When did Donald Trump start losing prominent Republicans? The New York Times may employ the noxious Maggie Haberman, but it offers an excellent visualization of leading Republicans’ willingness to publicly dump Trump, in the form of a timeline of many of Trump’s most notorious statements (“I would bring back waterboarding, and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding”) running alongside a timeline of when various Republicans disavowed him.
Club for Growth was the first, but it’s a safe bet that the organization decided to oppose Trump less on the basis of “I like people that weren’t captured” than because of whatever could be discerned of his tax policy. Shortly after Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the country, Rep. Reid Ribble of Wisconsin said he wouldn’t vote for Trump if Trump was the nominee; former New Jersey Gov. Christie Todd Whitman compared Trump’s rise to that of Hitler and Mussolini a few days later. Trump’s glee in being praised by Vladimir Putin was followed a few days later by Rep. Bob Dold saying no thank you.
One thing missing (though easily enough filled in mentally) from this litany of offensive remarks and Republicans backing away from the candidate is the election calendar. Because clearly a lot of top Republicans let Trump’s early comments slide, confident he’d never be the nominee. As it became harder and harder to believe he was going to fade, more and more Republicans came out against him, with an escalation in late February. On March 2:
More than 100 Republican national security leaders, many of them former Republican administration officials, sign a letter stating they are “unable to support a party ticket with Mr. Trump at its head.”
But here’s the thing: Trump still has House Speaker Paul Ryan. He still has Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The defections show that there are still a few Republicans for whom it’s possible to go too far, but the real story is in how many ostensibly mainstream Republicans continue to support a nominee who has attacked a federal judge over his Mexican heritage, called on Russia to hack his political opponent’s emails, mocked a reporter’s disability, and suggested that “Second Amendment people” could prevent Hillary Clinton from picking judges.
America needs something better than this. Can you give $3 to make sure Donald Trump is never president?