With few exceptions, congressional Republicans are cowed by this president. They’re accustomed to making excuses for him, and if they were going to stand up to him, they’ve already had plenty of chances. Thursday, via tweet, Trump made no bones about his view that he can jettison Mueller whenever he chooses. So, while anything’s possible, it’s tough to imagine that if Mueller gets fired before he completes his investigation, members of the GOP caucus will come together to take meaningful action that punishes Trump. Nothing they’ve done up to now suggests that they’ve got the requisite backbone.
If they won’t take a stand out of a sense of patriotism, or so they can look themselves in the mirror, it’s time they at least saw that the lessons of Watergate are being learned all over again. The GOP spent 1973 defending President Richard Nixon, calling the whole thing a familiar-sounding “witch hunt.” By 1974, they were running for the exits, but it was too late. They lost 48 seats in the House.
Don’t hold your breath. If there’s one thing politicians know, it’s polls, and they all see the same thing: In the latest Economist/YouGov poll, Trump had 85 percent approval among Republicans. The same voters Republicans need in November.
With Ryan’s departure from the House, I suppose that there’s a flickering hope he’ll want to salvage his legacy by standing up against the president’s excesses. There are rumblings — well, more like murmurs — that the Senate is considering legislation to protect Mueller. (Leave aside, for the moment, that Trump would have to sign any such law or have his veto overridden.)
But don’t let anyone, leastwise a senator, head-fake you with a line like “it would be suicide for the president to fire” Mueller. (Or, for that matter, Rosenstein.) If the idea of politicians putting party before country shocks your conscience, then we’ve got bigger fish than this to filet.
