While the nation careened from disaster to disaster, the last few days, we have scarcely had time to take in the more mundane stupidity and malevolence of the Trump-Pence White House. Like, for example, the furious threat from Mike Pence's chief of staff to insufficiently loyal Republican lawmakers.
Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff railed against congressional leaders in closed-door remarks to wealthy donors and called for a “purge” if GOP lawmakers don’t quickly rally behind President Donald Trump’s agenda.
In remarks at a Republican National Committee event at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington on Tuesday morning, Nick Ayers also warned that Republicans are “on track to get shellacked” in next year’s midterm elections if GOP lawmakers don’t pass Trump’s legislative priorities.
Nick Ayers does not appear to be a bright fellow, if for no other reason than his apparent entrenched belief that Donald Trump has "legislative priorities." Donald Trump's staff has produced asinine half-budgets that not even House and Senate burn-it-downers could plausibly take seriously. Donald Trump slid his way through multiple would-be House and Senate attempts to "repeal Obamacare," one of his own stated top "legislative priorities," and during no point in the process was able to demonstrate even the barest knowledge of what any of the bills actually proposed to do.
Donald Trump does not have "legislative priorities." Donald Trump has rote phrases repeated ad nauseam that may or may not bear resemblance to any particular thing his own staff is working on. The Republican House and Senate have continually set the "legislative priorities" of the past half-year, and even at that have only been able to get their act together enough to do slightly less than the bare required minimum.
The closest we have yet gotten to a "legislative priority" on Trump's part is Trump's demand that the United States cut his own taxes, while claiming he's not doing that, and the jury is out on whether he understands the slightest thing about his own supposed proposal.
“Just imagine the possibilities of what can happen if our entire party unifies behind him? If — and this sounds crass — we can purge the handful of people who continue to work to defeat him,” Ayers said, according to an audio recording of the remarks obtained by POLITICO.
When Donald Trump began his campaign, it was considered common wisdom among Republicans that the man was a race-baiting big mouthed doofus who needed to be shunned in favor of any take-your-pick "serious" Republican contender. Now we've got Nick Ayers demanding a cult of personality be constructed around the big orange moron and that his Republican detractors be purged in favor of whoever can best parrot Trump's own behavior.
How far has the Republican Party fallen, that they are so eager to remake themselves in Donald Trump's image. Even if it means casting aside all the things they used to claim to stand for; even if it means purging those that do not fully embrace the man's ignorant, petulant fury.
Have some dignity, Nick. Even a speck of it, for God's sake.