Re: TRUMP - Pros & Cons
[QUOTE=Kamal;1232864]The ONLY reason the GOP won't abandon Trump is because they know the power he holds over the Trumpanzee's. Not a single R president in history has managed to pull off (in terms of rallying support) the way Trump has. The GOP knows, they know it very well. And they want to abuse it as long as they can ride the gravy train to power. They aren't stupid, they're just hedging their bets on power and personal gain rather than their oath to the constitution.[/QUOTE]
I kind of disagree. What I think we're seeing right now is a party looking down the barrel of a split, and one that will leave the party in a severely weakened position. They have a block of voters that are desperate to believe anything that will be told to them, so long as it sounds like it's beneficial to them.
The establishment Republicans - Cheney, McConnell and others have become hostages of their own party's making - they're hanging on to their jobs, as you said - they played along as long as they did, and now they know that they can't backtrack for fear of reprisal like what Graham has seen coming back to his home state at the airport. At some point or another, when you deal with this kind of extremism, you're going to have people questioning their loyalty and devotion to their cause - and anything less than a true believer will get crushed.
If they split, they will be weakened for decades, as the party will be too busy trying to keep the base on their side - and unable to fight for an election while fighting on two fronts. McConnell doesn't have as much control as he likes to project - he knows he's not running the party much anymore.
They have the advantage of having a base that will believe anything that they tell them (Jewish Space Lasers causing the forest fires in California!), the problem is you can only do this for so long before they come looking for something substantial delivered and looking at the Republicans to fulfill the promises that were made that they won't be able to keep.