Since President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey, one question has been repeated over and over: With Democrats lacking any real governing power, are there a few good elected men or women in the Republican Party who will stand up to the president’s abuse of power as their predecessors did during Watergate?
But we already know the answer: No.
The GOP never would have embraced someone like Trump in the first place – an indecent man with a record of multiple bankruptcies, unpaid bills and alleged sexual harassments who lies as he breathes – if there was any possibility for the answer to ever be yes. Virtually all the good men and women in this party’s leadership have been purged or silenced; those who are left have either been bought off by lobbies or have cynically decided to take a ride on Trump’s Good Ship Lollipop to exploit it for any number of different agendas.
It has not been without costs. Trump has made every person in his orbit look like either a “liar or a fool,” as David Axelrod put it. So call off the search.
That’s why the only relevant question is this: Are there tens of millions of good men and women in America ready to run and vote as Democrats or independents in the 2018 congressional elections to replace the current GOP majority in the House and maybe the Senate?