You've been reading the articles about how Republican Senator Bob Corker said Donald Trump's recklessness and ignorance are setting us "on the path to World War III." Or maybe you've seen the Washington Post story that quotes multiple sources, many anonymous, on how Trump is becoming isolated and rage-filled and unpredictable. Or perhaps you read Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times saying, "Among people who work in politics, Republicans as well as Democrats, it is conventional wisdom in DC that President Trump is staggeringly ill-informed, erratic, reckless and dishonest." Or you could have seen the Politico article that "Trump, several advisers and aides said, sometimes comes into the Oval Office worked into a lather from talking to friends or watching TV coverage in the morning," and they have to calm him down by rubbing his chins or something.
Corker, who isn't running for reelection in 2018, also said, "The vast majority of our caucus understands what we’re dealing with here...of course they understand the volatility that we’re dealing with and the tremendous amount of work that it takes by people around him to keep him in the middle of the road."
And that's the thread that runs through these articles. It's taken as true that many, many Republicans know that Trump is unfit for office. What else we can glean is something that Vox's Ezra Klein tweeted today: "Every political reporter know plenty of top Republicans routinely talk like Corker behind closed doors. There is such widespread cowardice here, and the country is paying the price."
I don't know many people who have access to Republicans in Congress, but the few I've spoken to say the same thing, that, with the exception of the nutzoids in the Freedom Caucus, pretty much down the line and around the nation, Republicans in the House and Senate know that Trump is unfit. What's more, they know he's dangerous. What's more, they know that if he does something completely insane, like nuke North Korea, they are responsible. So it weighs on these cowards. Do we challenge the president and face the wrath of Breitbart and Fox and the doxing, death-threatening legions of insane tweeters and Redditors and 4 and 8chan-nintgtons, bots and true believers alike? Or do we just keep our mouths shut and hope we get reelected and hope beyond hope that he's not that crazy?
Here is where those political reporters and all the connected pundits come in. Yeah, you're not supposed to name your sources. Yeah, it's a big damn journalistic principle. But if I thought my best friend was going to shoot up a school, I'd violate the bro code or whatever and tell someone because that's what you do. (Note: None of my besties own guns.) When it comes to Trump, we're talking far more than that level of danger, and that's coming from Corker, one Republican who did speak out.
You know how you play this game, the one that asks, "If you could go back in time and stop Hitler, would you?" Here, you don't even have to kill a baby. But you might stop a nuclear war. You might get a madman out of the position to inflict his madness on the world.
Media folk just need to reveal the Republicans who believe that Trump can't function as the president. Out them. Let's get it all out in the open. I don't know if the next step would be for them to impeach or remove him in some way. But at least it might force them to support something like the Lieu/Markey bill to compel a president to go through Congress before launching an offensive nuclear strike.
Sure, you're gonna burn sources. But maybe that's a small price to pay to force sunshine into the darkness we find ourselves facing.
