PULL THE PLUG
Donald Trump’s poll numbers were bad before the coronavirus crisis began. They got even worse during the coronavirus. As Trump has grown more violent over the past week while utterly failing to lead, his poll numbers have dropped to historically bad levels. Trump is in such a bad position that if he and the RNC weren’t so joined at the hip, the RNC would probably be looking at going with a different nominee in November.
But while the Republican National Committee largely doesn’t exist apart from the Donald Trump campaign, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could get rid of Trump in a heartbeat. Why would McConnell want to do this? Certainly he would never do the right thing for its own sake. He’s not that guy. But if the election were held today, not only would Trump lose, McConnell would lose his Senate majority for sure, and maybe even his own seat – and McConnell is too selfish to let that happen.
If McConnell selfishly decided to oust Trump, he could do it by simply asking the House to send over another article of impeachment. McConnell has significant financial control over the Republican Senate, so if he tells them to vote to convict and remove Trump, it’ll happen. Of course the fact that McConnell can oust Trump before the election means he doesn’t have to; McConnell can simply use the threat of ouster to force Trump into announcing he won’t seek reelection.
But if you think about how ugly it would be for Mike Pence or any other Republican presidential nominee to go into November with Trump having recently been ousted, it’s clear that McConnell will try to avoid doing this unless things reach a point where he selfishly feels he has to. With five months to go, Trump’s numbers could theoretically bounce back, so even if McConnell does pull the plug on Trump, he’ll want to wait awhile longer before doing it – unless Trump forces the issue before then.
At this point Donald Trump is limping along, barely still in office, fully crippled, and relying on occasional stunts to try to create the illusion that he still has the power he wants us to think he has. But there’s a reason Trump has managed to limp along this long without getting himself ousted: he’s avoided forcing the issue when it comes to the things that would likely have gotten him ousted. He never did pardon any of his co-conspirators. He never did (directly) fire Robert Mueller, and so on. Perhaps most importantly, Trump never has forced the military to choose between him and the American people – until now.
So far this week Donald Trump has been rebuked by General Barry McCaffrey, Admiral Mike Mullen, and – for the first time – General James Mattis, his own former Secretary of Defense. This comes even as Trump is sending U.S. troops to attack peaceful protesters in Washington DC. If the military carries out a deadly atrocity against the American people on Trump’s orders, or if the military refuses to carry out such an order, the nation will be at the kind of impasse where Trump’s presidency will effectively end that minute.
Right now Mitch McConnell has to be holding his breath and hoping that Donald Trump doesn’t force the issue with the military in way that makes Trump’s presidency so untenable, McConnell has to think about immediately pulling the plug on him to keep the GOP’s chances from imploding before November. Keep in mind that even if McConnell is going to pull the plug on Trump, he’ll publicly support him right up until the minute he backstabs him. As always, McConnell’s words mean nothing at all. But if Trump keeps asking the military to choose between Trump and America, McConnell may have to choose between Trump and his own political ambitions.
