Trump/Putin relationship, subject of Republican criticism
The last six months or more have been marked by a procession of statements of concern and criticism from many leading Republicans towards Donald Trump. For example, U.S. Senator John McCain has said that scandals within the Trump White House are reaching “Watergate size and scale.” Likewise, McCain’s cohort U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said of Trump this past weekend:
When it comes to Russia, he’s got a blind spot, and to forgive and forget when it comes to Putin regarding cyber attacks is to empower Putin, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.
U.S. Senator Ben Sasse, a rising Republican Party star, also trashed Trump’s idea of forming “an impenetrable Cyber Security unit” with Vladimir Putin:
This obviously should not happen–& obviously will not happen. Why the President of the United States would tweet it is inexplicably bizarre https://t.co/Y3YvnzRaku
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) July 10, 2017
Conservative pundit William Kristol has bashed Trump nearly every day from the beginning. And former Congressman Joe Scarborough, after cheerleading Trump into the White House, now criticizes Trump’s actions and even questions Trump’s sanity. Many of the statements by these and other Republicans raise serious charges, and go way beyond traditional intra-party public criticism. But what is the ultimate goal of these Republican charges against Trump?
How many of these Republicans, for example, are calling for or working towards Donald Trump’s impeachment? How many are actively looking into removing Trump under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution due to mental incapacity? How many favor fully pressing forward with the Trump/Russia investigations, rather than criticizing Trump over Twitter but then running interference for him in a crucial Congressional hearing (the day after having dinner with Trump), as Republican U.S. Senator Marco Rubio has done?
The adage “watch what people do, not what they say” seems to apply here. Without evidence of concrete action, the fusillade of statements against Donald Trump by fellow Republicans appears to be mere words that such Republicans might be able to point to later, if Trump goes down before his term ends, to claim they were on the right side of history. It’s the most cynical form of ass-covering.
Photo by FolsomNatural, used under Creative Commons license. https://is.gd/h73XJw
