McConnell Gives GOP Senators Permission To Dump Trump

With Donald Trump sinking ever lower in the polls and odds-makers increasingly favoring Democrats to flip the Senate in November, the polls on the first day of August showed Democrats likely to emerge in the fall with complete control of Capitol Hill. It’s enough to have Mitch McConnell sweating about his status as a future minority leader, if not future former senator. With that in mind, CNN reports that McConnell has given Republican Senate candidates permission to distance themselves from Trump, particularly on his mass-murder approach to the coronavirus and Trump’s continued claims that it’s safe for children to return to school.

The problem for Republicans looking to separate themselves from Trump is … they can’t. By now, every single candidate up for election in House or Senate who carries a GOP label has signed on to Trump’s most outrageous claims repeatedly. McConnell may have authorized them to show “flexibility” and “independence,” but neither of those qualities have on display in the least over the last three years. Instead, even Republicans who went into the Trump era after disparaging Trump the candidate have been utterly subservient to his every random whim. They’ve backed Trump on his destruction of vital alliances, backed Trump in his racism and xenophobia, backed Trump on an endless array of unsupported conspiracy theories. And in January, they underscored their support for Trump by signing the ultimate loyalty pledge when Republicans in both House and Senate refused to remove Trump from office despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt. Continue reading.