The Trumpist Regime Is Falling Apart. Of Course, It Has Been Since Its First Day

David Nakamura's piece on White House neo-Nazi Stephen Miller, No Consequences For White-Supremicist Ties, in the Washington Post over the Thanksgiving holiday, was a far cry from the OpEd penned by former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer. "In case there were any doubts over his White House standing," wrote Nakamura, "Stephen Miller offered his critics the ultimate power move Tuesday as he boarded Air Force One to accompany President Trump to a campaign rally in South Florida. Miller’s reserved seat was another sign that the White House senior adviser has suffered no internal consequences in the two weeks since a social justice website published a trove of his old emails that showed him promoting political material and talking points linked to white-supremacist groups."

The disclosures in the exposé from the Southern Poverty Law Center have prompted scores of Democratic lawmakers and civil rights groups to publicly demand his resignation over what they view as smoking-gun evidence that the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration policies are rooted in white nationalist ideologies.

But the White House has vigorously defended Miller, one of Trump’s longest-serving and most influential aides, and congressional Republicans are staying mum, signaling that they will not break with the president over the revelations at a time when Trump is eager to demonstrate momentum in stemming illegal immigration.

Navy Secretary-- former Navy Secretary; Trump fired him Sunday-- Richard Spencer wants to share what he learned about working inside the Trumpist Regime. It's been a quandary for me since Trump took over the government how any self-respecting patriotic American could work for him. I spoke with an official at the Department of Justice a few days ago who had called me to get some help on a drug scam that we may all be reading about in a year or two. At the end of our conversation I asked him how he could work for Trump. He said he doesn't. He works for America and the American people.

Spencer served in the Marine Corps from 1976 to 1981 and then worked for a series of banksters, Goldman Sachs, Bear Stearns, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, A. G. Becker, Paine Webber and Merrill Lynch. Trump appointed him Secretary of the Navy in 2017 and he was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on August 1, 2017. Here's his OpEd:

The case of Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a Navy SEAL who was charged with multiple war crimes before being convicted of a single lesser charge earlier this year, was troubling enough before things became even more troubling over the past few weeks. The trail of events that led to me being fired as secretary of the Navy is marked with lessons for me and for the nation.

It is highly irregular for a secretary to become deeply involved in most personnel matters. Normally, military justice works best when senior leadership stays far away. A system that prevents command influence is what separates our armed forces from others. Our system of military justice has helped build the world’s most powerful navy; good leaders get promoted, bad ones get moved out, and criminals are punished.

In combat zones, the stakes are even higher. We train our forces to be both disciplined and lethal. We strive to use proportional force, protect civilians and treat detainees fairly. Ethical conduct is what sets our military apart. I have believed that every day since joining the Marine Corps in 1976.

We are effective overseas not because we have the best equipment but because we are professionals. Our troops are held to the highest standards. We expect those who lead our forces to exercise excellent judgment. The soldiers and sailors they lead must be able to count on that.

Earlier this year, Gallagher was formally charged with more than a dozen criminal acts, including premeditated murder, which occurred during his eighth deployment overseas. He was tried in a military court in San Diego and acquitted in July of all charges, except one count of wrongfully posing for photographs with the body of a dead Islamic State fighter. The jury sentenced him to four months, the maximum possible; because he had served that amount of time waiting for trial, he was released.

President Trump involved himself in the case almost from the start. Before the trial began, in March, I received two calls from the president asking me to lift Gallagher’s confinement in a Navy brig; I pushed back twice, because the presiding judge, acting on information about the accused’s conduct, had decided that confinement was important. Eventually, the president ordered me to have him transferred to the equivalent of an enlisted barracks. I came to believe that Trump’s interest in the case stemmed partly from the way the defendant’s lawyers and others had worked to keep it front and center in the media.

After the verdict was delivered, the Navy’s normal process wasn’t finished. Gallagher had voluntarily submitted his request to retire. In his case, there were three questions: Would he be permitted to retire at the rank of chief, which is also known as an E-7? (The jury had said he should be busted to an E-6, a demotion.) The second was: Should he be allowed to leave the service with an “honorable” or “general under honorable” discharge? And a third: Should he be able to keep his Trident pin, the medal all SEALs wear and treasure as members of an elite force?

On Nov. 14, partly because the president had already contacted me twice, I sent him a note asking him not to get involved in these questions. The next day, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone called me and said the president would remain involved. Shortly thereafter, I received a second call from Cipollone, who said the president would order me to restore Gallagher to the rank of chief.

This was a shocking and unprecedented intervention in a low-level review. It was also a reminder that the president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices.

Given my desire to resolve a festering issue, I tried to find a way that would prevent the president from further involvement while trying all avenues to get Gallagher’s file in front of a peer-review board. Why? The Naval Special Warfare community owns the Trident pin, not the secretary of the Navy, not the defense secretary, not even the president. If the review board concluded that Gallagher deserved to keep it, so be it.

I also began to work without personally consulting Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper on every step. That was, I see in retrospect, a mistake for which I am solely responsible.

On Nov. 19, I briefed Esper’s chief of staff concerning my plan. I briefed acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney that evening.

The next day, the Navy established a review board to decide the status of Gallagher’s Trident pin. According to long-standing procedure, a group of four senior enlisted SEALs would rule on the question. This was critical: It would be Gallagher’s peers managing their own community. The senior enlisted ranks in our services are the foundation of good order and discipline.

But the question was quickly made moot: On Nov. 21, the president tweeted that Gallagher would be allowed to keep his pin — Trump’s third intervention in the case. I recognized that the tweet revealed the president’s intent. But I did not believe it to be an official order, chiefly because every action taken by the president in the case so far had either been a verbal or written command.

The rest is history. We must now move on and learn from what has transpired. The public should know that we have extensive screening procedures in place to assess the health and well-being of our forces. But we must keep fine-tuning those procedures to prevent a case such as this one from happening again.

More importantly, Americans need to know that 99.9 percent of our uniformed members always have, always are and always will make the right decision. Our allies need to know that we remain a force for good, and to please bear with us as we move through this moment in time.

Extraordinary! What could Trump possibly do without the Stephen Millers of this world-- the Heinrich Himmlers, the Hermann Görings, the Walther Funks, Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormanns and, eventually the Speers and Eichmanns... Yesterday, on CNN's Newsroom, ex-Congressman Charlie Dent (R-PA)-- who retired last year in disgust over Trump-- claims that in private, his former colleagues are "'wrestling' with whether it was more important to win their next election or preserve their legacy for years to come... Dent said he would have certainly 'voted for the impeachment inquiry based on the facts as I understand them now' and 'would probably support' the impeachment of Trump." He said Republicans members are basically afraid of the party's base voters but "there’s no question, having spoken to many of them privately, they’re absolutely disgusted and exhausted by the president’s behavior. They resent being put in this position all the time." They'll resent it for more when they lose their seats next November.

