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Sunday, September 11, 2016

"The calculation among the bulk of GOP elected officials seems to be that the political hazards of renouncing Trump are greater than simply holding their nose and supporting him."

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COMMENTS: 
*  Please Trump supporters, tell us why it is ok to go on a Russian propaganda network and declare Putin a better leader than Obama. Trump is Tokyo Rose but with a pronounced orange tint.
*  Let me help out with a link to support https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/inside-tru... “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump’s son, Donald Jr., told a real estate conference in 2008, according to an account posted on the website of eTurboNews, a trade publication. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.”
*  Chris, Trumpkins are not moved by logic, reason and facts. That he's frequently dead wrong on factual matters, has no understanding of world events, and outright lies all the time (NFL letter protesting debate dates, I saw cash being unloaded off a plane via video, etc, etc, etc) is okay with his fans. They view his weaknesses as a feature, not a bug.  Give up trying to be reasonable already. Doesn't work.
*  Sadly, there is no Trump surrogate who seems altogether sane.
*  Why do you hate America so much that you think we'd be better off with someone with ties to one of our adversaries. He praises despots, that's not what this country is about. If you would like to live in a dictatorship please feel free to move to Russia or North Korea.
*   Trump's repetitive praise of Putin as a "strong leader" confirms his distaste for democracy and his natural affinity for dictatorship. Strong leadership, as represented by history's many dictators, is not the same as good leadership. Trump does not know the difference.
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If you’re a Republican looking to jump off the Trump train, now is your last, best chance
By Chris Cillizza, September 9, 2016

Over the last two days, talk in the political world has been dominated by Donald Trump's strange prime time doubling down on his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump has praised Putin's high poll approval numbers, insisted he is a better leader than President Obama and said that if Putin says nice things about him, he will say nice things about Putin. He also "accidentally" appeared on RT, the Russia-owned "news" service.

That's a remarkable series of events — even for Trump. Remember that this is the same Russia that Ronald Reagan — patron saint of the Republican Party — described as the "Evil Empire" when it was part of the Soviet Union. And the same Putin who has a long history of suppressing dissent and free speech within his country.

It's a totally inexplicable position for the Republican nominee to take. It's an inexplicable position for any politician in either party running for any office to take. You can tell that in the tortured ways in which Trump's backers within the GOP are trying to deal with his bromance with the Russian leader.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who is nominally supportive of Trump, called Putin an "adversary" and an "aggressor" on Thursday, adding: "I'm not going to sit up here and do the tit-for-tat on what Donald said last night or the night before in Hillary versus Donald. That is not my job. I'm not going to be the election year pundit." New York Rep. Chris Collins, Trump's first congressional endorser, offered this tortured explanation for Trump's praise of Putin during an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd Thursday night:
When we hear Donald Trump say he will reach out to political enemies like Russia and to leaders like Putin in a combined effort to defeat ISIS, which is, again, a challenge to the civilized world, I don't have any problem with that.

And one thing about Putin, he calls the shots, he gets things done. We don't like what he has done in the Ukraine. Part of that came from the weakness of our current president who ignored the red line he drew in Syria, the vacuum he left in Iraq …
Er, okay.

Look. I've been surprised at the relative paucity of prominent Republican elected officials willing to say publicly they can't support Trump. Jeb Bush. Ted Cruz. John Kasich. Mitt Romney. Maine Sen. Susan Collins. And Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk, who publicly renounced his Trump support in June. That's it. That's the list. (Yes, there is a much longer list of less prominent Republicans who say they are either not going to vote or are supporting Hillary Clinton.)

The calculation among the bulk of GOP elected officials seems to be that the political hazards of renouncing Trump are greater than simply holding their nose and supporting him. After all, Trump is the party's nominee. And he is, ostensibly, more conservative than Clinton on key issues for the Republican base like the future of the Supreme Court.

True enough. (The smartest thing Trump has done in months is when he released the names of 11 conservatives he would consider nominating for the Supreme Court.) The problem that Trump's effusive praise of Putin poses for Republicans is that it's not really a partisan stance. Most people in the country — Republican, Democrat and other — don't view Putin (and Russia more broadly) as someone worthy of being lauded.

This is not an issue in which Republicans can retreat behind the old Trump's-the-nominee argument. Trump isn't speaking for the vast majority — or even a healthy minority — of voters within the Republican Party. Backing a candidate who repeatedly flirts with Russia and its leader is not the sort of thing that you can just write off to being a good soldier for the party in the postelection analysis.

If you are a Republican elected official considering whether to jump off the Trump train, it's now-or-never time. You go along with Trump's views on Putin's Russia and you don't get to run away from him if he goes down in flames over the next 60 days.
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