Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Congressional Republicans Could Have Easily Reined In Trump-- If They Had Wanted To

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Cornered like a rat and having just been forced by overwhelming negative public opinion to give up his Doral Scam, Trump tweeted moments after he raised the white flag: "Never give up. We are doing GREAT! We are WINNING!" Was he consoling himself or his dummy base? Actually, pushed hard enough, Trump always gives up. As James Hohmann noted for the Washington Post yesterday, his enablers in Congress could relatively easily have prevented his worst excesses by pushing back. "Trump backs down when confronted with criticism from congressional Republicans if it’s loud enough and he fears he could lose support from his base.
National Rifle Association leaders have told Trump that he’d lose the support of gun owners if he threw his weight behind universal background checks. This helps explain why he’s backed down after calling for stricter background checks in the immediate aftermath of multiple mass shootings. This weekend, Trump nixed plans to host the G-7 summit at his Doral golf club not because it gave Democrats fodder for an article of impeachment but because key Republicans told him they couldn’t defend it. The president appears to be repeating this pattern with Syria.

These are all illustrations that conservative lawmakers have more leverage over the White House than they seem to think, especially with impeachment votes looming.


The key is unity, something congressional Republicans haven't mustered against Trump. They've left the few Republicans willing to stand up against Trump, to die alone on the battlefield. There's little with which I agree with Mitt Romney-- other than about Trump. In his Atlantic essay on Sunday, The Liberation of Mitt Romney, McKay Coppins seeks to make the point that stodgy old Mitt Romney has is now a "newly rebellious senator [who} has become an outspoken dissident in Trump’s Republican Party, just in time for the president’s impeachment trial." If two Republicans vote to find Trump guilty, one will be Romney, who hates Trump with a passion. "To Romney," wrote Coppins, "Trump’s performance as president is inextricably tangled up in his character. 'Berating another person, or calling them names, or demeaning a class of people, not telling the truth-- those are not private things,' he says, adding: 'If during the campaign you pay a porn star $130,000, that now comes into the public domain.'"




I’ve spent the past several months in an ongoing conversation with Romney as he’s navigated a Washington that grows more hostile by the day. Before arriving in the Senate, Romney nurtured a pleasant delusion that he could somehow avoid being defined by his relationship with Trump. He had his own policy agenda to advance, his own vision for the future of the Republican Party. He would use his platform to take a stand against Trumpism, while largely ignoring Trump himself. When I would speak with his friends and allies in Utah during last year’s campaign, there was often a certain dilettantish quality in the future Senator Romney they envisioned-- a venerable elder statesman dabbling in legislation the way a retiree takes up tennis.

Instead, Romney has emerged as an outspoken dissident in Trump’s Republican Party. In just the past few weeks, he has denounced the president’s attempts to solicit dirt on political rivals from foreign governments as “wrong and appalling”; suggested that his fellow Republicans are looking the other way out of a desire for power; and condemned Trump’s troop withdrawal in Syria as a “bloodstain on the annals of American history.”

Trump has responded with a wrathful procession of personal attacks-- deriding Romney as a “pompous ass,” taunting him over his failed presidential bid in 2012, and tweeting a cartoonish video that tags the senator as a “Democrat secret asset.”

These confrontations have turned Romney into one of the most closely watched figures in the impeachment battle now consuming Washington. While his fellow Republicans rail against “partisan witch hunts” and “fake whistle-blowers,” Romney is taking the prospect of a Senate trial seriously-- he’s reviewing The Federalist Papers, brushing up on parliamentary procedure, and staying open to the idea that the president may need to be evicted from the Oval Office.

In the nine years I’ve been covering Romney, I’ve never seen him quite so liberated. Unconstrained by consultants, unconcerned about reelection, he is thinking about things such as legacy, and inheritance, and the grand sweep of history. Here, in the twilight of his career, he seems to sense-- in a way that eludes many of his colleagues-- that he’ll be remembered for what he does in this combustible moment. “I do think people will view this as an inflection point in American history,” Romney tells me.

“I don’t look at myself as being a historical figure,” he hastens to add, “but I do think these are critical times. And I hope that what I’m doing will open the way for people to take a different path.”

...When I broached the subject of Trump that afternoon in June, Romney’s face didn’t register the familiar mix of panic and dread that most GOP lawmakers exhibit these days when faced with questions about the president. If anything, he seemed a little bored by the topic. I had heard repeatedly from people close to Romney that his decision to run for Senate was motivated in part by his alarm at Trump’s ascent. But he still seemed to believe that he could illuminate a path forward for his party without incessantly feuding with the president. “I’m not in the White House,” he told me. “I tried for that job; I didn’t get it. So all I can do from where I am is to say, ‘All right, how do we get things done from here?’”




