Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Friday, June 14, 2024

The Endless Flexibility of the GOP

 Yesterday, Trump returned to the scene of (one of) his crimes. As Marshall and others have noted, it had a very North Korean State Media feel to it. As Trump is wounded more and more by the consequences of his own actions and his increasingly besieged mental state, the Republicans around him go deeper and deeper into Dear Leader mode.

One wonders if there will ever be a breaking point. Are they so "pot committed" to Trump that they will burn down the party with him? Is there even that pivotal moment when his crimes and manifest emotional and mental unfitness for office causes his support to collapse?

When established Republicans have criticized Trump, they have basically signaled the end of their careers - at least to this point. So, it naturally makes sense for any Republican who wants to stay in DC to become a Trumpist sycophant. The more wounded Trump becomes - personally and politically - the more they wrap him in increasingly ludicrous praise.

In the past, racist, nationalist demagogues - Father Coughlin, Joe McCarthy, George Wallace - have had that moment when it all falls away. So far, Trump seems different.

Can that be permanent?

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