Enabling Trump-- That's What Congressional Republicans Continue To Do

Trump by Joel Peter Witkin

In 1790, the first president of the United States, wrote a letter to the congregants of the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, which said, in part, that "the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support... May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig-tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy."

Sunday, Jewish community leaders in Pittsburgh sent a letter to the current occupant of the White House, an illegitimate, fake president who stokes hatred and bigotry to unite his violent, hate-filled, moron followers.

President Trump:

Yesterday, a gunman slaughtered 11 Americans during Shabbat morning services. We mourn with the victims’ families and pray for the wounded. Here in Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood, we express gratitude for the first responders and for the outpouring of support from our neighbors near and far. We are committed to healing as a community while we recommit ourselves to repairing our nation.

For the past three years your words and your policies have emboldened a growing white nationalist movement. You yourself called the murderer evil, but yesterday’s violence is the direct culmination of your influence.

President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you fully denounce white nationalism.

Our Jewish community is not the only group you have targeted.  You have also deliberately undermined the safety of people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. Yesterday’s massacre is not the first act of terror you incited against a minority group in our country.

President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you stop targeting and endangering all minorities.

The murderer’s last public statement invoked the compassionate work of the Jewish refugee service HIAS at the end of a week in which you spread lies and sowed fear about migrant families in Central America. He killed Jews in order to undermine the efforts of all those who find shared humanity with immigrants and refugees.

President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you cease your assault on immigrants and refugees.

The Torah teaches that every human being is made b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God.

This means all of us.

In our neighbors, Americans, and people worldwide who have reached out to give our community strength, there we find the image of God.  While we cannot speak for all Pittsburghers, or even all Jewish Pittsburghers, we know we speak for a diverse and unified group when we say:

President Trump, you are not welcome in Pittsburgh until you commit yourself to compassionate, democratic policies that recognize the dignity of all of us.

Melania will go to Pittsburgh with Trumpanzee. I bet she doesn't wear that fetching "I Don't Give A Damn" designer jacket this time. It might unsettled the Adelsons and other wealthy kapos and court Jews.

Charlie Dent is a mainstream conservative-- albeit with a 93% Trump adhesion record-- from Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. He retired from Congress in May and the heart of his old district (now PA-07) will likely go to Democrat Susan Wild. On Thursday, Dent was on a CNN panel when he was asked about his former House colleague Ron DeSantis taking contributions from Nazis in his gubernatorial race. Steven Alembik, who once called President Obama a "Muslim nigger," has given DeSantis thousands of dollars. Dent's response was that he wasn’t aware of it "I certainly would’ve returned it... if he’s getting contributions from people who have this type of history, I would certainly just send it back. I don’t understand why he would hang on to it."



If I lived in Allentown-- I used to live just north of there in Stroudsburg-- I would have admired Dent for that... but because I disagree with him on fundamental issues, I still would not have voted for him. Sure, good for ex-Congressman Dent. But... that's it. Look at that voting record linked in the first sentence of the first paragraph!

It gets worse. Trump and DeSantis are brothers from another mother-- and Trump got him the nomination and has two more rallies in Florida for him in the next week. There are no Republicans in Congress standing up to Trump's poisonous, divisive rhetoric, not even in the mild way Dent stood up against DeSantis. Monday, Bernie wrote to his supporters that "Trump is going to try to divide us in this final week before the election. He is going to try to pit us against each other by race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status and however he can do it. He is desperate to do it because he knows that if working people, young people, and people of color stand united, we are going to win. If he can divide us up, right-wing Republicans and the big-money interests will win. What I saw on my tour was a people who are united. People who know that real change is possible when large numbers of ordinary Americans speak out, get involved in the democratic process, and vote. Progressive change is coming." Not if Trump-- and his Republican enablers can stop it. And Trump doesn't believe in any kinds of boundaries. He's in it to win it. For him it's all "Fuck the norms; fuck the rules."

Chuck Todd and his crew noted that "Tragedy and terror have dominated the last 72 hours in American politics." It was all about the #MAGAbomber in Florida and the #MAGAshooter in Pittsburgh. "Both," they wrote, "appear to be products of our toxic political environment. Sayoc was a Trump fan who plastered his white van with Trump and 'Make America Great Again' paraphernalia. The accused shooter in Pittsburg posted conspiracy theories and messages about the migrant caravan walking to the U.S.-Mexico border."

But there is a fundamental divide about our current politics-- the overheated and demeaning rhetoric, the inability to compromise, partisanship all the time. While most politicians, Democrats and Republicans, see this as a problem, President Trump sees it as an opportunity. Something to exploit. Something to help turn out his voters.

Consider Trump’s rally in Illinois on Saturday just hours after the shooting in Pittsburgh. The president first addressed the tragedy and condemned the killings. “This evil anti-Semitic attack is an assault on all of us. It’s an assault on humanity. It will require all of us working together to extract the hateful poison of anti-Semitism,” he said.

But then he returned his attention to his familiar targets. On the caravan: “Republicans want no crime, and no caravans, right?... This will be election of caravans, Kavanaugh, law and order and common sense.”

On Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters: “Now I did a little tiny bit of research and Mike's opponent, Brendan Kelly, is a vote for Nancy Pelosi, and of course, Maxine Waters, and their job-killing agenda.”

On Elizabeth Warren: “We can’t use Pocahontas anymore, she’s got no Indian blood!” he said. “I have more than she does, and I have none. So I can’t call her Pocahontas anymore, but I think I will anyway, do you mind?”

On his critics and opponents: “You have the haters and they continue to hate. These are foolish and very stupid people. Very stupid.”

John Cohen, counter-terrorism expert at Rutgers University, told NPR this morning that this kind of political rhetoric is dangerous. “Our political rhetoric has become much more demonizing. Your opponent isn’t just somebody you disagree with; it is somebody who is corrupt, it is evil. Problems such as immigration are not simply problems of resources and problems of policy; but the people who are coming here are treated as criminals.”

Trump tweeted last night and this morning that it was unfair to blame him for the pipe bomb scare and the shooting in Pittsburgh. “The Fake News is doing everything in their power to blame Republicans, Conservatives and me for the division and hatred that has been going on for so long in our Country. Actually, it is their Fake & Dishonest reporting which is causing problems far greater than they understand!”

But how can the president participate in finding a solution to the division and hatred when he doesn’t see them as problems-- but instead conditions to exploit?