Anyone familiar with the fraught history between Trump and Romney might have known that a detente was unsustainable. Trump has nursed a grudge since 2016, when Romney denounced him as a “phony” and a “fraud,” and warned of the “trickle-down racism” that would accompany his election. After he won, Trump briefly considered tapping Romney as his secretary of state, but the match was not to be. And in the years that have followed, the tension between the two men has only grown more exaggerated.

They manage that tension in different ways: While the president spent a too-online Saturday earlier this month unloading on Twitter-- launching #IMPEACHMITTROMNEY into the canon of viral Trump taunts-- Romney enjoyed a quiet afternoon picking apples with his grandkids in Utah and refusing to take the bait. When I met him in his office a couple of weeks later, I asked if the Twitter insults bothered him.

“That’s kind of what he does,” Romney said with a shrug, and then got up to retrieve an iPad from his desk. He explained that he uses a secret (locked) Twitter account-- “What do they call me, a lurker?”-- to keep tabs on the political conversation. “I won’t give you the name of it,” he said, but “I’m following 668 people.” Swiping at his tablet, he recited some of the accounts he follows, including journalists, late-night comedians (“What’s his name, the big redhead from Boston?”), and athletes. Trump was not among them. “He tweets so much,” Romney said, comparing the president to one of his nieces who overshares on Instagram. “I love her, but it’s like, Ah, it’s too much.”

He understands, of course, that many of his Republican colleagues live in fear of being subjected to a presidential Twitter tirade. In fact, some believe that Trump’s targeting of Romney is intended as a warning to other GOP lawmakers lest they step out of line. That fear is one of the reasons his caucus has attempted such elaborate rhetorical contortions to defend Trump as the House impeachment inquiry turns up damning evidence. “I think it’s very natural for people to look at circumstances and see them in the light that’s most amenable to their maintaining power,” he told me in an interview last month at The Atlantic Festival.

Romney told me that he does not have an abstract definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors,” and that when it comes to identifying impeachable acts, he follows Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous standard for defining hard-core porn: “I’ll know it when I see it.” Asked if he’s seen it yet, Romney told me that he’ll make up his mind once he hears all the evidence at the trial: “At this stage, I am strenuously avoiding trying to make any judgment.”

In the meantime, Romney is leading the Republican revolt over the president’s recent decision to pull troops out of northern Syria, leaving America’s Kurdish allies behind. In a withering speech on the Senate floor last week, he condemned the administration’s betrayal of the Kurds, and called for hearings on the matter. He told me that he wants to see a transcript of the phone call between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that preceded the troop withdrawal. “This is not just a disagreement on foreign policy,” he said. “This is a violation of fundamental American honor.”

Amid all the tumult, Romney has come to terms with the fact that there will be little progress on his legislative to-do list for the foreseeable future. (Between impeachment proceedings and next year’s elections, who has time to pass laws?) Nor is Romney especially well positioned to launch a bid for the Republican presidential nomination, despite endless fantasizing by pundits. (He has said he’s not planning to run again.) While his battles with the president have earned him plaudits from some in Utah-- where support for Trump is uncommonly weak for a red state-- he is widely viewed as a villain in MAGA world.

But Romney is looking beyond the next year, and beyond the president’s base, as he tries to lay the groundwork for a post-Trump Republican Party. While he acknowledges the failures of his own presidential campaign, he told me that he doubts Trump’s electoral coalition will be replicable in the long run. “We have to get young people and Hispanics and African Americans to vote Republican,” he said, adding that he hopes these voters will see his resistance to Trump as a sign that one day they could find a home in the GOP. If that seems naive, the senator is probably okay with it. In cynical times like these, someone has to serve as the guardian of lost causes.

After all, Romney said, “the president will not be the president forever.”

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7 Comments:

At 10:11 AM, Anonymous Hone said...

Any Republican who can sway others against Trump would be doing a good deed for the country. How far though will Romney go? He is waiting, exactly, for what? The evidence is all out there.

Just listening to Trump speak is a disgrace. He would fail any high school class - English and history for sure. Doubt he'd pass any science or math classes either. He wouldn't listen to the presentations, take notes or do the homework - just as his M.O. was at Wharton, as stated by some classmates. He did not even show up for many classes. My neighbor is a professor of public speaking at a city college. Can't imagine Trump would pass that either. He isn't college material and he is an awful speaker.

I still want to wake up one morning and realize this has all been a horrible nightmare.

 
At 1:04 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Big Money runs (and ruins) everything in this nation. The NRA can back off Trump (with Russian "donations"). Someone or something has gained influence with Elizabeth Warren over her donations. Expect a quid pro quo if she manages to win. Hillary has mobilized her media allies to go after tulsi Gabbard. And so on.

Trump, while quite destructive, isn't the problem. He's a symptom just like Hillary is and Warren could end up being. Just about every other presidential candidate has corporate funding issues as well. Bernie's will be the corporate money ganging up on him to prevent him from being successful if they can manage that.

This arena is just one theater of the war between corporatism and the people. There is no way to know right now which side will win.

