Sen. Mitch McConnell Says He’d Drop Trump “Like a Hot Rock.” Why Wait?
A bombshell New York Times report, about how the Republican Establishment has been unable to stop Donald Trump, reveals that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to disown Trump if he becomes the nominee:
…Mr. McConnell has begun preparing senators for the prospect of a Trump nomination, assuring them that, if it threatened to harm them in the general election, they could run negative ads about Mr. Trump to create space between him and Republican senators seeking re-election. Mr. McConnell has raised the possibility of treating Mr. Trump’s loss as a given and describing a Republican Senate to voters as a necessary check on a President Hillary Clinton, according to senators at the lunches … Of Mr. Trump, Mr. McConnell has said, “We’ll drop him like a hot rock,” according to his colleagues.
If Trump is so horrible for the Republican Party, why wait?
The Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee could announce today that they will provide no support for Donald Trump in the general election.
If that means Donald Trump runs third-party instead, that’s good news for Republicans! No longer is their party tainted by a David Duke-flirting, Mussolini-quoting, Vladimir Putin-loving demagogue. They will have a taken a stand for universal principles of decency and protected their party from hate.
Might an independent Trump split the Republican vote in November? Perhaps. But it’s clear that McConnell and other leading Republicans think Trump is a sure loser anyway. Better to lose without him than with him.
But it’s also possible that Trump sinks like a stone, mercilessly pummeled by both parties in a fashion he has yet to experience. He could prove to be closer to a Ross Perot-type candidate, pulling a few anti-Establishment votes from parties but winning no Electoral College votes and not materially affecting the outcome.
There are electoral risks in every direction. But Trump is an aggressive malignant tumor on the Republican Party, risking its very existence. When faced with cancer, when at all possible, the first step is to remove the cancer before it spreads.
The Trump tumor is spreading fast. The party shouldn’t wait.
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This has been reposted from the Campaign for America's Future.
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Image by DonkeyHotey on Flickr.