And while the president views the criticism of his leadership as an opportunity to showcase himself as a victim to fire up his base, the silence of the rest of the GOP is what’s so loud this time.

Compare this moment with the aftermath of Charlottesville. There haven’t been any Republicans who have distanced themselves from Trump. It shows just how much of the GOP’s elected leadership fears the divisive tone Trump has set is actually the KEY to stoking the base for the election.

Let that sink in.

WILL THE LAST 72 HOURS OF NEWS BE THE FINAL ISSUE-EVENTS OF THE 2018 CAMPAIGN?

With eight days to go until the 2018 midterms, it is very possible that the pipe bomb scare and shootings in Pittsburgh are the final issue-events of this campaign season. Of course, there’s still plenty of time for another event or story. But with eight days left...

TRUMP, GOP DEFIANT THAT INCENDIARY RHETORIC DIDN’T CAUSE THE RECENT VIOLENCE

The Washington Post: “President Trump and his Republican allies remained defiant Sunday amid allegations from critics that Trump’s incendiary attacks on political rivals and racially charged rhetoric on the campaign trail bear some culpability for the climate surrounding a spate of violence in the United States.”

More: “Trump, who has faced calls to tone down his public statements, signaled that he would do no such thing-- berating billionaire liberal activist Tom Steyer, a target of a mail bomb sent by a Trump supporter, as a ‘crazed & stumbling lunatic’ on Twitter, after Steyer said on CNN that Trump and the Republican Party have created an atmosphere of ‘political violence.’”

Vice President Mike Pence told NBC’s Vaughn Hillyard this when asked about Trump’s language: "Look, everyone has their own style, and frankly, people on both sides of the aisle use strong language..."

TRUMP “READS THE DUTIFUL WORDS OF UNITY AND GRIEF … THAT AIDES PUT IN FRONT OF HIM, BUT HE REFUSES TO STICK TO THE SCRIPT”

The New York Times: “The president has made clear he does not see national harmony as his mission. He mocks the notion of being ‘presidential,’ and the crowds at his rallies egg him on, eager for him to ‘tone it up’ rather than ‘tone it down,’ as he puts it. He reads the dutiful words of unity and grief and determination that aides put in front of him, but he refuses to stick to the script. His people want a fighter, in his view, and he plans to give it to them. If the mandarins of Washington and the cable channels tut-tut over his language, it is because they are out to get him.”

Best of luck with that attitude. A poll released yesterday by the non-partisan Public Religion Research Institute found that a majority of Americans say there is nothing that Señor Trumpanzee could do to change their opinion of him. More than four in ten (46%) say they disapprove of Trump’s job performance and that there is nothing he could do to win their approval, while 14% say they approve of Trump and that there is nothing he could do to lose their approval. By contrast, four in ten Americans either approve (27%) or disapprove (13%) of the president but say that there is something he could do to change their mind. Among Democrats, almost eight in ten (78%) say they disapprove of the president and there is nothing he can do to win their approval, while 12% disapprove but say there is something he could do win their approval. By contrast, nearly four in ten (37%) Republicans say they approve of the president and that there is nothing he can do to lose their support. A slim majority (51%) of Republicans approve of Trump but say there is something he could do lose their approval."

This morning, though, the Washington Post reported that congressional leaders from both parties-- McConnell, Ryan, Schumer and Pelosi-- have all declined invitations to join Trump on his visit to Pittsburgh, where the city's mayor and most Jewish leaders have pleaded for him to stay away since his regime has fueled anti-Semitism through their rhetoric before and after Saturday’s massacre. CNN reported that "A spate of local and state officials also said they would not appear with Trump when he visits a hospital and pays respects to the 11 victims of Saturday’s massacre."

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed."

-Proverbs 31:8

How Many More GOP Seats Did Trump Lose With His Vile Tweet About Andy McCabe?

Neither my old friend Cynthia in L.A. nor my even older friend Helen in Westchester is a rambunctious kid, at least not any more. Helen is pushing 70 and Cynthia passed that goal post some time ago. Every day, Cynthia says things about Señor Trumpanzee that I hope and pray the Secret Service isn't hearing. And Helen... she hates Trump even more than Cynthia does. I've been worrying about Helen because she tells me she stays up nights tossing and turning and fretting about what he's doing to the country. I know these two gracious ladies aren't the only Americans in this exact frame of mind-- from from it.

Take legal scholar Jeffrey Tubin, for example. "If you wanted to tell the story of an entire Presidency in a single tweet, you could try the one that President Trump posted after Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Andrew McCabe, the deputy director of the F.B.I., on Friday night. Every sentence is a lie. Every sentence violates norms established by Presidents of both parties. Every sentence displays the pettiness and the vindictiveness of a man unsuited to the job he holds."

In his statement, McCabe spoke with bracing directness. “Here is the reality: I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey,” he said. In other words, McCabe was fired because he is a crucial witness in the investigation led by Robert Mueller, the special counsel. The firing of Comey is the central pillar of a possible obstruction-of-justice case against the President, either in a criminal prosecution or in an impeachment proceeding. By firing McCabe, Trump (through Sessions) has attempted to neuter an important witness; if and when McCabe testifies against Trump, he will now be dismissed by the President’s supporters as an ex-employee embittered by his firing. How this kind of attack on McCabe plays out in a courtroom, or just in the court of public opinion, remains to be seen.

What’s clear, though, is the depth of the President’s determination to prevent Mueller from taking his inquiries to their conclusion, as his personal attorney, John Dowd, made clear. In an interview with the Daily Beast, Dowd said, “I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia Collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt Dossier.” Of course, notwithstanding Dowd’s caveat that he was speaking only for himself, Rosenstein is on notice that his failure to fire Mueller might lead to his own departure. And Sessions, too, must know that his craven act in firing McCabe will guarantee him nothing. Trump believes that loyalty goes only one way; the Attorney General may still be fired at any moment.

Former CIA Director John Brennan tried to send his message in the language Trumpanzee understand: Tweetese: "When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America... America will triumph over you."

Barry McCaffrey is one of the most highly decorated 4-star generals in America. Trump isn't fit to wipe his ass. I suspect it wasn't easy for him to tweet Friday "Reluctantly I have concluded that President Trump is a serious threat to US national security. He is refusing to protect vital US interests from active Russian attacks. It is apparent that he is for some unknown reason under the sway of Mr Putin."

Unlike most sane Americans, former FBI Director Jim Comey never refers to Trumpanzee as a pile of dung or something along those lines, and he still addresses him with the inappropriate monicker "Mr. President," as in "Mr. President, the American people will hear my story very soon. And they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not."

