Donald Trump’s final days put the country at a dangerous crossroad

On Feb 9, 2022

With less than two weeks until President-elect Joe Biden takes office, the nation is on edge — unsure whether Trump will incite another round of violence or just carry on, petulantly, seeking outlets to whine about Twitter’s decision to ban him. Recognizing the instability, Vice President Mike Pence has not ruled out an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment, a source close to the vice president told CNN Saturday night. The relationship between Trump and Pence is fractured — they haven’t spoken since Wednesday, when a violent mob stormed the Capitol, and the President never bothered to check on Pence’s safety.

The insurrection put the country at a crossroads. House Democrats could bring a new round of impeachment proceedings this week, this time over Trump’s role in inciting the deadly riot. If they go forward, Republicans could again be faced with a public test of their loyalty. That so few seem prepared to forcefully speak out, let alone pledge to take action against the President, suggests the Capitol siege is less likely to have marked the bloody end of Trumpism than the opening of a more dangerous chapter.

The “paranoid style in American politics,” as the historian Richard Hofstadter described it nearly 60 years ago, is nothing new. Under Trump, though, and through new organizing channels on social media, it has further radicalized the modern Republican Party and moved steadily from the fringes to the center of political power in Washington and state capitals around the country, which again saw angry clashes this week.

From their gilded bubble, top Republicans have mixed condemnations — mostly focused on Trump and his chief allies in the electoral college stunt, Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri — with a familiar refrain: that any meaningful rebuke to this horrifying display would only serve to “politicize” it and “further divide” the country. Plans to impeach Trump again and even Twitter’s deplatforming of the President should, many Republicans said, be viewed as political gambits rather than rational, overdue measures to combat a vicious assault on democracy.

But those who would deny the scope of the threat were stripped of their fig leaves — or delusions — on Wednesday, setting off an enervating race to January 20, when Pence — but not Trump — will attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.

Republicans haven’t strayed too far from Trump

But if Pence, in his bid to keep Trump onside until then, is counting on an outpouring of support from his old colleagues on Capitol Hill, he will be disappointed. Shortly before CNN reported the vice president is keeping the 25th Amendment on the table, Texas Rep. Kevin Brady rejected it — along any move toward impeachment — and suggested, ridiculously, that doing so was no different from Trump’s incitements.

“Those calling for impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment in response to President Trump’s rhetoric this week are themselves engaging in intemperate and inflammatory language,” Brady tweeted, “and calling for action that is equally irresponsible and could well incite further violence.”

Meanwhile, Hawley, who is seeking to co-opt Trump’s movement to realize his own lofty ambitions, has spent more time bleating on Twitter about a canceled book contract than addressing his role in Wednesday’s affair. Cruz, too, is shirking responsibility and even made the comically implausible argument that he has, actually, been a consistent critic of the President. Republican leadership has been mostly quiet, going through the motions of condemning the violence while refusing to endorse any meaningful action in response.

The party’s grassroots have shown little inclination to make a clean break from Trump. On Friday, Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, a Trump loyalist who has been careful not to make a full break from the President, was reelected to her post despite the GOP having lost control of the House in 2018, the White House in 2020 and the Senate in 2021.

Even retiring Sen. Pat Toomey, a Pennsylvania Republican, who was critical of the effort to upend the Electoral College count and told Fox News on Saturday that Trump has “committed impeachable offenses,” balked at pressing forward with the process.

“I don’t know whether logistically it’s actually really even possible or practical and I’m not sure it’s desirable to attempt to force him out, what a day or two or three prior to the day on which he’s going to be finished anyway,” Toomey said. “So I’m not clear that’s the best path forward.”

The refusal of congressional Republicans’ to entertain any meaningful conversation over what comes next has put the onus on Democrats to chart the path forward. But they have their own political weights to balance.

Biden has shown little enthusiasm for impeachment, knowing that a Senate trial would suck the oxygen out of his first days in office and give Republicans a high-profile forum to argue that his calls for unity and pledge to…

Donald Trump's final days put the country at a dangerous crossroad - CNNPolitics Politics

Donald Trump’s final days put the country at a dangerous crossroad

Republicans haven’t strayed too far from Trump

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