The Curious Reluctance of the GOP Congress to Leave A Sinking Ship...
Turn the clock back two years, to December of 2015.
How many of the GOP Senators and Representatives were on the >Redacted< bandwagon?
Oh, please... you might as well have invited them to an all-you-can-eat Fried Garbage Feed down at the landfill.
It didn't get a whole lot better as the primaries wore on, and remarks like "I like people who weren't captured" and "They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people" and "...I will have Mexico pay for that wall!" made headlines. The juvenile name-calling of rivals and showboating at the debates didn't win him a whole lotta Party pals, either.
The committed conservatives were wary of his blatant opportunism, willingness to say anything to get applause, and long history of association with New York-based democratic powerbrokers.
The moderates were appalled at the rhetorical bomb-throwing, pandering to the Teeper extremist groups, and vindictive, childish behavior on the campaign trail.
It did not improve a whole lot when he was the last one standing at the Convention, and left with the nomination in the pocket of his ill-fitting and overpriced suit.
More remarks "...blood coming out of her wherever", “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails", "If we would have taken the oil, you wouldn't have ISIS" etc., etc., etc., won him no friends and influenced virtually no Congressional support. As the campaign wound on through rivers of hypocrisy, bombast, shameful misogyny, racism, and hatemongering, a few of the Teeper gang hitched up, unsurprisingly. A long shot is better than no shot at all, and there might have been ways to spin the loss as a win for their "outsider" agenda.
And since America's Day of Shame (11/8/2016), the "relationship" between 1600 and the Hill has been... rocky, at best. >Redacted<'s determined refusal to learn how government is actually supposed to work, his Imperial approach to the Executive Branch, his chops as the ultimate Loose Nuke on Twitter, impulsive unilateral policy 180s, and apparently endless stream of easily-refuted "alternate facts", not to mention the apocalyptic personnel disaster that is the Office of the President have left GOP Congressional leaders seething with rage. They didn't sign up for the job of trailing around after their "standard bearer" with industrial-sized brooms and major firefighting equipment.
It was easy enough to see why they were reluctant to jump ship initially. They haven't had control of all three branches of government in a long, long time. It looked like the perfect opportunity to pull off a whole list of smash-and-grab raids for their donors, who doubtless have been telling them to "hang in there, dammit" until they get ALL the goodies.
But even so, the long-term prognosis is looking SO bleak, and the risk/return ratio must surely have flipped by now, as a string of special elections and ominous rumblings from once solid-red suburbs have been sifting plaster dust and dropping debris about their ears. They look up, and see the cracks widening, day by day.
So why don't they jump?
What could POSSIBLY be keeping them in line?
I'm gonna go out on a limb here, but I don't think it's too far-out a speculation.
What tipped me off was the most recent round of pearl-clutching and hyperventilation over the Mueller investigation. I suspect some of them have realized that Mueller is sitting on a LOT MORE INFORMATION about Russia, election meddling, banking transactions, trolls, shills, and ::koff:: campaign contributions that can be traced back to Russian sources, than they ever imagined. And some of them are as worried about what information about their own re-election funds might be floating around in that pool as they are about those staffers they got handsy with back in the day.
If I recall correctly, Mueller's scope of work was, more or less, to follow the trail of Russia-connected criminal chicanery wherever it leads.
What if it leads back to the Hill?
They may have no choice but to stick with >Redacted< and hope that together they can scupper the Mueller probe.
Or... turn.
It's like a big, long game of "chicken."
speculatively,
Bright
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