Donald Trump and the House of Cowards
So that’s it now, eh? All it took was Donald Trump symbolically firing Steve Bannon, who hadn’t played a meaningful advisory role in months. That was enough on Friday to get the Republican Congress to call off the dogs for now. This was at the end of a week in which the GOP seemed to finally find its intestinal fortitude by calling out Trump on his racism, his inability to lead, his mental instability. But with the flip of a switch, they’re right back to being a House of Cowards.
Do the Republican House and Senate really think this will change anything? Donald Trump has spent his entire life willing to stoke the flames of racism for his own purposes. He spent the entire election pandering to racists and white supremacists in order to get ahead. And he spent this week siding with white supremacists in exact words. The existence of a Nazi like Steve Bannon on Donald Trump’s staff wasn’t the problem; it was merely a symptom. This will change literally nothing, and the GOP knows it. But they’re once again willing to spinelessly roll the dice on what they know is a losing bet.
The Republican leadership is hoping against hope that Bannon’s firing somehow magically transforms Donald Trump into a non-racist and a real leader. They know it won’t happen. But it’s easier to sit back and do nothing and passively lose, than it is to take a stand that just might give them a chance to succeed. And make no mistake, the Republican Congress is losing.
The Republican Congress has gotten none of its agenda passed. The GOP is in essentially the same position as if it had come out strong against Trump during the general election and helped ensure that he lost to Hillary Clinton. The only real difference is that now the GOP has to take the blame for everything Trump is getting wrong. The Republican footing heading into the midterms is growing more tenuous by the day.
They could take a stand against Trump, censure him, nudge him toward the door. It might even give them a better chance of hanging onto their own seats. But that would require courage, and create the possibility that he fires back at them. So they’d rather sit back and do nothing and watch their party burn. Tina Fey’s biggest laugh in her epic takedown of Trump this week was when she called Paul Ryan a “pussy” for not doing anything about it. The public has caught on to the GOP’s cowardice. And if they don’t do something fast, the voters will.
