Republicans Have A Sense Of Foreboding About 2020-- And They Should

Trump still has a motley collection of apologists-- the Fox News crew, hate talk radio hosts, self-serving politicians, neo-Nazi crackpots and their partners in the white evangelical movement-- but there is no longer anyone with an ounce of intellectual integrity defending Trump or unwilling to admit that he is, far and away, the worst "president" in American history-- off the scale (or on an entirely different scale) relative to unworthy past presidents like Nixon, Andrew Johnson, Calvin Coolidge, George W. Bush, Herbert Hoover, James Buchanan, JohnTyler and Warren G. Harding. And now things are going to get even worse. Early Sunday morning, Mike Allen and Jim Vanderhei, writing at Axios, noted that with the departure of John Kelly, the tidal wave of fake news emanating from Señor Trumpanzee has "escalated." Kelly controlled the paper flow in and out of the Oval Office and that process has now collapsed into complete anarchy. [Neo-Nazi Stephen Miller is running the United States government.]

Wednesday was Kelly's last formal day in the White House, but his influence had declined since he announced his departure on Dec. 8.

Since then, Trump has made several unusually specific factual assertions that were quickly shown to be inaccurate, suggesting more unvetted information may be reaching him than had been the case in the heyday of Kelly's control:

• Arguably the most notable one ... During Wednesday's devil-may-care, 95-minute Cabinet meeting, Trump said that back in 1979, the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan "because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there." A Wall Street Journal editorial scolded: "We cannot recall a more absurd misstatement of history by an American President." [Watch Maddow explain what happened.]

• And then there's the president's depiction of how tariffs work. "China is paying us tremendous tariffs. We’re getting billions and billions of dollars of money pouring into the Treasury," he said Friday at a Rose Garden news conference. The N.Y. Times points out: "The United States does not send China a bill for the cost of tariffs, which are often passed on to American importers or consumers."

The Washington Post called the Cabinet meeting "a fact-checking nightmare." ...The president believes he pays no price for escalating inaccuracies, even ones that have been repeatedly debunked...With most of his human guardrails gone, the unvetted language of Trump's rallies is once again a staple of his governing.

Are congressional Republicans abandoning him in droves? Not yet. The first House votes of the new session are always rules packages and it's always a party line vote. 3 Republicans-- Tom Reed (NY), John Katko (NY) and Brian Fitzpatrick (PA)-- broke with their party and voted with Pelosi on her changes. Then came the appropriations bills to reopen the government without giving Trump money for his wall. You can rest assured he understood what this serious of votes meant better than the ones about the rules package. 8 Republicans abandoned him on all or some of the 3 roll calls-- Will Hurd (TX), John Katko (NY), Chris Smith (NJ), Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Greg Walden (OR), Peter King (NY), Elise Stefanik (NY) and Fred Upton (MI). He'll notice. These was the percentage of the vote each of these members got in November (along with Trump's 2016 percentage):

• Will Hurd- 49.2% (46.4%)
• John Katko- 53.1% (45.3%)
• Chris Smith- 55.8% (56.8%)
• Brian Fitzpatrick- 51.3% (47.1%)
• Greg Walden- 56.5% (56.5%)
• Peter King- 53.3% (53.0%)
• Elise Stefanik- 56.7% (53.9%)
• Fred Upton- 50.2% (51.3%)

Upton, Katie, Hurd, Fitzpatrick and King are all seriously vulnerable for 2020 and have to walk a fine line between being seen as disloyal by Republicans and as too enabling by independents. All 5, perhaps all 7, will be targeted by the Democrats. On the Senate side, two Republicans up for reelection in blue-trending states, Susan Collins (ME) and Cory Gardner (CO), have called for reopening the government without money for Trump's wall. Matt Gorman who was this past cycle's NRCC communications director remarked that "You’re not just walking a tight rope, you’re eating, sleeping, and breathing on it."

This evening, John Bresnahan and Sarah Ferris reported for Politico that dozens of Republicans may cross the aisle and vote with Pelosi against Reump's government shutdown. "White House officials and Republican congressional leaders," they wrote, "worry that GOP support for the shutdown is eroding, weakening President Donald Trump’s hand as he seeks billions of dollars for a border wall that Democrats have vowed to oppose, according to GOP lawmakers and aides... Despite the White House PR blitz, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) and other senior Republicans believe that 'a significant bloc' of House Republicans could vote with Democrats on the funding measures, according to GOP lawmakers and aides." McCarthy says between 15 and 25 will vote against Trump.

GOP leaders say they can keep that number below 55, a key threshold. That many Republican defections, coupled with all House Democrats, would reach 290 "yes" votes, a veto-proof majority. House Democrats can't overcome Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's (R-KY) refusal to bring up their bills, but such a vote would signal the House can override a Trump veto, a major blow to the president and his allies.

