Posted by
Rude One
You've been reading the articles about how Republican Senator Bob Corker said Donald Trump's recklessness and ignorance are
setting us "on the path to World War III." Or maybe you've seen the
Washington Post story
that quotes multiple sources, many anonymous, on how Trump is becoming
isolated and rage-filled and unpredictable.
Or perhaps you read Michelle
Goldberg in the
New York Times
saying, "Among people who work in politics, Republicans as well as
Democrats, it is conventional wisdom in DC that
resident Trump is
staggeringly ill-informed, erratic, reckless and dishonest."
Or you
could have seen the
Politico article
that "Trump, several advisers and aides said, sometimes comes into the
Oval Office worked into a lather from talking to friends or watching TV
coverage in the morning," and they have to calm him down by rubbing his
chins or something.
Corker, who isn't running for reelection in 2018, also said, "The vast
majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here...of
course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the
tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him
in the middle of the road."
And that's the thread that runs through these articles. It's taken as
true that many, many Republicans know that Trump is unfit for office.
What else we can glean is something that Vox's Ezra Klein
tweeted
today: "Every political reporter know plenty of top Republicans
routinely talk like Corker behind closed doors. There is such widespread
cowardice here, and the country is paying the price."
I don't know many people who have access to Republicans in Congress, but
the few I've spoken to say the same thing, that, with the exception of
the nutzoids in the Freedom Caucus, pretty much down the line and around
the nation, Republicans in the House and Senate know that Trump is
unfit. What's more, they know he's dangerous. What's more, they know
that if he does something completely insane, like nuke North Korea, they
are responsible.
So it weighs on these cowards. Do we challenge the
president and face the wrath of Breitbart and Fox and the doxing,
death-threatening legions of insane tweeters and Redditors and 4 and
8chan-nintgtons, bots and true believers alike? Or do we just keep our
mouths shut and hope we get reelected and hope beyond hope that he's not
that crazy?
Here is where those political reporters and all the connected pundits
come in. Yeah, you're not supposed to name your sources. Yeah, it's a
big damn journalistic principle. But if I thought my best friend was
going to shoot up a school, I'd violate the bro code or whatever and
tell someone because that's what you do. (Note: None of my besties own
guns.) When it comes to Trump, we're talking far more than that level of
danger, and that's coming from Corker, one Republican who did speak
out.
You know how you play this game, the one that asks, "If you could go
back in time and stop Hitler, would you?" Here, you don't even have to
kill a baby. But you might stop a nuclear war. You might get a madman
out of the position to inflict his madness on the world.
Media folk just need to reveal the Republicans who believe that Trump
can't function as the president. Out them. Let's get it all out in the
open. I don't know if the next step would be for them to impeach or
remove him in some way. But at least it might force them to support
something like the Lieu/Markey bill to compel a president to go through Congress before launching an offensive nuclear strike.
Sure, you're gonna burn sources. But maybe that's a small price to pay
to force sunshine into the darkness we find ourselves facing.