President Donald Trump wanted his Republican defenders to stick to a very specific script when they defend his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Republicans, don’t be led into the fools trap of saying it was not perfect, but is not impeachable,” Trump tweeted on Sunday. “No, it is much stronger than that. NOTHING WAS DONE WRONG!”
I agree, Republicans! Please, please follow his lead on this. I’m begging here.
Trumpism is the new conservatism. It can never be wrong, but only failed.
Dear Leader Must Be Obeyed!
Jennifer Rubin (Still amazes me that she grew a brain along the way) has a decent writeup about just this thing:
This is the conundrum for legislators; Trump would shoot you on 5th Avenue in broad daylight if needed.
Now he’s barking at the Moon!
Trump probably truly believes this. After all, extortion and bribery have been his go-to tactics for decades. But this forces Republicans to finally pick a side. The USA or Donald Trump. I have no confidence, but do hope, they will choose wisely.
They’re not bucking Trump. They love their jobs in Congress waaaay too much.
Why wouldn’t he? He got basically a clean bill of health for his shenanigans with russia, from his point of view.
He didn’t do anything here that hadn’t been done with russia before the election, except being maybe a little less demanding on his end.
Trump demands fealty from the Republican party…to this point he has received it from almost everyone, and the few who have stood up to him have been attacked strongly by his devout followers. And, it’s all fealty to Trump…not to principles, not to policies, but to him directly. They really have shifted to following a king instead of living in a democracy, and that’s frightening for the future of our nation.
The real question is how long the Republican party continues along this path…I’m really doubting there is a point where they withdraw support from Trump in order to save their future, or the nation.
Which is why results may end up surprising people in the end.
That’s right, dig faster!
Oh, no. And now they’re eating each other. It was not good to have known you, Rudy. And this is from Ken Vogel.
It’s not really an official demand until he says "I hereby demand. . . " Until then it’s just more bloviating between rounds at a golf course.
Could there be a rift in the grift?
This is a good point…for four years Trump has gotten away with maybe 100 things (maybe more?) that would have sunk any other politician’s career, but for whatever reason he’s able to get away with them. A large part of it is his base, which has the Republican party cowed, so they just follow along…and that’s not going to change no matter what impeachment finds, they have cut themselves off from any facts about Trump so his bad dealings will be ignored, called lies by “the deep state and left wing media”, or explained away as just fine (unless a Democrat did it of course).
Trump really has no reason to believe that impeachment will turn out any different, that he will finally be held responsible…even when he’s been held responsible in his life it’s been a minor sting that he could wave away (the Trump charity fine this week is just one more example). He still has his base behind him, they are still keeping the Republicans in line, and it’s extremely unlikely that anything in the impeachment process will change that. Really, the 2020 election is going to end up as the only chance to hold him accountable for what he has done.
I saw this, and also this from Rubin which makes complete sense: Bloomberg putting his billions to work and legally to promote Democratic candidates and strengthen voting laws and a suggestion he buy Fox news in order to bury it.
trumPP will hate that the handle “third president to be impeached” will be attached to his name for the rest of his life and even in the eventual obits. In the short term it will give Demo oppo research a big target
But the thing is, Trump really believes this. So if Republicans try any other line of defense, he’ll eventually shoot it down, leaving them empty-handed and looking quite foolish. The pickle they’re in is quite delicious, though decidedly non-kosher.