The GOP Is Still the Party of Trump

Dan Diamond reminds us of the NYT story when the Access Hollywood tape story broke:

The first thing you’ll note is the Republican candidate for president of the United States boasting about sexually assaulting women is viewed through a horse race lens. The second is that even on its own terms the headline was, at best, extremely misleading. Trump bragging about sexual predation was, in fact, a “breaking point” for few Republicans of significance. Note that even at the tine Paul Ryan’s reaction was just a fog of bullshit that didn’t actually suggest that people wouldn’t vote for Trump. Many Republicans did want to distance themselves from Trump because they thought he couldn’t win, without suggesting that the only alternative to Trump becoming president — Clinton becoming president — was acceptable. Cruz’s successful con at the RNC was the template — use some phrases that gullible pundits can interpret as a non-endorsement of Trump, and allow you to portray as a non-endorsement of Trump if he loses as you expect, but also allow you to support Trump without even contradicting yourself. And even if you’re not shrewd enough to make an ambiguous statement, like Jason “I can’t look my daughter in the eye…[Trump goes up 3 points in the polls]…if I don’t support Donald J. Trump for president of the United States!” Chaffetz — you can just go right ahead and reveal that you were lying. There wasn’t a breaking point, and there’s good reason to believe that the breaking point will only come if he loses his re-election campaign or maybe is hopelessly behind in the very late stages. Ass-covering isn’t opposition or a constraint on Trump.

And it’s this background that is critical to assessing Bob Corker saying that Trump is unfit for office. Wake me up if they do something about it.