Good Source: "Most Of [The Senate Republicans] Have Come To Viscerally Hate The President Far More Than They Ever Hated Obama."

Two dangerous crackpots: Trumpanzee and Prince

Trumpanzee was still smarting from a remark-- "Trump hasn't demonstrated the stability or competence to be successful"-- Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) told concerned constituents back in Tennessee. And, though Corker has announced he won't be running for reelection, Trump woke up Sunday with nothing better to do than go on a deranged Twitter rampage against a senator whose votes he'll need to pass legislation and have appointments approved between now and January 2019. A senator who is both both well-liked a respected by his colleagues in the Senate. A few hours after Trump's outburst, a staffer for a top Senate Republican told me, on condition of anonymity, that more than half the Republicans in the Senate see Trump as an existential threat to the GOP and are hoping for a smoking gun so they can vote for impeachment in 2019. "Trump begged Corker to reconsider and pledged to campaign for him... Most of [the Senate Republicans] have come to viscerally hate the president far more than they ever hated Obama... There's virtually no support in our caucus for the president in his moves against Bob Mueller now, I can tell you that."

I think Wyoming was the Trumpiest state in the country last year. Trump won every one of the state's 23 counties but liberal Teton County. He beat Hillary 174,419 (68.2%) to 55,973 (21.9%). It wasn't just Trump's biggest margin anywhere in the country, it was Wyoming's biggest margin for a presidential candidate ever-- even bigger than they gave Reagan in 1984. Back in March, on caucus day, though, Trump was crushed. Ted Cruz took 71% of the votes. And Rubio, who came in second, had more than double the number of votes than Trumpanzee had. Yes, Wyoming is a blood red bastion of reactionary politics. The state Senate has 26 Republicans and 4 Democrats. The state House has 51 Republicans and 9 Democrats. Wyoming is a political nightmare. Needless to say, both senators and the state's sole House member (Cheney's daughter) are far right Republicans. But not far right enough for the Mercer-Bannon wing.

Sunday morning, the NY Times reported that the founder of the Blackwater mercenary group, Era Prince, the brother of Trump's most hated cabinet member, Betsy DeVos, is being recruited by Bannon to run for the Wyoming senate seat held by very right-wing incumbent John Barrasso. Barrasso is a member of McConnell's leadership team and that's enough to make him persona non-grata in the alternative neo-Nazi universe Mercer and Bannon are creating in the U.S.

If he runs, Mr. Prince would face formidable obstacles in seeking to unseat Mr. Barrasso, a popular and genial but low-profile senator who will have the full backing of Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, and the well-funded political committees loyal to him. Mr. Prince, who has never run for public office, has been a controversial figure for years, as Blackwater faced a welter of ethical and legal problems over its work for the military in places like Iraq, including an episode in 2007 in which its employees killed 17 civilians in Baghdad.

While his ties to Wyoming are thin, the state is attractive to Mr. Prince because it has none of the personal political entanglements he would face in his home state of Michigan. Public records show that Mr. Prince, a former member of the Navy SEALs who has lived all over the world, had an address in Wapiti, Wyo., in the state’s northwest corner, for several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Though Mr. Prince carries some baggage, Republicans have privately said that a primary challenge against a lawmaker like Mr. Barrasso is the kind they fear most: an out-of-the-blue run by a renegade from the right against a senator whose sin is not a lack of conservative credentials, but an association with Mr. McConnell and other party leaders.

...In 1997, Mr. Prince founded Blackwater as a private, for-profit force to aid the military, and he is wealthy enough to self-finance his race. For months this year, Mr. Prince-- with Mr. Bannon’s support-- pushed a plan to replace soldiers with contractors in Afghanistan. The proposal, which would have radically changed the way the fight in that country is conducted, was vehemently opposed by the national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, and the defense secretary, Jim Mattis.

...Bannon is also hoping to persuade Ann LePage, the wife of Maine’s outspoken governor, Paul LePage, to run for the Republican nomination to challenge Senator Angus King, an independent who is up for re-election in 2018.

This is about chaos and opportunism-- which Bannon, Mercer and Trump all thrive on and are absolutely dedicated to-- not about ideology or loyalty to Trumpanzee and his agenda of personal aggrandizement. Barrasso's Trump adhesion score is 95.9%, the highest in the Senate. This could well be a turning point for many congressional Republicans who will now feel personally threatened by the out-of-its-mind Trump-Bannon wing of the Republican Party. There is no defense from their insanity-- and not all of them are going to be willing to follow Corker and Dent into retirement without a fight, very possibly a no holds barred fight of historic proportions.