Republicans stand by as the nation goes to hell

By Kerry Eleveld

After GOP Sen. Bob Corker raised the prospect last week that Donald Trump could propel us into World War III, House Speaker Paul Ryan responded to the horrific prospect this week with the fierce urgency of whatever.

They should just "talk it out" among themselves, Ryan told reporters Wednesday.

It was a revelation of sorts in the sense that it was hard to imagine Ryan carving out an even more useless space for himself in Washington than he has already been occupying. Conservative columnist Michael Gerson wrote:

So how does Ryan imagine a Corker/Trump conversation might unfold? Over dinner, Corker accuses the resident of being a chaotic, directionless, shallow liar who could start a nuclear war. Trump passes the peas and attacks Corker for being short. This is, after all, the way gentlemen resolve their differences.

Trump, who has consistently fumed over the nettlesome nature of being resident, appears to have reached a perpetual boiling point.

Angry at Congress's inability to dismantle his predecessor's signature achievement, health care, Trump is taking it upon himself to scrap the government subsidies millions of Americans depend on to pay for their coverage. Trump, who clearly believes this was a master stroke that will force Democrats to the bargaining table, has now placed the squeeze on Republicans to fix the subsidies fast lest millions of Americans see their premiums skyrocket 20 to 25 percent by 2020. 

After all, the first spike in coverage will come at the beginning of next year—becoming the GOP's de facto opening bid in a midterm election year that will ultimately be a referendum on their turn at one-party governance.

But hey, for a guy who often can't even remember why he stepped into a room, so goes his negotiating prowess. The White House is less about “strategy” these days than simply scrambling to keep Trump from blowing up the world.

Defense Secretary James Mattis and national security adviser H.R. McMaster reportedly toiled to find a way for Trump to shake his fist at Iran without totally sinking the Iran nuclear deal with which U.N. investigators say the country has complied. When Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had originally advised Trump to stay in the deal, he apparently "threw a fit." So Trump's national security team spent months formulating a compromise between Trump's need for cathartic juvenile expression and our country's imperative to keep another regime from becoming the next unsolvable nuclear problem, à la North Korea.

In short, alongside Trump's governing incompetence, his bouts of rage have emerged as the most consistent and predominant feature of his residency. He “gets angry” when he realizes what his proposed policies will do; he's mad at Congress about health care, the Iran deal, taxes, ad infinitum; he seethes over his abysmal media coverage and wants “equal time” in the so-called ‘fake’ news; he's irate that a Puerto Rican mayor dare question his leadership as the death toll rises around her; he chafes at being called a “moron”; he's furious with Rex Tillerson and before him, Bob Corker, and before him, Jeff Sessions, and before him, James Comey, and... and... and.

And yet, in the face of what has become a crystal clear and present danger to the existence of our country, Ryan and his Senate counterpart Mitch McConnell have emerged as some of the most feckless, immoral, and negligent leaders of our time. More simply put—these guys might well be the biggest couple of tools to ever "lead" Congress.

While Ryan wants Trump and Corker to go to couples therapy (as if that'll solve our WW III dilemma), McConnell was busily covering his right flank this week with an offering of red meat to the GOP's starved base. In a Weekly Standard interview, McConnell tried to ease activists’ calls for his ouster by suggesting that Republicans would no longer honor the Senate's "blue slip" tradition. 

The practice allows any senator to effectively block consideration of a judicial nominee from her or his own state, which gives the minority party considerable power to slow down the judicial appointment process (a power that Republicans abused during President Obama's last two years in office). It remains to be seen if Judiciary Committee chair Chuck Grassley will follow McConnell's lead, but McConnell had to dangle something to distract conservative activists from his year of missed opportunities. Why not actively work to give Trump more power since he's been comporting himself so admirably? 

McConnell and Ryan are currently duking it out as the most reviled politicians in the land—detested almost equally as much by Trump's rabid supporters as Democratic voters. They lead a Republican Congress that, in the words of the Senate GOP's campaign arm, "has replaced President Obama as the bogeyman for conservative GOP primary voters."

They couldn't be a more deserving pair as they continue to empower the man-child in chief who is now bitterly destroying everything he can get his stubby little paws on.