Congratulations, down-ballot Republicans: You now have Speaker Paul Ryan’s permission to eschew party unity and save your own hides. Here’s the only hang-up: Donald Trump won’t let you. The party base hasn’t given up hope that Trump might win. Sunday night, Trump gave a debate performance that may not grow his support but expertly kept the rank and file bound to his candidacy. Sometimes over here at Slate we don’t give Trump the credit he deserves. Let us say, then, that he deserves full marks for his ability to torture other GOP elected officials.
The Washington Post’s Robert Costa confirms this morning that the primary effect of Trump’s performance Sunday night was to freeze Republicans between their rocks and their hard places.
Costa also confirms that the Trump campaign, like much of America, enjoys watching them squeal.
Trump executed everything he needed to do to keep the base, and thus any Republicans more dependent on partisan turnout than swing voters, behind him last night. Calling Hillary Clinton a “devil” whom you intend to incarcerate upon taking the White House is a sensational way to turn the base against any of those toying with abandonment.
In this light, Ryan’s move is far less courageous than it looks, and it looked 0 percent courageous to begin with. No member was waiting on Paul Ryan’s word to determine what he or she could and couldn’t do; consider the dozens of members who had already renounced Trump before Ryan supposedly had given them permission. What Ryan does do, in a last-minute effort to save what’s left of his carefully manicured public image, is abandon those Republicans who need him to stay on board.
The infighting’s only going to get worse from here, folks. Some members don’t need Trump at all, some absolutely, and many more are somewhere in between. Trump himself will watch all of this play out on cable news, soaking it up with sadistic glee. If punishing Republican members of Congress for no reason beyond a passing fancy is his end goal, he’s running the most professional campaign of our lifetimes.
