Quote:
Originally Posted by FlyWf
Why the **** did Rubio go so hard at him at the confirmation hearing? That's just incredibly shortsighted.
Seems to me like the Rubio/Cruz wing of the party are pretty transparently hedging their bets. They are posturing some mix of Trump obstructionism followed by eventual obedience.
I assume they are betting this will leave them outs in either case: if Trump is popular or at least maintains his standing on the right, they can say they were ultimately good soldiers and fell into line. If Trump turns into a disaster, they can retroactively hand themselves Profile in Courage Awards for their brave and principled opposition to Trump and cast themselves as the new standard bearers of a GOP that's learned some hard lessons and should have followed Rubio/Cruz all along.
It's not even a bad bet. They're guessing, probably rightfully, that they can craft their own narratives and the public, or at least the GOP electorate, will forget all the contradictory behavior that lies against whatever the eventual, convenient story they want to tell is.
Politics is LIFO imo. If Trump turns into a clownshow and his approval goes in the ****ter -- the NeverTrumps and others who pussy-footed around will come out strong against him and pretend they were strident opponents all along.
It took Trump a long time to win over Fox, the mainstream GOP, etc. If he becomes politically toxic, they will jump quick imo and then much of the pliable mainstream media will go scrambling to restore the old order where Rubio et al are the sober-minded, center-right Beltway normals who always have the best interests of the Republic at heart and were against Trump all along, if we had only listened.
I think there's a sort of savvy play here to ultimately be a GOP troll-cum-toady. Troll Trump a little bit when the cameras are on at key points so you can quickly get out of the fire escape when the thing turns full-on dumpster fire and point to a few high profile examples of apostasy, but ultimately be a straight-line GOP voter so you don't get primaried. Most of these high profile cases like Rubio and Cruz are Senators and Trump can't do THAT much to punish them and ultimately he needs some measure of their collective consent, so Trump probably can't punish the trolling behaviors too severely.
Last edited by DVaut1; 01-23-2017 at 04:18 PM.