Dahlia Lithwick: Stop Assuming Republican Senators Will Do the Right Thing

[babylonsister]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/11/stop-assuming-senate-republicans-will-do-the-right-thing.html

Stop Assuming Republican Senators Will Do the Right Thing
A new genre of impeachment fantasy theorizes that Trump accomplices will suddenly find their spines. Don’t buy it.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Nov 18, 2019
7:06 PM


If this were a rom-com, instead of a constitutional crisis, I like to think the ending would go something like this: Senate Republicans, crashing through an airport departures gate (it always involves crashing through an airport departures gate) would catch up with Senate Democrats somewhere around the metal detectors and tearfully acknowledge that, yes, Donald Trump is not merely destroying America but also the soul of the Republican Party, and that although the party has been blind and shortsighted, it has also realized the error of its ways, and yes, it was you all along. And then there would be tears, and clapping and reconciliation, as underpaid TSA workers high-five one another and an optional dance number would break out. The whole thing would be a real Christmas blockbuster.

Despite the fact that this is indeed a constitutional crisis, this rom-com-worthy sentiment has still persisted far too long: Democrats are problematically in love with the notion that underneath all of their politics and posturing, Republicans in the U.S. Senate are still dashing heroes with hearts of molten gold, and, despite years spent playing the bad boys, they’re really just waiting to do the right thing. Once the right moment comes, they will wake up and realize how easy it is to change course, and then, in a blaze of bipartisan glory, they will dump Donald Trump, reinstate shattered norms, and knit the country together into a more perfect union once more. Country before party, Me Before You, Tears and Recriminations. But also Happily Ever After.

snip//

Don’t believe it for a minute. Senate Republicans may be fussing internally about how best to play out the impeachment trial, but not one of them, with the possible exception of Mitt Romney, is casting around for any kind of off-ramp here. As Renae Reints notes in Fortune, this isn’t even a close call. Republicans in the Senate are not looking for a principled reason, or even a pretext, that might allow them to follow their heart’s true desire and break with this president. “On the whole, however, Republicans side with party leadership,” Reints writes. “The latest Gallup poll on Trump’s job approval—conducted after the House launched their impeachment inquiry—show 87% of GOP voters are behind the president. This means Republican members of Congress are likely to stick behind Trump, regardless of what the independents or the other 13% of Republicans believe.”

There is no shame in wishing that Republicans secretly want to save America from the chaos, rancor, and daily moronic-ness that is Trump and Trumpism. In the days after the 2016 election, I used to soberly intone that Lindsey Graham was a patriot first and partisan second, and that the fault line between him and Trump would lie in the first cataclysmic national security crisis. I was, unfortunately, wrong about that, as I realized as we watched Helsinki unfold. Just as Democrats and Never Trumpers who looked to Rod Rosenstein or Robert Mueller or Jim Mattis to make like Harold and the Purple Crayon and draw an emergency exit were also living largely in a fantasy world. We soothed ourselves by believing Susan Collins and Jeff Flake were simply waiting for a reason to side with Christine Blasey Ford, but we were wrong there too. It’s mighty tempting to believe in an off-ramp, but every piece of data we have reveals that Mitt Romney isn’t going to shepherd Senate Republicans away from having permanently lashed themselves to Trump. There is no reason to believe that tweaking the Senate rules will do so either. The GOP plans to rise or fall with this president, and that shouldn’t surprise a soul. The funny thing about unrequited pining is that sometimes, it merely begets more unrequited pining.

Like the bad boy in the leather jacket chewing gum in the parking lot outside the high school gym, underneath the thuggish exterior, there sometimes lurks merely a thuggish interior. Republicans who can no longer even explain why they will vote to acquit Donald Trump will do it anyway, but despite all the cover, and the wishing, and the convenient off-ramps we devise, nothing will lead them to avail themselves of the opportunity to dump this president. So instead of twisting ourselves into taffy sculptures to see if there are any procedural tricks we can use to make it easy for them to do the right thing, we should acknowledge that, based on everything we have seen over the past three years, the most likely scenario is the simplest: Senate Republicans were never coming together to help Democrats save constitutional norms, values, or institutions, and they won’t do so now. We’re getting onto that plane all alone. And should they come round midway through the impeachment process, it won’t be because they have hearts of gold but because they realize they may lose everything: Recent elections suggest sticking with Trump may be a mistake, and recent polls suggest voters take the Ukraine allegations rather seriously. Their grappling seriously with that is the only possible happy ending here, and it doesn’t come with a montage.

[dchill]

1. I never assumed it. Never would.

[Cosmocat]

7. Yeah

Never had even the first thought any if them would ecer do the right thing.

[madaboutharry]

2. They are concerned about one thing

and that is their own elections.

[Cosmocat]

8. Its much deeper than that

They BELIEVE they are righteous and are in a battle against all that us evil.

[babylonsister]

10. I don't agree.

They know right from wrong but have made a calculated decision to do whatever is necessary to remain in power and, like iq45, have no qualms about how they look doing it. Integrity and doing the right thing don't enter into the equation.

[Cosmocat]

12. its both

You are correct in their strategic assessment, but even deeper is that they have drunk their own kool aid. DECADES of hate framing liberals, while patting themselves on the back about how they are true patriots and christians.

They believe they are morally superior and ANY means is justified in their great, epic war against the evil liberal boogyman.

THAT is why they can justify/rationalize the least christian, most unethical and un-American POS imaginable being their party leader and POTUS.

[struggle4progress]

3. I expect we'll have some real good fun tarring them if they don't

[edhopper]

4. No one expects them to

they will protect the traitor at all costs.

[NCLefty]

5. We just need ONE MORE blockbuster scandal where there's essentially a smoking gun.

Zzz...

#americanjustice

[KentuckyWoman]

6. My expectation is that Republican aren't capable of doing the right thing.

If they were, they would have left the Republican party.

[Cosmocat]

9. Yep

nm

[SharonClark]

11. Ditto

[uponit7771]

13. +1, the republican party isn't interested in democracy any longer