U.S. Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) attend a Senate Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommitte (REUTERS)
Guardian writer Chris Stein says do not expect the lock-step Republican Party to find it’s spine and wholly disown it’s MAGA king in time for the November midterms — but you can expect a smattering of GOP adherents to break away as a matter of political survival.
“The wrath of Donald Trump has kept congressional Republicans in line for much of his second term thus far,” said Stein. “But as the November midterm elections draw closer, the president’s allies in the Senate and House of Representatives appear increasingly willing to defy a president who appears to have asked lawmakers for too much in some areas and too little in others, all while the public sours on his administration.”
Stein points out that in both chambers, tiny enclaves of Republicans have joined with Democrats to advance resolutions requiring that Trump receive Congress’s permission before continuing hostilities against Iran. Republican dissidents in the House, he said, have helped Democrats pass another round of aid for U.S. ally Ukraine in its effort to repel an invasion by Trump’s friend Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Other joined Democrats in an effort to protect Haitians from deportation. In the Senate, a host of Republican senators stepped up to give Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte, “a cold reception.”
Republicans do not disagree with Trump unless they want the tiny MAGA turnout in Republican primaries to replace them with Trump’s chosen puppet, but Stein says Republicans “appear bedeviled by the complications of their three-seat majority in the Senate, and historically slim hold on the House.”
“While they managed to enact a major domestic policy bill less than six months after Trump’s inauguration, the president has made few serious asks of Congress in the months since, leaving lawmakers to navigate shutdowns instigated by Democrats in protest of his policies and the brouhaha over the government’s investigation into convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein,” said Stein.
And Trump “has made no apologies for his apparent disengagement with the concerns of congressional Republicans,” said Stein, reminding readers that the president announced at a recent cabinet meeting that: “I don’t care about the midterms.”
However, the GOP does. Trump’s approval ratings are historically low and Democrats are leading Republicans on the generic ballot. Gas prices are high and polls show voters believe Trump’s entirely voluntary war on Iran is afflicting them with inflation.
Those trends may indeed have been motivating defections by some lawmakers, particularly Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Reps. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Penn.) But if Republicans are looking for a sudden rash of independence to save their reputation with voters in the midterms, they should temper their enthusiasm, said Doug Heye, a former House Republican leadership aide. Instances of Republicans standing up to the president “may be less significant than they appear,” and thus unlikely to convince voters the party can act as any sort of mediating influence over the president.
“What does it say about Trump’s hold on the party that 1.8 percent of the House Republican conference voted against him? I’d submit nothing,” he said.
