If Republicans Are Ever Going To Turn On Trump, This Might Be The Moment

Article/Op-Ed in FiveThirtyEight
Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead
June 4, 2020

Lee Drutman wrote about whether Republicans might actually turn against Trump for FiveThirtyEight.

Of course, so far the criticism against Trump has mostly come from retired generals or members of Congress who already had a history of publicly chastising the president. But as conflict escalates over the protests, more and more elected Republicans may start to speak up.
After all, Trump’s continued unpopularity threatens to weigh down Republicans’ chances of holding on to the Senate or taking back the House, and head-to-head polling shows Biden holds a steady lead against Trump in the general election. Is it possible, then, that Republican leaders might privately be wondering if they’d be better off with somebody else on the ticket in November? With unemployment at historic levels, protests spreading and the coronavirus pandemic lingering, Trump faces an increasingly difficult path to reelection.
Most likely, Senate and House Republicans will eventually find a way to defend Trump’s actions, as they have done before (remember the impeachment trial?). Trump may not be perfect, they may say, but the Democrats are much worse. This is the prevailing rationalization of our zero-sum politics.
But in moments like this, when nobody knows exactly what to say or do, a few unlikely public critiques of Trump could have a surprising cascade effect. And if the president continues to transgress widely-shared democratic values — putting congressional Republicans in an increasingly difficult electoral position — we may yet see a consequential crack in the Republican Party.
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