Wanted: Three Principled Republicans to Save America From Trump
In the summer of 2001, the late Sen. Jim Jeffords from Vermont left the Republican Party, declared himself an independent and caucused with the Democrats, giving the Dems a 51-seat majority in the upper chamber. Jeffords, a lifelong Republican who had served seven terms in the House before winning three Senate races, told supporters that he had struggled with "the changing nature of the national party" and that "in order to best represent my state of Vermont, my own conscience and principles that I have stood for my whole life," he would leave it.
Today, the proximate causes of Jeffords' break with the GOP seem downright quaint. He strongly opposed what he saw as the fiscal recklessness of President Bush's mammoth tax cuts, and was appalled when Senate Republicans refused to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which he had supported as a member of the House back in 1975.
Sixteen years later, many Republicans privately express deep concerns over Donald Trump's temperament, lack of experience and propensity for sparking diplomatic crises with impromptu rants on Twitter. Some are as concerned as their Democratic counterparts about signals that the administration is bent on undermining the Atlantic security alliance and forming closer ties with Russia. Others are alarmed by his attacks on the judiciary, and the perception that he's a thin-skinned, self-obsessed authoritarian.
Some have come forward to offer public statements condemning Trump's travel ban or some of his more inflammatory tweets, but the usual political incentives keep them from going further than that. While Trump's the least popular newly elected president in the history of polling, nearly nine in ten Republicans either "approve" or "strongly approve" of the job he's done so far, according to the latest Politico/Morning Consult poll. As long as the base remains behind the president, Republican officeholders can grumble, but they're constrained from voting against his less qualified nominees or otherwise standing up to his agenda. This is true for the party as a whole; as long as they have unified control of the federal government, and the base is behind Trump, aggressive oversight of the administration will prove elusive.
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