against their political interests.
McConnell will get support from every right-wing media outlet in America if he just suggests the impeachment trial is a big nothing-burger and he’s not going to waste the Senate’s time on it. They can allow the House Democratic Impeachment managers to present their case, and then McConnell will schedule a bunch of Senators to “rebut the charges” by throwing dust in the air and attacking Mueller as a “partisan witch hunt!”, then they will proceed to vote it down on party lines.
Nothing requires the Senate to have a trial. Article 1 gives them blanket authority to decide what procedure – if any – to hold. Tradition and precedent exist from the trials of Presidents Johnson and Clinton, but when have Republicans ever given a DAMN about “tradition” or “procedures” if they stand in the way of political gain?
And with Fox News blaring WWIII headlines about how it’s a “partisan witch hunt! Fake News!” etc. 24/7, any Republican will have plenty of political cover for refusing to consider any evidence.
It flat doesn’t matter what Trump has done. They will make excuses and attack the evidence, and deny, deny, deny.
Good. If no trial, no acquittal and the Pardon clause prohibits an impeached Trump from pardoning himself. And the American people will show the Republican Senators (including Mitch, we can hope) and Trump the door in 2020. And then the Feds and States can proceed against the Trump crime family. So, go ahead, turtle, make my day.
I’m one who’s said there is no bottom when it comes to Banana Republican perfidy in clinging to power. I cling to the faint hope that I’m wrong about that, and that Booman’s right that though we’ve plumbed no bottom so far, Mueller’s case will finally overwhelm the Banana Republicans’ treasonous willingness/ability to brazen it out, and finally reveal the bottom.
Cuz if Boo’s wrong, and you’re right about that, . . .
. . . then stick a fork in us, we’re done. “Nice little experiment in democracy you had going there for 243 years. Too bad it failed in the end.”
In the meantime, global chaos ensues.
I don’t know about the other stuff, but I don’t see this succeeding.
What can anyone bring that can trump that?
Absent an impeachment conviction in the senate, he will stay in power and/or fight his opposition to their mutual destruction as long as he can. IMO.
4. Who’s doing this convincing, & what’s in it for them?
. . . not inoculated against by his office. I.e., he wouldn’t have to be removed from office first to be charged with treason (I think; not claiming expertise here). Not that that’s likely.
RE: #4. Seemed fairly clear to me Booman was referring to Trump’s fellow Banana Republicans doing the convincing (as with Nixon).
“…I suspect that no more than one or two them (if that) genuinely wants to defend Trump…”
“…it’s hard to imagine a super-minority of U.S. Senators voting to let Trump stay in office if the case against him is as solid as I believe it will be….”
Such nonsense. It wouldn’t be about Trump. It wouldn’t even be about the Republican Party. It would be about the Democratic Party, as in, not letting the Democratic Party have a scalp.
http://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/02/opinion/trump-mueller-russia-investigation.html
He could conceivably be acquitted in those circumstances, even though it’s hard to imagine a super-minority of U.S. Senators voting to let Trump stay in office if the case against him is as solid as I believe it will be.
In 2016, after Republicans lost the governor’s house in North Carolina, the Republican legislature passed a law to strip as many powers as they could from governor-elect Roy Cooper. That bill is currently winding its way through the legal system.
Similar attacks are occurring in Republican legislatures in Wisconsin and Michigan.
The Miami Herald observes that in Florida, voters elected a Democrat as agriculture commissioner after it was found that for 13 months, the department’s Division of Licensing stopped using results from an FBI crime database that ensures those who apply for a firearm permit do not have a disqualifying history in other states. Apparently, the NRA wants to move that authority from the newly elected Democratic commissioner over to a CFO position (held by a Republican).
But wait there’s more!
In 2018, a referendum passed in Missouri to limit the impact of gerrymandering, as well as prevent lobbyists from giving “gifts” to legislators. The Republican Party is trying to gut the law.
And in Utah, the governor recently signed a “compromise” medical-marijuana bill to replace a ballot initiative approved by voters.
I wish I shared your optimism regarding the Senate, because the Republican Party, both nationally and statewide, appears to embrace the notion that governance by Democrats is not legitimate. The GOP has adopted fascist tactics to hobble government when they lose elections. I don’t see this ending well.
Let’s revisit this Monday after we’ve seen what Mueller has on Flynn and Manafort.