As GOP Senators Bail, Republicans Are Learning What A Trump Party Looks Like

[homersapien 11,354]

Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan: out. Donald Trump and Steve Bannon: in.

WASHINGTON ― What does a Party of Donald Trump look like?

As a second mainstream Republican chooses to leave the Senate rather than run for re-election in a party led by President Trump, an organization molded by Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan appears to be in an identity crisis that typically afflicts a party out of power, not one that controls both chambers of Congress and the White House.

“What party?” laughed Rick Tyler, a longtime GOP consultant who worked for the presidential campaign of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas last year. “It’s hard to say that it’s anyone’s party right now. It is both intellectually and ideologically unmoored.”

Tyler said Trump’s inability to focus on legislation, or even understand it, makes it virtually impossible for him to lead his own party, let alone the nation. “He doesn’t have a core set of beliefs. He never has. He’s going to believe in what’s good for him at the moment,” Tyler said. “The president is supposed to be the North Star in all of these things. And he’s just a constellation. And we’ve got no way of knowing where he’s going to be in six months.”

That possibility was raised as a warning by a number of Republicans as Trump rose in the polls in the summer and autumn of 2015, even as many party leaders argued the opposite: that Trump, as a nominee and a president, would come to adopt the values and objectives of their party.

Instead, though, Trump has shown little interest in Republican values or even much loyalty to longstanding members of the party whose structure got him elected to the White House.

“Trump is pretty cavalier about all the work and sacrifice involved over the years to win Congress and now the White House,” said Texas political consultant  Matt Mackowiak.

As president, Trump has routinely attacked members of his own party, in speeches, media interviews and, most ubiquitously, on Twitter. He frequently blames Republicans for failing to pass legislation, as if they are some group he has no affiliation with.

Now, just nine months into his term, both Tennessee’s Bob Corker and Arizona’s Jeff Flake have decided not to seek re-election to the Senate next year ― and are openly calling Trump a menace to the nation.

“We must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal,” Flake said from the floor of the Senate on Tuesday. “And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else. It is dangerous to a democracy.”

Corker earlier this month criticized Trump for running the White House as if it were a “reality show” and possibly leading the country into “World War III” with his careless language.

On Tuesday, he told CNN that Trump’s primary achievement would be debasing the office. “He’s obviously not going to rise to the occasion as president,” Corker said.

Read the rest of the article at: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/grand-old-trump-party-republicans_us_59efd400e4b04917c59412e4?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

[SaltyTiger 7,765]

On 10/25/2017 at 11:24 AM, homersapien said:

 

 

Now, just nine months into his term, both Tennessee’s Bob Corker and Arizona’s Jeff Flake have decided not to seek re-election to the Senate next year ― and are openly calling Trump a menace to the nation.

 

" Draining the swamp".......great stuff