It’s beginning to look like Donald Trump has finally gone too far, even for his longtime Republican enablers in the U.S. Congress, and that could spell big trouble for a president who already has the highest disapproval rating of any incumbent American head of state at this point in their first term.
On Thursday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) made it clear that she doesn’t agree with Trump on the way he’s been suggesting that he has the right to violently assault peaceful protesters so he can hold up a Bible in front of a Washington, D.C. church.
Specifically, Murkowski praised an op-ed written by Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s former Secretary of Defense, telling reporters:
“When I saw General Mattis’ comments yesterday I felt like perhaps we are getting to a point where we can be more honest with the concerns that we might hold internally and have the courage of our own convictions to speak up.”
The Alaska Republican has a history of breaking with her party on some issues, and she also made it clear that she there’s a good chance she won’t support Trump’s bid for reelection:
“I am struggling with it. I have struggled with it for a long time I think you know that. I didn’t support the President in the initial election, and I work hard to try to make sure that I’m able to represent my state well that I’m able to work with any administration and any president.
“I think right now as we are all struggling to find ways to express the words that need to be expressed appropriately,”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement of a sitting president from your own party. Matter of fact, Murkowski sounded remarkably tepid when it came to her support of Trump, and the very fact that she referenced the Mattis op-ed certainly suggests that she agrees with what he said, including comparing Trump’s tactics to those of the Nazis. In response to Trump’s tactics against protesters, Mattis wrote:
“Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that ‘The Nazi slogan for destroying us … was “Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’ We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis — confident that we are better than our politics.”
Something is happening inside the Republican Party. It appears that Donald Trump has finally gone too far for some members of the GOP, and if only a fraction of Republican voters cast a ballot for Joe Biden or refuse to support Trump, it could well result in a landslide loss for the incumbent.
Trump has brought all this on himself, and to quote the Book of Proverbs, “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.”