What outrages will Republicans let Donald Trump get away with? Or maybe the real question is, what won't they let him get away with? Axios’ Jim VandeHei makes the case that, thanks to—per the headline, “Trump’s mind-control superpowers”—Republicans are not going to turn against Trump anytime soon, even possibly if he does something completely unprecedented in its abuse of power. His evidence:
- For all the drama, "never before”s and controversy, at 501 days into his presidency, Trump has more party support than any president since World War II except George W. Bush after 9/11. The more Republicans see and hear, the more they agree with him.
- House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, the second ranking Republican in the House and possible next Speaker, on CNN yesterday became the latest GOP leader to claim “no collusion,” despite Robert Mueller's ongoing probe. The more they hear his terms, the more they repeat them.
- Michael Hayden, a huge Trump critic who's a former CIA director and National Security Agency director, tells Kara Swisher in a Recode Decode podcast that Republican support is so unmovable that impeachment, regardless of evidence, would be unwise because it'd be seen as “soft coup.”
VandeHei ignores the possibility that this isn’t so much about Trump’s “mind-control superpowers” as about today’s Republican Party—yes, Trump is breaking norms and pushing for autocracy and generally being evil at every turn, but a significant chunk of Republicans were headed that way anyway. Trump has just expanded what they thought was possible. The piece’s alternative headline is “Trump has persuaded the Republican Party on the Mueller investigation, Amazon,” but the alternative explanation there is “the Republican Party will always do whatever necessary to maintain power and right now that means Trump.”
Also unmentioned in this piece is the role of the media—this is coming, after all, from the publication that recently stated as fact that “Jeff Sessions is an honorable person,” never mind all the racism. But as much as the Republican Party was primed and ready for a Trump-like figure, the media certainly wrapped him up in a bow and delivered him to the party. So maybe it’s less about Trump’s superpowers and more about who surrounds him.