From Robert Reich Blog
With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, it's unlikely Trump will be impeached or thrown out of office on grounds of mental impairment. At least any time soon.
Yet there's another way Trump can be effectively removed. He can be made irrelevant.
It's already starting to happen. The howling manchild who occupies the Oval Office is being cut off and contained.
Trump no longer has a working majority in the Senate because several Senate Republicans have decided the hell with him.
Three Republican Senators voted against repealing the Affordable Care Act, dooming his effort. Almost all voted to restrict his authority over Russian sanctions.
They're also pushing forward with their own inquiry into Trump's Russian connections. Republican senators Thom Tillis and Lindsay Graham have even joined Democrats in introducing legislation to protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller from being fired.
Republicans in the House won't fund his wall. Many refuse to increase the national debt in order to pay for his promised tax cuts.
After Charlottesville, many more are willing to criticize him publicly. Last week Tennessee's Bob Corker, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, even questioned Trump's "stability" and "competence," saying Trump hasn't shown he understands "the character of this nation" and that without that understanding, "Our nation is going to go through great peril."
The Washington Post's Dan Balz reports that GOP leaders are "personally wrestling with the trade-offs of making a cleaner separation with the president."
It helps that Republican patrons in big business are deserting Trump in droves. Last week, CEOs bolted his advisory councils. Many issued sharp rebukes of Trump.
These are the people who raise big bucks for the GOP. Their dumping Trump makes it easier for elected Republicans to do so, too.
Even James Murdoch, the 21st Century Fox CEO whose media outlets include Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and The New York Post -- among the loudest mouthpieces for Trump -- is ditching him.
Last Thursday Murdoch wrote "what we watched last week in Charlottesville and the reaction to it by the president of the United States concern all of us as Americans and free people," and pledged $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League.
This doesn't mean Fox News or the Wall Street Jounal will call for Trump's ouster. It does mean their commentators and editorial writers now have clear license to criticize him.
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