There’s a small but persistent meme floating around that most Republican senators “tolerate” Donald Trump but find him personally, well, “tacky”, one might say. They wish someone more refined were president, but, well, there it is. They’d turn on him in a trice if only the right trice would come along, but so far it hasn’t.
Here’s a newsflash folks. The right trice is never going to come along. The right trice did come along several years ago, as I’ve repeatedly moaned. If people like John McCain and Ben Sasse, not to mention the vocal anti-Trumpers like Bob Corker and Jeff Flake (vocal in retirement), ever really wanted to stop Trump, they could and should have done so in 2017 by voting against the Republicans’ now-beloved tax “reform” package, legislation passed in defiance of all established Senate procedure, “rammed through” by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Mitch McConnell alone, with zero input from any other solon, a budget-busting corporate giveaway whose moral monstrosity was well outlined by the New York Times’ Thomas Edsall in his article “You Cannot Be Too Cynical About the Republican Tax Bill”.
The defeat of this bill, which was nothing less than the ultimate wet dream of the Republican donor class, would have seriously offended the lords of Wall Street: “Why, the damn fool can’t get anything done! What good is he?” But the cowards of Capitol Hill cowered and collapsed, and voted, every one, for the bill that made Trump look like a winner for the first time in his stumbling presidency, and, ever since, the big money has flowed, and, ever since, virtually every Trump apologist cites this sell-out as reason for supporting Trump. He keeps his promises! He gets things done!
Don’t pity the Republicans. Donald Trump sold his soul for two scoops of ice cream, and they sold theirs for one.
