That’s silly. Most Republican senators secretly despise Trump, but as long as the Republican base is solidly behind Trump, they dare not lift a finger against him, otherwise they will be primaried out at the next election and lose their cushy job.
As for McConnell, don’t forget Trump gave his wife Elaine Chao a plum ministerial job as Secretary of Transportation where she can do her shipping magnate family lots of favors.
I’m amazed at how all of this scum somehow just keeps bubbling up and covering the swamp already overflowing with scum
It’s like they just keep plumbing new depths of graft, toadiness, and corruption every time I blink
These people could teach a master class in Anti-ethics 101 at Harvard
A case could also be made that any senator running for president should also disqualify themself for conflict of interest.
Not really - those senators are running against each other for now, not Trump. If Trump were removed, the Democratic nominee would still need to face a Republican opponent in the election. You could say, sure but the Republicans would need to hastily find a nominee, putting them at a disadvantage and you wouldn’t be wrong, but then maybe they should have seen it coming and primaried Trump? But this is a hypothetical alternative universe where facts and conflicts of interest actually matter.
not to disuade anyone from the thought that these are supremely corrupt politicians who will gladly suck each others d-cks to gain favors, but 2800, or even 5600 dollars seems like chump change in the kind of cash stashes required to run a campaign.
Yeah. Even Congresscritters don’t come that cheap.
I’m honestly not sure about this. What we know is that they act in support of Trump in public, and that they tell Morning Joe (I’m using Joe Scarborough as a stand in for all media-with-access) that they hate Trump in private.
I was certainly inclined to believe what the told Morning Joe in private to be the truth and what they do in public to be the act. But recently I’ve asked myself why I’m so sure of that. If the senators are essentially fear-driven authoritarian followers who latch onto the most powerful person around to gain protection then they they would genuinely devote themselves to Trump while lying to Joe in private (because in that conversation, Joe is the person-to-please).
I think Jeff Flake hated Trump privately and didn’t have the courage to do anything about it and thus retired. But Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell? At this point I have little reason to think they don’t idolize Trump and just lie in private because they lack even the courage to tell the truth about their support for Trump to a reporter.
I agree with you. This was just something a pro-Trump Facebook friend shared. She tends to share some of the most out-there theories
McConnell is not a “Stepford” Senator in this analogy. He would be the builder of robot Stepford Senators. He keeps the product line humming, replacing parts (or entire models) when they seem about to break down.
And, as has been said: $2700, scattered here and there, is not what “programs” these Senators. It’s simply that they know they keep or lose their jobs, based on the greater or lesser sycophancy of their performance, at the Impeachment hearings and elsewhere. And, sure, it’s not just that their MAGA hat-wearing constituency and Trump/Fox’s hostility they’re afraid of. It’s campaign financing drying up, losing RNC support and money, losing their committee seats, peer pressure/threat of ostracism. All these (dis)incentives synergistically combine to create a substantial amount of self-interested delusion. And how is this one event any different from how Republicans operate every day? Republicans have been deceitful for decades. This is just one more milestone.
The truth is that this occurs on a scale exponentially larger than the articles implies. A few thousand dollars to these GOP senators is literally a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of dollars they need to fundraise to support their next campaign and/or the campaigns of their confederates. Trump, regardless of whether you love or hate him, commands an unprecedented fundraising machine that supports his coffers, that of the RNC, and the candidates that he supports. I would suggest that this is the ONLY reason the party (and his GOP Senate cronies) have been in lockstep with him and did not abandon him when the ship looked like it was ready to sink. If you are loyal to Trump, bigly campaign money comes your way. If you piss him off, good luck raising money.
This is the real game being played: https://www.politico.com/news/2019/10/31/trump-impeachment-senators-donor-062084
Yeah, this strikes me a little bit like getting a nice bottle of wine from the local organized crime kingpin for your birthday. The card says, “Remember I own you!”
It’s absolutely about the votes.
Trump may not control the entire Republican base, but he controls enough of it to be a threat to every sitting R, and he’s been very clear that he will weaponize his voters against anyone who he perceives as disloyal. The Senate removing Trump from office or a 2020 loss doesn’t remove that threat, either. At this point they’ve already lost most of their left and center constituents, so the electoral cost of staying with him is minimal.
I don’t think they’re fearful, but the power math for the reds is pretty simple here; Stand with him and maybe lose, stand against him and definitely lose. The donations are just gravy.
Wow. They go for cheap. Heck, even I could afford to buy a senator at $5600. I always envisioned bought politicians getting tens or hundreds of thousands, and depending on the dirty deed, a million or more.
If you’re willing to sell out your country for less than the cost of a decent used car… well, you don’t belong in our government. Or, frankly, any government.
In defense of that there are legal caps on personal contributions directly to campaigns. And it’s $2800 per election for individual contributions to a campaign.
Donations at the limit are often connected with various other ways of funnelling money to campaigns that aren’t capped. Like forming or donating to super packs, donations to associated groups and think tanks, directing other people to donate the max, buying $50k a plate tickets to a campaign dinner.
Those other sorts of funding don’t have the same reporting requirements. So repeated max donations from a closely associated groups of people is often the first indication we have of significant money being funneled at politicians.
right, so Salon - shed some light on these other donations with more zeros
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