NBC News reported that "Cracks in the GOP ranks have already emerged as skittish Republicans, many of whom face difficult elections in 2020, have begun asserting their independence.

Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) who might have the most difficult race in in 2020 in a state that is edging more Democratic each election, was the first Republican to say that Senate should vote on the House bills to reopen the government.

He acknowledged the perils of opposing Trump but said that the president understands that he has to broaden his support if he’s going to win re-election, which would in turn help him.

“The president also has to win the states he either barely carried or didn’t carry to win re-election,” Gardner told NBC News in an interview. “While this (border funding fight) is maybe more a base-appealing measure, there are other issues he’s going to have to do to broaden the base.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), another member up in 2020 who is looking for a solution to the stalemate, wrote an op-ed in The Hill floating the idea that agreement on a border wall could be coupled with relief for Dreamers in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Democrats plan to try and put pressure on vulnerable Republicans on controversial issues by painting them as allies with a president who is increasingly less popular among independent voters, starting with the shutdown. The Democratic campaign arm in the Senate, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has already begun targeting potentially vulnerable Republicans like Gardner and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME).

“Senate Republicans own every miserable consequence of their pointless shutdown and those up for election this cycle have a choice: join Democrats in reopening the government by passing the legislation they’ve already supported or give voters another reason to throw them out of office in 2020,” said David Bergstein, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokesman.

Collins has said that she’d support the House bills if Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell brings them to the floor, telling reporters she sees “no reason why the bills that are ready to go, on which we’ve achieved an agreement, should be held hostage to this debate over border security.”

In the House, Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), who narrowly won his re-election and whose border spans 1,500 miles of the Texas border with Mexico, voted to reopen the government. Political strategists have said that the last-minute attention on immigration and the caravan by the president nearly cost Hurd his re-election.

And Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who easily won her re-election in her upstate New York district, is positioning herself as an independent voice in the Republican Party, said she voted for the bills because “I oppose government shutdowns.”

Perhaps an indicator of the challenge for some Republicans, two veteran Republican senators from red states-- Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Pat Roberts of Kansas-- have already announced that they won't seek re-election in 2020. Both are conservative senators who have a history of working across the aisle.

“I’ve learned that being true to myself and sticking to my principles will always win the day,” Roberts said in his speech announcing he would not run in 2020.

And others are seeking their own independence from the president. Freshman Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah started his congressional career with a strong statement of opposition to the president in an op-ed. While he doesn't have to run for re-election for six years, he does have to serve with a president who he said has fallen short of presidential leadership.

And Trump himself? He's probably going to have a primary coming. In an Op-Ed for CNN, Joshua Spivak, an academic at Wagner College, wrote that Trump may be a shoo-in for renomination but, "if history is any judge, an intraparty battle-- even if the challenger is unsuccessful-- could be devastating for the incumbent. No sitting President who sought his party's nomination has been denied it since Chester Arthur in 1884-- Arthur only got the office following President James Garfield's assassination. And presidents who face a serious re-election challenge have regularly gone down in defeat in the general election."

While the story of 19th century presidents is generally a tale of one-termers, presidents since McKinley have been very successful at winning re-election. It's notable that none of the 13 presidents (including the four VPs who moved up following the death of a president) who won re-election faced a serious primary challenge. They all were essentially handed the ballot line.

The presidents who did not win re-election tell a much different tale. Five presidents lost in their quest for another term (in the case of Gerald Ford, it was a first full term). Four of them-- all but Herbert Hoover-- faced a noteworthy challenge in their party's primary. In addition, Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson both pulled out of the race after seeing serious primary challengers emerge.

Even when sitting presidents prevailed in the primaries against serious contenders, their authority was often undermined and they went on to lose in the general election. In addition to William Howard Taft in 1912, this was the case for Gerald Ford in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980, and George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Ford, Carter and Bush all faced difficulties in their first terms, which created an opening for a primary challenger to run. But beyond those challenges, the primary fight forced the President to dirty his hands with politics early on, instead of staying above the fray and focusing on governing.

Even worse, it shows that the president does not have complete control over his party. A challenger also pushes the president to take on positions that alienate centrist voters at exactly the time he needs to be wooing independents in the center.

Trump, of course, has been dirtying his hands every minute of every day since he managed to worm his way-- likely with Russian help-- into the White House. A significant number of Americans don't consider him a legitimate president and would rather see him imprisoned or dead than back for a second term. He's been an Oval Office occupant like no other and you can count on his reelection campaign also being like no other. At this point I'd bet almost any of the leader Democratic contenders could beat him. Note: there's more than just beating him; it will all be for naught if we aren't also thinking about what come after him? Want your cake and the ability to eat it too? Please help bake the winning cake-- winning for 2020 through 2025.