From: januarybaybee@gmail.com   
      
   Making him very expendable.   
      
      
      
   Trump's ruthless attacks may come back to haunt him   
      
   (CNN)  It's a scene that's often depicted in Hollywood films: The bully picks   
   on a smaller target and manages to paralyze everyone with fear. Then one day,   
   a punch from an unexpected character draws blood. The bully's vulnerability   
   becomes apparent and    
   suddenly all those who trembled join to fight their former tormentor. Feared   
   but not loved, the bully is vanquished.   
      
   In politics, as in Hollywood, those who'd rather pick a fight than compromise   
   -- or, in Donald Trump's case, act with basic decency -- create the conditions   
   for their own downfall.  After Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's   
   announcement of a formal    
   impeachment inquiry, there were early signs of the President's weakness. While   
   the knockout punch has not been delivered, Republicans who were previously   
   staunch allies began to waver.   
      
   On Friday, former Sen. Jeff Flake told NPR that at least 35 GOP Senators would   
   support impeaching Trump if they were allowed to vote in secret. "Anybody who   
   has sat through two years, as I have, of Republican luncheons realizes that   
   there's not a lot of    
   love for the President. There's a lot of fear of what it means to go against   
   the President, but most Republican senators would not like to be dealing with   
   this for another year or another five years," he said.   
      
   Added to Democratic votes, Flake's estimate of 35 Republicans would make for   
   the two-thirds majority required to remove Trump from office.   
      
   As Flake suggests, Republican officials may fear Trump but they do not like   
   him. Consider the President's penchant for insults and demeaning nicknames and   
   it's easy to agree with Flake's logic.   
      
   Remember that then-candidate Trump mocked and disparaged Sens. Marco Rubio and   
   Ted Cruz as "Little Marco" and "Lyin' Ted" and you'll understand why they   
   might have little sympathy for him now.   
      
   Trump's vulnerability was in clear view when Senate Majority Leader Mitch   
   McConnell allowed the upper chamber to vote on a resolution urging the Trump   
   administration to turn over the whistleblower complaint to Congress. The   
   resolution passed unanimously    
   in the GOP-controlled Senate.   
      
   The Senate is where the President will make his last stand if he's subjected   
   to an impeachment trial. Under normal circumstances, a President could expect   
   his party to stick by him, but Trump has acted so outside the norms of the   
   executive office that    
   there's no guarantee.   
      
   A few Republicans already broke with the President since Pelosi's   
   announcement. Sen. Mitt Romney was the first to say he was troubled by the   
   Ukraine controversy. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska noted there were "obviously   
   some very troubling things" in the    
   rough transcript of a call, which revealed Trump asked Ukraine's president to   
   investigate his Democratic rival Joe Biden. After the White House released the   
   rough transcript, Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said it was "inappropriate."   
      
   Romney, it should be recalled, was subjected to an embarrassing pantomime of   
   an interview for the secretary of state before Trump selected Rex Tillerson   
   over him.  Sasse, who will seek re-election in 2020, quietly accepted Trump's   
   recent endorsement    
   earlier this month. In light of the President's woes, Sasse seems unconcerned   
   now about courting his wrath. These murmurs of dissent reflect an important   
   shift among Republicans who heretofore quaked at the prospect of a blast from   
   Trump's Twitter    
   fingers or the humiliation of a sarcastic nickname.   
      
   The aggressive style that Trump has brought to national politics is consistent   
   with the man he has always been.   
      
   During his days as a real estate developer, and later as a media star, he   
   provoked fights with everyone from former New York Mayor Ed Koch to comedian   
   Rosie O'Donnell, never hesitating to insult an opponent's physical appearance,   
   intelligence, or    
   competence. It was in this time that he began explaining his aggression by   
   saying that he responded when attacked -- and felt justified hitting back much   
   harder.   
      
   Once he jumped into the 2016 race for president, the hit-harder argument   
   became such a trademark for Trump that even his wife Melania would repeat it   
   in her speeches. "As you may know by now," she said in April 2016, "when you   
   attack him, he will punch    
   back 10 times harder. No matter who you are, a man or a woman, he treats   
   everyone equal."   
      
   Some people might think a 10-times-harder policy is intentionally threatening   
   and disproportional. And of course, the President, who is notoriously   
   thin-skinned and quick to take offense, often interprets fair criticism, petty   
   snipes, and serious    
   challenges as attacks that warrant public responses.   
      
   Combine his endless appetite for fighting -- "I like fights, all kinds of   
   fights" he told me in 2014 -- and the victim's mentality he holds, and you get   
   a man who finds himself in constant conflict. You also get a man who craves   
   loyalty but inspires only    
   fear and resentment.   
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   The President achieved his dominance over the GOP by making just about   
   everyone in the party afraid of him. This will work for as long as they   
   believe he is truly powerful.   
      
   Now that the cracks are beginning to show, he cannot count on anyone's genuine   
   affection or loyalty. And he has given those who will control his fate reason   
   to regard him as expendable.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)