His reascension, as nominee or the eventual winner, threatens to spark the same clashes with the Hill GOP that took a heavy toll on the party.
Congressional Republicans are steeling themselves for a return to daily life with Donald Trump — which means constant, uncomfortable questions about his erratic policy whims and political attacks.
With Trump far ahead of the GOP primary pack and leading President Joe Biden in some polls, Republicans are getting a preview of future shellshock akin to their experiences in 2016 and his presidency. It’s likely to continue for the next 11 months. And perhaps four more years after that.
Trump’s recent call to replace the Affordable Care Act is triggering a particularly unwelcome sense of deja vu within the GOP. Even as many Senate Republicans steered away from Trump over the past couple years, now they’re increasingly resigned to another general election that could inundate them with the former president’s often fact-averse and hyperbolic statements.
Let’s also not forget that even before Trump came along at all the Republican party was an irredeemable pile of shitheads. People like Mitt Romney, Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, etc. were all in for years on sabotaging the government to make Democratic lawmakers look bad, stealing court seats, attacking people’s voting rights, etc., and that’s just recent memory. They all should have been unelectable since the 60s for things Goldwater and Nixon did.