Sen. Mark Warner is a very conservative Democrat from Virginia. I rarely find myself agreeing with him on much--but this tweet is important: "Every member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, needs to speak up in defense of the Special Counsel. Now." Unfortunately, the Republicans are utterly devoid of any semblance of moral leadership. The only Republicans who are speaking up are the ones who have already announced their voluntary retirements-- like Charlie Dent (R-PA), who went on CNN Saturday morning and "harshly criticized the Trump administration’s decision to fire former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, adding that he doesn’t think it bodes well for his party. 'Candidly, it looks like retribution and a bit vindictive,' Dent said. 'And I think it’s unfortunate. The man said he’s resigning, and on a Friday night before his 50th birthday, he’s fired to take away his pension? I don’t like the optics of this. I really don’t.' Dent said he thinks the attorney general made the decision under pressure from President Trump. Trump has repeatedly publicly demanded that Sessions fire McCabe, who is potentially a key witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the president for possible obstruction of justice."

The best realistic outcome we can hope for at this point is that something like 100 House Republicans-- some of the ones not speaking up (especially Paul Ryan)-- lose their seats in November. Sounds far-fetched? Not nearly as far-fetched as a candidate as mediocre as Conor Lamb in a district as red as PA-18 (R+11) could have beat Trump, Pence and Ryan's $10 million. Now, that's far-fetched! Don't listen to the media. They have no clue what's going on with electoral politics until the day after the election-- if then. Instead, be proactive: speak to friends-- persuade someone who wouldn't otherwise vote that his or her country needs them-- or volunteer on a campaign or contribute to a solid progressive candidate who is going to be vigilant against Trumpist tyranny and kakistocracy in general. (If you want to contribute... that's what that thermometer on the right is for. Click on it and give what you can-- even if you've never done so before.)

Friday night, by the way, I tweeted as well... in response to NBC host Andrea Mitchell:

By early Saturday morning congressmen Mark Pocan (D-WI) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD) + Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) had already offered to hire Andrew McCabe in their congressional offices. We need more like them in Congress... and fewer like Paul Ryan and Kevin McCarthy. Joe Walsh is a hate talk radio host and a former far right-- far, far right-- congressman from Chicagoland. The way his former colleagues are enabling Trump is even too much for him! Today he fulminated that "Republicans have no freaking clue about what is going to hit them in November. They're in denial."

NY Daily News sports commentator Mike Lupica, hit the nail on the head for a lot of us yesterday: "People keep saying that Trump will never fire Mueller, because that would touch off a constitutional crisis the likes of which we haven’t seen since Richard Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre in the heat of Watergate, when Nixon fired independent prosecutor Archibald Cox, which led to the resignations of his own attorney general and deputy attorney general. But every time you read or hear that, you have the same thought: What, we’re not having a constitutional crisis already?" And mainstream conservatives are losing their shit-- like Nicolle Wallace, former Communications Director for the George W. Bush White House and then a senior strategist for McCain.

Around A Third Of Americans Say Trump Is Honest

Trump vowed to the morons who voted for him to eliminate the carried interest loophole but he didn't-- and no one who voted for him is sharp enough to understand what it is anyway

Charlie Dent (R-PA) isn’t running for reelection, in part because he hates Congress’ partisan gridlock, detests Trump and because, as he told Mary Bruce on This Week yesterday, because his party is “alienating” mainstream voters. And yes, he disgraced himself as an enabler by voting for Ryan’s and Trump’s massive Tax Scam last week. Trump and Ryan have gone to great lengths to keep to the focus group-tested talking points that paint the Tax Scam as something that somehow is oriented towards the middle class. It isn’t and at Mar-a-Lago Friday night, Señor Trumpanzee just couldn’t stick to the script, not when there was a chance to brag to this country’s plutocrats.

President Trump kicked off his holiday weekend at Mar-a-Lago Friday night at a dinner where he told friends, "You all just got a lot richer," referencing the sweeping tax overhaul he signed into law hours earlier. Mr. Trump directed those comments to friends dining nearby at the exclusive club— including to two friends at a table near the president's who described the remark to CBS News— as he began his final days of his first year in office in what has become known as the "Winter White House.”

Trump has repeatedly lied to the American people, asserting that the tax bill is "not good" for him personally and that ”the rich will not be gaining at all with this plan. We are looking for the middle class and we are looking for jobs-- jobs being the economy.”

Poll after poll has shown that most voters have caught onto Trump. And not only on the Tax Scam, where overwhelming numbers recognize it as primarily helping the wealth, not the middle class. Perhaps more important is that most Americans don’t believe Trump— about anything. Last week’s Quinnipiac poll shows that 62% of voters know that Trump is dishonest. 70% agree he isn’t level-headed. Around a third of voters say they still see Trump as honest. Quinnipiac didn’t not poll too see how many of those Trump voters are strung out on prescription drugs and, like all polls, doesn’t test for IQ.

A recent Morning Consult survey showed that just 33% of voters agree that Trump is trustworthy, 35% that he is honest and 34% that he keeps his promises. The most recent poll from Reuters (Ipsos) shows that 60% of voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing. 35% approve. The only states with strong Trump approval numbers are Wyoming, Alaska and West Virginia, although voters in Idaho, South Dakota, Alabama, Oklahoma, Louisiana and North Dakota are still on board to some extent.

It's Almost Like The Chimp Grabbed An AKA-47 And He's Just Shooting It Indiscriminately In Every Direction

As you can see on the chart above, a huge majority of 2016 Trump voters polled by PPP approve of his executive order to hobble the Affordable Care Act. I wonder if the majority would go down if PPP described what exactly Trump's executive order is trying to accomplish. Only 34% of registered voters overall, approve of the order-- and only 8% of Clinton voters (which includes the nearly 3 million more who voted for her than for Trumpanzee). But that Trump base of support-- about a third of voters-- seems to be adhering to him through thin and thinner. Presumably when their relatives die from lack of medicare care they'll just blame Obama. Friday, Greg Sargent suggested that the executive order was a gun pointed at the heads of congressional Republicans. I hope so... because the DCCC sure doesn't have any guns to point at their heads. Sargent points out that "Trump’s peculiar combination of malevolence, certainty in his own negotiating prowess and cluelessness about the details of policy sometimes leads him to issue fearsome-sounding threats that are rooted in a baffling misread of the distribution of leverage and incentives underlying the situation at hand. Case in point: The big news of the morning, which is that Trump will cut off paying the 'cost-sharing reductions' in his latest bid to sabotage the Affordable Care Act." He asserts that Trump's move "puts more pressure on congressional Republicans than on Democrats to agree to" a bipartisan fix like the one Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA), two centrists who head the Senate Health and Education Committee, have been working on.

