Republicans finally see the writing on the wall: DC insider

While President Donald Trump’s approval ratings have been in freefall since January, according to former Jimmy Carter speechwriter James Fallows, the “real milestone” has only come in recent days as the very Republicans who enabled Trump have begun turning against him, having realized that “he won’t be here forever.” The public was way ahead of GOP lawmakers when it came to bailing on the president over war, the melting economy, and other issues, and now conservative lawmakers are beginning to respond to their angry constituents. Says Fallows, this is the dawn of the “post-Trump era.”

“As everyone except Trump himself seems to realize,” writes Fallows, “the primary-election results of this past week make his impending lame-duck-hood seem more real. He keeps showing tighter and tighter control, over a smaller and smaller pure-MAGA cult base. He can still rally his loyalists to knock off any Republican who has displeased him. But the obvious cost is smoothing the path for Democrats in the fall.”

A clear sign that Republicans are finally seeing the writing on the wall came earlier this week, when conservative lawmakers put up a halfhearted, failed fight for his ballroom funding, then broadly rejected his attempt to establish a “slush fund” for J6ers. While Trump may cajole them into a deal yet, Fallows says that “this little crack in previously solid GOP support is like the first mocking laugh in The Emperor’s New Clothes, or the peek behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz. The magic cloak of invincibility has slipped off, revealing the enfeebled man inside.”

Republicans who dare to dream beyond the Trump era, says Fallows, must have come to the understanding that what is good for the president, like a ballroom or slush fund, is looking “less and less good for them” every day. Trump managed to defeat his in-party adversaries in a number of primaries recently, “but the primary season is almost over and that leverage will be gone.”

As a result, a growing number of Republicans are splitting with the president, having recognized that “something will come after Trump.” One of those “somethings,” warns Fallows, is the enormous effort that will be required to fix the mess he’s made, which won’t be easy. “The work of recovery when he is gone will take many decades, and may be impossible in some areas,” explains Fallows. “For instance: How will Europe, Canada, Mexico, Japan ever ‘trust’ US ‘leadership’ again?”

But “as the end of Trump’s era begins to come into view,” Fallows asserts that Republican voters disillusioned by the president need to ask “why their representatives turned a blind eye to these abuses for so long."