 
At 3:56 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

saith Mitt: “We have to get young people and Hispanics and African Americans to vote Republican”

they already do. They tend to vote for democraps, who ARE what mitt imagines the republicans may revert to some day.
They won't, of course. Once a party and society and nation go Nazi, they will only revert back after utter destruction and much death. It could be self-inflicted or the result of foreign power totally defeating that entire society/nation.

The problem will be, of course, what will come after. And in a society and nation as provably stupid as this one, what could even possibly come after isn't any better.

We are where we are because of Nazis and democraps, mitt included. following mitt would not be useful. his side tried that before and it went nowhere. The DEMOCRAPS tried it before (or did all you 'woke' lefties forget he used to live in MA?) and it gave us all obamneycare. And all you lefties who cannot conceive of any party different than the democraps, who are what the Nazis were only 10 years ago or so, are just as much the problem as the trump/Nazis. Were it not for all you elected over the years, most notably obamanation and Pelosi, we might have avoided trump and naziism. but we didn't, did we?

 
At 4:03 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

@1:04 pm

If media's "going after" Tulsi Gabbard, it's because she offers such a rich target. Her combination of non-existent charisma with delusional overconfidence is positively breathtaking. She and Robo-Candidate Pete Buttigieg ought to get together (bonus points to anyone reading this who makes a "gay conversion therapy" joke).

As of this exact moment, Trump is most definitely the problem. If Pence (or Romney or whoever) were President, you'd have a point. But Trump's exceptional combination of stupidity and divisiveness does indeed make for a special case. He's like Dubya Bush on steroids. So far he isn't responsible for anything along the lines of 9/11 or the Iraq War, but give him a little more time and... I'm for getting him out of office in any manner possible RIGHT FUCKING NOW and dealing with the long-term structural crisis affecting the country LATER. Seriously. The man is dangerously stupid.

BTW- it's worth noting here that while you spend quite a lot of time trying to stop people from voting for "Democraps", 60 million people (most of 'em white) voted for Trump, which, for some weird reason, doesn't seem to bother you all that much. I sure wish you'd try extending the "Don't vote, it only encourages them!" message to the miserable shit-eating cretins who CHOOSE to support the Republican Party, as opposed to hapless liberals who reluctantly vote for Democrats because they represent something LESS horrible than destructive Republican racists/nihilists/etcs. Of course, I have a theory as to why you don't, but I'll save it for another time.

 
At 4:25 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

4:03 thinks if we put a band aid on the trump problem, the 62 million Nazi voters plus the 65 million idiot democrap voters will all wise up and re-elect FDR for a 5th term? I'm truly amazed at the intellect that can be so simple and so sure.

1:04 is quite correct. trump is a consequence. a symptom of the much greater malady. no malady... no trump.

that malady can be summed up by the number 127 million. every voter for both tribes electing worthless oceans of pig shit over and over, yet somehow believing that their beloved tribes are going to do something positive... ever.

The only way to politically defeat naziism (62 million) is for a LOT more voters to totally repudiate them consistently and iteratively.

The problem for this side is that the 65 million is only a bare majority yet an electoral college minority and their tribe will never ever do anything to defeat naziism. Their loyalty is to money and only money. their voters can all go fuck themselves for all they care.

Come up with a truly FDR-like party again and you'll see maybe half of the dormant 75 million start showing up in support. There is your numerically undefeatable majority that will leave the Nazis as a tiny rump party in the white racist south.

But that won't happen if the democraps remain relevant, much as they've been for 40 years, since they shall never inspire any significant number of the dormant independents to ever awaken from their hibernation. Hell, it takes the ever-worsening symptoms like trump to even keep the 65 million from culling 10 million per cycle who are totally disgusted and disaffected.

 
At 9:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

@4:25

You seem to think that if no one shows up on election day, the whole thing will come crashing to a halt. If only 1/5 of the electorate votes in 2020, someone will still be sworn in come January 2021. How can you be so utterly fucking stupid as to not recognize this? There has got to be something more than NOT voting in your plan unless what you actually want is Republicans in charge. And since (as far as I know) you're not planting this message on conservative websites, I have to guess that is exactly what you want. Which is why I have absolutely NO respect for you and your pompous "OOH, I've figured it all out and anyone who doesn't follow me is a dupe/part of the problem/brainwashed etc." line of bullshit. Go get fucked, clownshoes.

 
At 10:55 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

9:11, now please take a breath and attempt to wrestle your extreme limbic biases to the ground for a moment.

I obviously recognize that someone will be sworn in in 2021. It will very probably be trump again, no matter what you or I or any number of the electorate do.

I am making the point that swearing in the DNC's jesus won't make anything BETTER, and, in fact as well as experience, will likely make everything worse.

If your choice is electing democraps just so things get worse a little slower, that is your choice to make.

But nothing will ever get BETTER. (that's the opposite of worse)

Anyone who actually wants BETTER needs to know that democraps will never do that.

now... limbic tirade part deux... go for it.

 

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