According to a Democratic source familiar with the talks, there is broad agreement that Congress should appropriate the money to cover the billions of dollars in cost-sharing reductions (CSRs), which, if halted, could cause the individual markets to melt down. The sticking points are over how much flexibility the deal should give to give states in defining what counts as insurance coverage, and there’s a decent chance those sticking points will be resolved.

Indeed, Alexander has publicly confirmed that he believes Congress should appropriate the funds to cover the CSRs. He has also publicly allowed that he believes Murray has already made serious concessions towards the flexibility of ACA rules that Republicans want, though Murray still insists that the regulations requiring insurers to offer “essential health benefits” must remain. What this means is that, presuming a deal is reached, the real lingering question will be whether Republican leaders in Congress will accept such a compromise and allow a vote on it.

And the pressure on Republicans to do that will be intense. The Washington Examiner recently reported that vulnerable House Republicans worry they could have a major political problem on their hands if these payments are stopped, because it could harm large numbers of people in their districts. As it is, millions are enrolled in plans with cost-sharing reductions, which pay money to insurers to subsidize out-of-pocket costs, and if they are halted, insurers could exit the markets, further destabilizing them and leaving millions without coverage options. Tellingly, influential House Republicans such as Reps. Tom Cole (OK) and Greg Walden (OR) have called for Congress to appropriate the payments.

...[T]he issue is whether Congress will appropriate the payments to cover the CSRs. It would not be that hard to reach a bipartisan deal to do this, at which point the question will become whether GOP leaders and Trump will support it. If not, it is likely that Trump and Republicans will take the blame for any disruptions that ensue.

By the way, when Trump says Obamacare is “imploding,” which will allegedly pressure Dems, he’s lying: The exchanges were stabilizing, and many of their travails are largely attributable to his own multiple efforts to sabotage them. The public understands this: Large majorities say Trump and Republicans will own the ACA’s problems going forward and want them to make the law work.

So in what sense will Democrats feel pressure from Trump’s escalating sabotage? All the versions of repeal Trump has supported would harm more people than stopping the CSRs will. Why would Dems feel pressure to choose the former over the latter? It’s true that Dems, worried about the humanitarian toll this could have, might be more inclined to make concessions in the talks with Alexander. But all indications are that Alexander is approaching those talks in good faith and that a reasonable deal is possible.

In the end, Trump and Republicans are the ones likely to feel more pressure to support such a deal, which will put them in the tough spot of choosing between taking the blame for chaos in the individual markets and weathering the rage from the right that accepting a deal will unleash. Even if Trump doesn’t understand this, congressional Republicans surely do.

This Charlie Dent appearance on CNN probably didn't please the so-called "ill-advised" Trump yesterday. But it isn't so much that he's ill-advised as that he's mentally ill and not paying any attention to his advisors. 

The Republican Party's 2018 Albatross: Donald J. Trump

Like Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) is retiring from Congress. Easy enough for them to warn the country about the unmitigated disaster unfolding in real time in the Oval Office. Republicans running in 2018 are too scared to. Dent spoke with Katie Tur on MSNBC Monday: "We’ve had a lot of these 'the emperor has no clothes' moments and I’m glad that Sen. Corker has brought voice to this. We are concerned. My colleagues, my Republican colleagues in the House, I know, and Senate, are concerned by much of the dysfunction and disorder and chaos at the White House... We have these conversations all the time and we have to do better and I think more of my colleagues should speak up. They say things privately, they don’t say publicly. I said it publicly before I announced I wasn’t running."

Tuesday morning Greg Sargent pointed out that Corker's critique "opens the door to a whole new round of press scrutiny of the GOP’s ongoing enabling of Trump. Corker confirmed that most Senate Republicans view Trump as, well, dangerous and crazy" in his NY Times interview that sent Trump into orbit yesterday.

Corker declined to answer when asked if he believes Trump is unfit for the presidency. But the only reasonable way to read all these comments is as a declaration that Trump is indeed unfit-- and that most Republicans know it. After all, Corker had previously said that Trump’s inner circle is helping to “separate our country from chaos.” Now he has added that Trump needs to be restrained by his inner circle from devolving into conduct that could end up unleashing untold global destruction-- and that most Republicans know it.

Corker is getting a lot of press plaudits for his unvarnished appraisal. But as James Fallows writes, there is a good deal that Corker can actually do right now if he wants to mitigate the threat that he himself says Trump poses. As chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has a range of powers that could help constrain Trump, including the power to hold public hearings to draw public attention to the ways in which Trump’s temperament threatens untold damage. At a minimum, Corker can be asked whether he intends to do these things, and if not, why not.

But whatever Corker says and does now, his new comments should precipitate a fundamental change in the way the press treats the ongoing GOP enabling of Trump. Corker has forced out into the open the fact that Republicans recognize the sheer abnormality and danger to the country of the situation we’re in, which opens the door for much tougher media questioning of them about their awareness of-- and acquiescence to-- this state of affairs.

This can start with a simple query: Do Republicans agree with Corker that Trump regularly needs to be constrained by his top advisers from engaging in conduct that threatens severe damage to the country and the world? If so, what are Republicans prepared to do about it?

In August, Jane Chong and Benjamin Wittes offered a useful set of guidelines for thinking about Trump’s misconduct. They divided it into three categories. First, there are his “abuses of power,” such as the nonstop self-dealing, the pardoning of former sheriff Joe Arpaio, and the firing of his FBI director. Second, there are his “failures of moral leadership,” which constitute a general degradation of his office via, among other things, his unprecedented, serial lying and efforts to destroy the institutional legitimacy of the free press. To this second category we can add Trump’s refusal to unequivocally condemn the Charlottesville white supremacists and the White House’s use of taxpayer funds to stage a weekend stunt in which Vice President Pence walked out of a football game, which are both part of a broader effort to continue stoking divisions.

Third, there is the “abandonment of the basic duties of his office,” which includes the failure to make appointments and (I would add) the deep rot of bad faith that has infested the White House’s approach to policy: He indicated he’d sign anything at all that would let him boast of destroying Barack Obama’s signature accomplishment. I would suggest a fourth category of misconduct: Trump’s sheer megalomaniacal indifference to the fundamental notion that his office confers on him any obligation to the public of any kind. This overlaps with the conduct discussed above and also includes the refusal to release his tax returns and his ongoing sabotage of the Affordable Care Act, which could harm millions.

