Have the Republicans Developed "Stockholm Syndrome"?

An article in Foreign Policy by displaced former Republican pundit Max Boot suggests that Congressional Republicans have capitulated to Donald Trump's will and have begun accelerating his and their own "race to the bottom."


The lobotomization of the Republican Party appeared complete last year when the same GOP paladins who had denounced Donald Trump as a “lunatic trying to get ahold of nuclear weapons” (Marco Rubio), as a bigot who was guilty of “the textbook definition of a racist comment” (Paul Ryan), and as a “narcissist,” “serial philanderer,” “pathological liar,” and “bully” (Ted Cruz) nevertheless endorsed him for the most powerful position in the world. Tragedy turned to farce (or is it the other way around?) after the emergence of the “grab ‘em by the pussy” tape on October 7, 2016. Republicans such as Sens. John Thune, Mike Crapo, and Deb Fischer called for Trump to leave the race on the grounds that he was unfit for office, only to change their minds and re-endorse him when it became evident that he was still polling strongly among base voters.

But the Republicans’ race to the bottom — to the absolute lowest moral and intellectual depths — wasn’t over last year, and it’s not over now. It’s still continuing, with even supposedly “normal,” “moderate,” “mainstream” Republicans increasingly echoing Trump’s know-nothing effusions.

The leaders of Congress seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, which by now should really be renamed Republican Syndrome. There, on Monday, was Senate majority Leader Mitch McConnell singing kumbaya with Trump in the White House Rose Garden only hours after the president disavowed any blame for “not getting the job done” legislatively. “I’m not gong to blame myself, I’ll be honest,” Trump said. (When has he ever blamed himself for anything?) “They’re not getting the job done.” In case there is any doubt about who “they” is, Trump has been explicit in calling out McConnell as a weak leader, tweeting in August, “The only problem I have with Mitch McConnell is that, after hearing Repeal & Replace for 7 years, he failed!” McConnell nevertheless pledged fealty to his abuser. “Contrary to what some of you may have reported,” he dutifully intoned, “we are together totally on this agenda to move America forward.”

This GOP attitude was taken to its logical if laughable extreme when Sen. Rob Portman, another supposed Republican adult, was asked about the victory in Alabama’s Senate special election primary of far-right rabble-rouser Roy Moore, who makes Trump seem wonkish by comparison. Portman’s only response? “He’s going to be for tax reform, I think.” Never mind about the Constitution, which Moore and Trump both seek to shred in their own ways — Moore is opposed to the separation of church and state, Trump to the freedom of the press. (He thinks that “it is frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write.”) As long as they’re for tax cuts, we’re all good!

...

It becomes ever harder to disagree with the verdict of foreign-policy sage Robert Kagan, like me an erstwhile Republican, who writes that the GOP in its current form is doomed and that Republicans who cannot stomach Trumpism “should change their registration and start voting for Democratic moderates and centrists, as some Republicans did in Virginia recently, to give them a leg up in their fight against the party’s left wing.” As I’ve explained before, I have my qualms about the Democratic Party, which is lurching to the left, but I am done, done, done with the GOP after more than 30 years as a loyal Republican.

This is truly Trump’s party, and that leaves me to root for Democrats to win a landslide victory in the midterm elections next fall. I have my differences with many Democratic candidates, but on the most important issue facing our nation — whether Trump is fit for office — they are right and Republicans are a disgrace.