NYT: The Full-Spectrum Corruption of Donald Trump

[ehrnst]

By Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, and served in the previous three Republican administrations.

Some of us who have been lifelong Republicans and previously served in Republican administrations held out a faint hope that our party would at some point say “Enough!”; that there would be some line Mr. Trump would cross, some boundary he would transgress, some norm he would shatter, some civic guardrail he would uproot, some action he would take, some scheme or scandal he would be involved in that would cause large numbers of Republicans to break with the president. No such luck. Mr. Trump’s corruptions have therefore become theirs. So far there’s been no bottom, and there may never be. It’s quite possible this should have been obvious to me much sooner than it was, that I was blinded to certain realities I should have recognized.

In any case, the Republican Party’s as-yet unbreakable attachment to Mr. Trump is coming at quite a cost. There is the rank hypocrisy, the squandered ability to venerate public character or criticize Democrats who lack it, and the damage to the white Evangelical movement, which has for the most part enthusiastically rallied to Mr. Trump and as a result has been largely discredited. There is also likely to be an electoral price to pay in November.

...............................................................................................

A warning to my Republican friends: The worst is yet to come. Thanks to the work of Robert Mueller — a distinguished public servant, not the leader of a “group of Angry Democrat Thugs” — we are going to discover deeper and deeper layers to Mr. Trump’s corruption. When we do, I expect Mr. Trump will unravel further as he feels more cornered, more desperate, more enraged; his behavior will become ever more erratic, disordered and crazed.

Most Republicans, having thrown their MAGA hats over the Trump wall, will stay with him until the end. Was a tax cut, deregulation and court appointments really worth all this?

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/opinion/sunday/corruption-donald-trump.html

[mikeysnot]

1. where were these liflong republicans

when mcconnel was holding up lifetime circuit judgeships and scalias SC seat?

[gratuitous]

2. An excellent question

Which I'm confident the likes of Peter Wehner would just as soon not answer, let alone contemplate. He's heroically riding to the rescue now, not cowering in the shadows, hoping to escape notice. Just appreciate how white his horse is!

[Me.]

3. "criticize Democrats who lack it"

Talk about rank hypocrisy.

[Botany]

4. Remember both Trump's lawyer and accountant have flipped too.

Sweet words below.

"A warning to my Republican friends: The worst is yet to come. Thanks to the work of Robert Mueller — a distinguished public servant, not the leader of a “group of Angry Democrat Thugs” — we are going to discover deeper and deeper layers to Mr. Trump’s corruption. When we do, I expect Mr. Trump will unravel further as he feels more cornered, more desperate, more enraged; his behavior will become ever more erratic, disordered and crazed."

[procon]

5. Trump who? As Trump flails closer to madness and the inevitable crisis to remove him,

the SOP will see Republicans queuing up to deny that they ever supported Trump, didn't know him at all... totally surprised... no one could have anticipated... etc., etc. Remember how it was with Bush? Toward the end we saw Republicans swearing they never voted to go to war in Iraq. Hell, most of 'em would whine that they voted for a Democrat instead of Bush.

Eventually Trump will crash and burn and his zombie cult will turn of him in an instead and tear him apart at the first sign of weakness. The cracks are already showing and the lies are getting harder to believe.