As Chong and Wittes note, what’s challenging is to determine what sort of level of degradation of our institutions, political system and norms of political conduct all of this misconduct adds up to when taken together. We do know that congressional Republicans continue to enable many of these strands in isolation, and they continue to airbrush away the significance of misconduct that is glaring enough to require their condemnation, usually by making some variation of the claim that Trump is learning on the job. But Corker has now asserted that Republicans know Trump’s presidency constitutes an ongoing, abnormal, multifaceted danger to the country. This should intensify media scrutiny of this series of dodges, evasions and enabling exercises, and make it harder for Republicans to get away with them.

Meanwhile, at the same time, The Post's fact-checker squad pointed out that Señor Trumpanzee has made 1,318 false or misleading claims in the last 263 days. The man is a congenital liar and it's almost impossible to keep up with all the lies, big and small. That's why the Washington Post has a whole team working on it. "When you track Trump’s claims so closely," they wrote, "it can often feel like deja vu. Trump has a tendency to repeat himself, and that includes his false or misleading claims... With almost exactly 100 days left to go in our year-long project, Trump is inching ever closer to breaking 2,000 claims."

Very much related was the poll Morning Consult released yesterday showing Trump's approval rating decreasing in every single state. He's even losing ground in Wyoming (down 3 points), Kentucky (down 6 points), Oklahoma (down 5 points), Montana (down 7 points), Arkansas (down 5 points), Kansas (down 6 points), Mississippi (down 6 points). And in states where voters already hate him he fell even more. He's down 10 points in Vermont, down 11 points in Connecticut and Delaware, down 12 points in his native New York. On top of that, right before the crucial Virginia general election, his approval is down over 6 points. Worse yet, his disapprove ratings in Virginia have gone from 40.6% to 52.9% since he took office.

And in the crucial battleground states for the 2018 midterms-- Trump is shaping up to be an anchor for Republican candidates, down. Take a district like OK-05 (Oklahoma City), already the least Trump friendly district in very red Oklahoma-- the only race where he won less than 60% of the vote. (He beat Hillary there last year 53.2% to 39.8%.) When he took office his statewide disapprove was an innocuous 27.20%. Since then it's climbed over 10 points to 38.9%. That's statewide. Imagine what it must be in Oklahoma City. In fact, on primary day Trump came in third in Oklahoma County with just 22,117 votes (25%) while Rubio and Cruz both bested him. But you know who else bested him on that day in that county? Bernie won 32,368 votes, more than Trump, more than Cruz and more than Rubio. The OK-05 Dems are running a dedicated Berniecrat next year, Tom Guild.

His net approval in Iowa is minus 11%. In Minnesota it's minus 17%, Wisconsin's is minus 12%, minus 15% in Michigan, minus 21% in Illinois, minus 6% in Pennsylvania... all states with key, key House and/or Senate races next year. A minus 19% net approval isn't going to help Leonard Lance or Rodney Frelinghuysen or Christopher Smith in New Jersey and a minus 22 net approval certainly wont do any good for Trump rubber-stamps like Mimi Walters, Darrell Issa, Devin Nunes, Ed Royce, Dana Rohrabacher, Duncan Hunter, Jeff Denham, Steve Knight and David Valadao in California.

Trump has failed to improve his standing among the public anywhere-- including the states he won handily as the Republican nominee during the 2016 presidential election, according to the survey, which was based on interviews of 472,032 registered voters across each state and Washington, D.C., from Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration to Sept. 26.

The negative swings in net approval ranged from as high as 30 percentage points in solidly blue Illinois and New York to as low as 11 points in red Louisiana. But in many of the states Trump easily carried last year-- such as Tennessee (-23 points), Mississippi (-21 percentage points), Kentucky (-20 points), Kansas (-19 points) and Indiana (-17 points)-- voters have soured on the president in 2017.

...Perhaps more concerning for Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill ahead of the 2018 midterms-- which typically serve as referendums on the presidency-- is a growing enthusiasm gap among GOP voters and dissenting partisans.

From January to September, the share of Republicans who strongly approve of Trump declined by 10 points, from 53 percent to 43 percent. Meanwhile, the intensity of disapproval among Democrats and independents has risen. Seventy-one percent of Democrats said they strongly disapproved of Trump in September, up 16 points from January, and among independents, there was an 11-point bump in strong disapproval, from 26 percent to 37 percent.

Those figures may encourage the Democratic Party, which is hoping to harness that energy-- and a lack thereof for Washington’s ruling party-- to ride a wave similar to the one that gave Republicans control of the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014.

Nonpartisan political handicapper and former Roll Call columnist Stuart Rothenberg said in a Sept. 25 interview that while the growing enthusiasm gap doesn’t guarantee a wave election, “the potential drop-off in Republican turnout, along with independents behaving like Democrats in the midterm elections, create a significant risk.”

...The more immediate problem for Trump, according to Rothenberg, is that his declining numbers will reduce his influence with Republicans on Capitol Hill, whom he’ll need to help secure legislative victories.

“He wants to have clout, and to the extent that he is deemed to be a drag-- an albatross-- on Republicans running around the country, it just lessens his influence on the Hill,” he said.

As The Congressional GOP Falls Apart, The Party Is Looking More And More Like TRUMP

We've been commenting lately about how mainstream Republicans are starting to announce their retirements from Congress earlier and in greater numbers than normal. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Dave Reichert (R-WA), Charlie Dent (R-PA) and David Trott (R-MI) have already announced they've had it and won;'t be returning to Congress in 2019.  None of them specifically mentioned the new report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, a study that shows hate crimes-- crimes targeting people based on their race, religion, sexuality, disability or national origin-- rose about 5% since Trump was installed in the White House. States with the biggest rates of increase were Indiana (+123%), Minnesota (+27%), Michigan (+22%), New York (+20%), California (+11%) and Kentucky (6%). Cities with the biggest increases in hate crimes are Portland, Oregon (+200%), Phoenix (+46%), NYC (+28%), Seattle (22%), DC (+22%), Cincinnati (22%), Los Angeles (+13%), Philadelphia (+9%) and Chicago (+8%).

Professor Brian Levin, who directed the study, says that attacks against Muslims and transgender people have been rising rapidly and he attributes the rise in general to Trump's rhetoric, which appears to Nazis and racists to be offering them unintentional permission to go on the offense, even violently.

That said, Charlie Dent was interviewed by Andrew Desiderio for the Daily Beast and he seemed to be blaming the retirements on Trump's "isolationism, protectionism, and nativism" plus the nihilism and dysfunction that have marked his first half year in the Oval Office. Dent admitted he didn't vote for Trump last year, neither in the primary nor in the general election.

Since Trump’s inauguration, Dent has clashed with Trump on a host of issues. He criticizes the president’s “economically isolationist tendencies on trade” and his “restrictionist approach” on immigration. He calls the president’s travel ban “ill-considered and horribly executed,” for example, and fought hard against Trump when he was pushing for the passage of the American Health Care Act-- the House version of an Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill.

