Click here for another particularly good essay by Heather Cox Richardson, today's entry in her "Letters from an Amerian" system on the increasing Trumpification of the Republican party:
Amidst the Republican meltdown in Washington, a disturbing pattern is emerging.
Professor Richardson was referring to the fact that Republicans, who have been baying for increased protection at the southern border, almost overnight turned against a bipartisan bill spearheaded by conservative Republican senator James Lankford, Oklahoma, proposing the strongest (and most Republican) changes to the U.S. immigration system in decades.
After four months of Senate negotiations over the bill produced a strong bipartisan agreement, Trump pulled the rug out from under a measure that gave the Republicans much of what they wanted, partly because he wanted the issue of immigration and the border to run on in 2024, it seems, but also to demonstrate that he could command Congress to do his bidding.
It's transparently obvious that Trump does not want the border situation solved, or even substantially improved -- because he wants to continue to bash the Democrats over how terrible the border situation is. He sees it as a winning position in November, and he doesn't want to lose it.
Josh Dawsey and Michael Scherer reported yesterday in the Washington Post that Republicans are afraid to stand up to Trump out of fear that he will retaliate against them. In Politico today, Peder Schaefer described how in Republican-dominated Wyoming, Democrats are afraid to admit their political affiliation out of concern for their safety.
She goes on:
But there is a method behind the madness. Trump’s actions are not those designed to win an election by getting a majority of the votes. They are the tools someone who cannot win a majority uses to seize power.
Trump’s base is shrinking as his actions become more extreme, but he has a big megaphone, and it is getting bigger. As Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova pointed out in the Washington Post today, Putin’s awarding of an interview to right-wing former Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson in Moscow this week “demonstrated Putin’s interest in building bridges to the disruptive MAGA element of the Republican Party, and it seemed to reflect the Kremlin’s hope that Donald Trump would return to the presidency and that Republicans would continue to block U.S. military aid to Ukraine.”
I find some consolation in reading "Trump’s base is shrinking as his actions become more
extreme" in that last paragraph. But it's scary.
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