Current speculation seems to be turning against the prospect that Trump will fire Special Council Robert Mueller.  I believe he will: maybe this week or next, maybe later, as things close in.  

After all, what price has he paid for unashamed, unconcealed corruption?  What price has he paid for jaw-dropping incompetence or non-stop lying?  What price has he paid for selling the country out to our most dangerous adversary, disregarding the rule of law, or reneging on every campaign promise except the one that could doom the entire planet?  The list goes on, but the point is clear: Trump will fire Robert Mueller to protect himself because he knows he can.

He knows this because he has taken the measure of the Republican Party.  He has seen Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan at work, and he has seen their fellow plutocrats, theocrats, and autocrats at work.  He has seen Fox and right-wing radio at work.   

McConnell, for some time, has needed no pretense to act against democratic norms, and Ryan becomes more like him with every lame excuse he gives to help cover Trump’s rump.  Once they and the rest of the party lay down for the firing of Robert Mueller, they will realize that none of them need pretend allegiance any longer to the law or the country or the Founders or the Constitution.  Once they are fully coupled at the ass with Trump, it will be over.  

Voter suppression no longer will be applied as a Republican scalpel but as a multitude of bulldozers.  And even if they don’t get around to that before 2018, what are the odds that the dysfunction and ineptitude in our broken party will heal itself in time?

Trump, McConnell, Ryan, and the Republican establishment are on the verge of ending the rule of law in what once was the greatest democracy on earth.  It will have taken all of them to do it, but I no longer believer that any of them will hesitate to do it.  

I hope I am wrong.  I hope that some, enough, Republicans still value democracy.  But I honestly don’t see that right now.