Ahead of the AHCA’s eventual passage, Dent took his concerns straight to Trump-- a man who he believes focuses too heavily on personalities in his approach to politics, rather than substantive policy.

“I was in two meetings with the president. One went well, the other not so much,” Dent said with a laugh. “We just came down on different sides of that. I was opposed to the House bill, and he spoke negatively of the House bill after the fact-- said it was mean. So I don’t know. Go figure.”

Dent was suggesting that Trump decided to lobby support for the bill when he thought it was in his own interest, and soured on it when he realized it could be more of a political ticking time-bomb.

Dent’s pushback against the president on the merits of the AHCA was something that would earn most elected Republicans a primary challenger at their next election. In his meetings with Trump, Dent suggested fixes to the AHCA that went entirely against Republican orthodoxy: that some of the Obamacare taxes remain in place, that the Medicaid aid cuts be softened, and that a provision defunding Planned Parenthood be scrapped.

“He wasn’t happy that I was not supporting the bill, and he let me know it,” Dent said. “He said it was pretty clear it would undermine tax reform if we didn’t pass that bill and that I was going to cause great damage to the Republican party. And he blamed me. OK, but it didn’t change my opinion.”

Unlike Trump, Dent doesn’t make his criticisms personal. He decries the shift toward personality-based politics that he believes predates Trump, but has taken center stage in the Trump era-- and when he agrees with the president, he does so enthusiastically.

Dent applauded Trump’s recent agreement with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to combine Hurricane Harvey relief funds, a debt ceiling increase, and a government funding mechanism into one piece of legislation. The deal was met with disgust from conservatives.

“It was absolutely the right call,” Dent said. “There are not 218 republican votes to extend the debt ceiling for three months, six months, 18 months. So clearly the Democrats had some leverage and the president recognized that. So for the guys in my party that are complaining about the deal… the reason why we got the deal that we got is because a lot of our guys wouldn’t vote for a debt ceiling anyway.”

Dent, who hails from what he calls the GOP’s “governing wing,” was referring to the party’s ideological purists-- those who, in his view, are “very good at telling us what they can never do because it violates their principles.” In recent years, for example, Republican lawmakers have demanded that modest spending cuts be tied to any increase in the federal debt ceiling.

...[T]he conservative hardliners in the House Freedom Caucus have gained immense power and leverage over the years. They successfully forced out embattled House Speaker John Boehner in 2015, and have threatened to shut down the government if their demands for spending cuts aren’t met. Their votes were critical for the passage of the AHCA, which many of them threatened to vote against on the grounds that it wasn’t conservative enough. Dent refers to them as obstructionists who remain “cohesive as a unit” to derail any negotiations with the other side.

“They can’t pass what they want, but they can stop things from happening,” Dent said, referencing the government shutdown in 2013 as the first incident that sparked his consideration of retirement.

“Some of the frustrations predated Donald Trump,” Dent added. “The difficulty of enacting just the most basic fundamental items of governance-- from keeping the government open to not defaulting on our nation’s obligations, and other similar things like budget agreements and just necessary bills that had to be enacted or re-authorized-- these types of matters were becoming extraordinarily difficult to enact.”

Still percolating is the uptick in internecine warfare that will manifest itself in destruction, ideological (and careerist) primaries. We've been reading about Bannon's and Mercer's plans to finance neo-Nazi extremists against mainstream GOP Senate incumbents in Alabama, Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee and Mississippi. The likeliest result will be candidates less able to compete for the votes of independents in general elections-- and seriously depleted campaign war-chests. Even Paul Ryan has a Republican opponent from the Trump wing of the party, one who Bannon is trying to persuade to run as a third party candidate in the general election where he can do Ryan the most harm. Crazy Republicans, huh?

Lots Of Retirements By Incumbents Always Precede A Political Tsunami-- Most Recent: Charlie Dent

Leading his party to doom and destruction

Before you get a political tsunami that wipes out your party, you get ripples-- entrenched swing state incumbents in the tough seats start announcing their retirements. This year the first to throw in the towel was Ileana Ros Lehtinen-- first elected in 1989 and never seriously challenged in an increasingly blue district because her crony Debbie WassermanSchultz always protected her. The 2006 Almanac of American Politics listed her South Florida district's PVI at R+4. She had drawn the boundaries herself in the state Senate. A decade later, the 2016 Almanac of American Politics rated the same district-- no longer FL-18, but FL-27-- as a PVI R+2. McCain had beaten Obama there 51-49% in 2008 but Obama turned it around in 2012 and won the district 53-47%. Last year Hillary eviscerated Trump there-- 58.5% to 38.9%, Hillary's best performance in a Republican-Held congressional district anywhere in the country. That and Wasserman Schultz's loss of power within the Democratic Party was the writing on the wall for Ros-Lehtinen. When the new PVI for the district came out-- D+5 (an unprecedented swing)-- she announced her impending retirement. The DCCC has never fought an election there are has no idea how to win the district, so in a non-tsunami year, the GOP would have a chance to hold the district. But in 2018? Not even DCCC bumbling will save this seat for them.

Ros Lehtinen is a mainstream conservative and she was just the first of her breed to face the bitter reality. Next came Dave Reichert in WA-08, most of whose voters live in the suburbs of Seattle and Tacoma. Reichert was first elected in 2004, the same year Kerry beat Bush in the district 51-48%. 4 years earlier, Gore had beaten Bush there 49-47%. The PVI in the 2006 Almanac of American Politics listed WA-08 as D+2. Reichert proved popular and he hung on as Obama beat McCain 51-47% and then beat Romney 50-48%. Last year, Hillary beat Trump 47.7% to 44.7%, though the district had been slightly rejiggered and was sporting an R+1 PVI. The new PVI, though, is an ominous "EVEN." Reichert was considered fairly safe but in a tsunami year... the calculations for that Beltway safety are mostly moot. The Democrats will have more than half a dozen candidates vying for the nomination in the jungle primary. The district is no slam dunk for an incompetent and bumbling DCCC but if a good candidate emerges in this district that went overwhelmingly for Bernie, we should see a flip blue there.

And then Thursday, came the third mainstreamer calling it quits: Charlie Dent. His Lehigh Valley district-- including both Bethlehem and Allentown-- had a PVI of D+2 right after he was elected in 2004. Both Gore and Kerry had won the district, albeit very narrowly and by 2014 the PVI had slipped to R+2. Obama still managed to bet McCain, 52-47%, but in 2012, Romney took the district 51-48%. Hillary expected to win but she came nowhere near Obama's numbers and Trump out-performed Romney. Trump won 51.8% to 44.2%. In 2014 the Democrats didn't even bother running a candidate against Dent and in 2016 the DCCC ignored Rick Daugherty's challenge entirely. He spent $21,560 against Dent's $1,746,125. That's how the DCCC was looking at the "swingyness" of PA-15. In any but a wave election, the district would have to be seen as having swung too far into red territory for the DCCC to handle. The PVI is now R+4.

There are 5 counties that make up PA-15-- Leigh, Northampton, Lebanon, Dauphin and Berks. It wasn't Bernie country. Hillary and Trump dominated the primaries and in the general Trump was viewed as the lesser evil. Democrats can't count on this one for a flip but with Dent out of the picture they have at least a theoretical shot at it.

Far right-wing nut and Trumpist, state Rep. Justin Simmons had already thrown his MAGA hate into the primary ring earlier in the week with this anti-Dent ad:



Dent was the chairman of the centrist Tuesday Group. His formal retirement announcement will come tomorrow in Allentown.

In a district that has become more Republican-leaning during his tenure but still is viewed as a potential swing seat, Dent has drawn a reputation as someone liked by both sides of the aisle. In his general elections, he’s been bolstered by support from Democrats and independents.

His decision Thursday drew reactions of shock and expressions of praise from both Democrats and Republicans, many of whom caused his phone to continually buzz with text messages and calls as the congressman headed to a round of evening House votes.

Bethlehem Mayor Robert Donchez described Dent as a good congressman who works across the aisle and served the Lehigh Valley well.

“I may not have always agreed with him on every issue, but he was accessible and worked really hard,” said Donchez, a Democrat.

State Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh, who represents the district that Dent held during his tenure in the state Senate, said he was caught off guard by Dent's decision. He has known Dent since childhood, and described him as someone unlikely to be frightened by a primary challenger.

"I can say unequivocally, with 100 percent certainty, that's not the case," Browne said. "I know Charlie. It would not be because of a campaign by Justin Simmons."

Dent said that with his exit, he expects “serious, credible Republican candidates” to announce campaign bids for what he expects will be a competitive race.

National Democrats said they’re aiming to take advantage of the opportunity. Evan Lukaske, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said they “are confident that a strong candidate will step up to run and represent the people of the 15th Congressional District in November.”

While Dent may be leaving his post after next year’s election, the outspoken legislator doesn’t sound like he’ll be quieting down after that. He said he hasn’t given much thought yet to his exact plans for his next phase, but said he wants to remain part of discussions on where his party is headed.

“I think we need to bring a stronger voice to the sensible center, of not only our party but of the country,” Dent said. “Both political parties are in a pretty bad place right now and I want to be part of that conversation but maybe from a different seat, from the outside.”

You'll know the Republican mainstreamers see the congressional party really collapsing when we see retirement announcements from folks like Erik Paulsen (MN), Fred Upton (MI), Leonard Lance (NJ), Bruce Poliquin (ME), John Katko (NY), Jeff Denham (CA), Lee Zeldin (NY), Mike Simpson (ID), Martha McSally (AZ), Dan Newhouse (WA), David Valadao (CA), Rodney Frelinghuysen (NJ), John Faso (NY), Mario Diaz-Balart (FL), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Ryan Costello (PA), Adam Kinzinger (IL), Tom Reed (NY), Paul Cook (CA), Dan Donovan (NY), Jaime Herrera Beutler (WA), David Joyce (OH), Pat Meehan (PA), Mike Turner (OH), Peter King (NY), Tim Murphy (PA)... That would signal a real realignment in Congress-- mainstream versus neo-Nazis. Could happen; but still way to early to predict any of these members are seriously considering retirement.

Josh Kraushaar wrote something smart for the National Journal yesterday about the retiring Republicans. "The decisions to step down by Reps. Dave Reichert of Washington and Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania expanded an already-growing map of vulnerable GOP seats next year. Neither seat was on The Cook Political Report’s list of most competitive races, given the incumbents’ impressive track records back home. Dent’s retirement turned his seat from a near-Republican lock to one that 'will be in the thick of the battle for control of the House,' as The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman wrote. With Reichert’s departure, his district shifted from solidly Republican to pure toss-up. Such drastic shifts don’t happen often... Trump’s scattershot approach to governing-- not to mention his historically low approval ratings-- has driven these rank-and-file Republicans to depart. In a statement announcing his decision, Dent referred himself as part of the 'governing wing' in Washington and took a swipe at 'outside influences that profit from increased polarization.' One of Reichert’s last comments before retiring was decrying Trump’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals decision as 'not in the American DNA.' Since retiring, Ros-Lehtinen has loudly slammed President Trump for his record on gay rights, race relations, and treatment of immigrants."

“Trump is fracturing the party to the point where the risk of wholesale retirements and resignations will be high from mainstream lawmakers who came to Washington to do business,” said one senior GOP strategist. “The people who got into public service because they had a successful life, wanted to have rational conversations with rational people on a regular basis, and are now finding the idea of coddling activists around Trump’s daily Twitter habits not very appealing.” Already, Republicans are bracing for additional pivotal retirements. The GOP watch list includes two swing-district members from Michigan: Reps. Fred Upton, the former chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Dave Trott, a junior lawmaker from suburban Detroit. Trump carried both their districts, but these R+4 seats (according to the Cook Report’s Political Voting Index) would be vulnerable in a Democratic wave.

With every Republican retirement from a competitive district, the GOP math of holding its House majority becomes increasingly difficult. Retirements both serve as a signal that the political environment is bad, while also opening up opportunities for the opposition that hadn’t existed before. Name-brand members of Congress can win under tough circumstances, but it’s exceptionally difficult for lesser-known recruits-- even the most talented among them-- to run against punishing political headwinds.

But the issue of whether Republicans can maintain power in 2018 feels secondary to the more consequential long-term development-- that the ideological disposition of elected Republicans is changing before our very eyes. Most of the Republicans who are leaving politics feel like throwbacks to a bygone era-- more serious about governing than showboating. Meanwhile, the next generation of Republican candidates are more likely to be running in the image of Trump-- substance-free, needlessly confrontational, and playing to a hardcore base. When Trump loyalists characterize House Speaker Paul Ryan as a squishy RINO, it’s clear that antiestablishment forces care more for revolutionary zeal than party affiliation.

It’s no secret why Republican leaders have been working tirelessly for years to prevent such candidates from emerging in primaries. But with a president egging on nihilistic elements, it’s becoming a thankless undertaking. If the pace of congressional retirements accelerates, it’s not just the House majority that will be at risk. It’s the future of the Republican Party.

Future MSNBC contributor and Trump critic