On the right, Trump-driven sniping erupts as midterm elections near
Even President Donald Trump's presumed allies try to distance themselves from his blurts and invective.
Steve Stivers, chairman of the House Republican campaign committee, renounced the longtime solidarity with white supremacists displayed by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).
“Congressman Steve King’s recent comments, actions, and retweets are completely inappropriate,” Stivers wrote on Tuesday afternoon. “We must stand up against white supremacy and hate in all forms, and I strongly condemn this behavior.”
Surely it was strategic. Stivers' team is trying to win competitive races all over the U.S. in next Tuesday's midterms. Extremism, even by association, looks bad in these contests. Still, it was surprising a week before Election Day to hear a statement from a party leader targeting a sitting lawmaker to whom the president cuddles up and vice versa.
In his own bland way, departing House speaker Paul Ryan (R- Wis.) jolted Trump by stating plainly that the president cannot, on his own authority, order an end to the long-standing U.S. practice of granting citizenship to those born here. "You obviously cannot do that," Ryan said in a radio interview. He didn't even say a GOP Congress would or could get behind a move to alter the Constitution. For all but the most faithful, Ryan was exposing a fake posture by his party's president.
Another surprise came this week courtesy of lawyers for so-called Kansas militia members convicted of having conspired to bomb a mosque and apartment complex housing Somali immigrants.
"The court cannot ignore the circumstances of one of the most rhetorically mold-breaking, violent, awful, hateful and contentious presidential elections in modern history, driven in large measure by the rhetorical China shop bull who is now our president," a sentencing memo states.
Lawyers, of course, do what they can for clients. But when was the last time you heard one of them plead, with some presumption of credibility, that the person tried was influenced by a president's antics? Patrick Stein, the defendant for whom the memo was written, was reported to be an early Trump enthusiast, it said.
Alienated Republicans, while a minority, are still surprisingly fired up nearly two years into the administration. When Trump tweeted a particularly nasty anti-immigrant video Thursday, Al Cardenas, the former chair of the Florida GOP, who went on to head the American Conservative Union, flamed Trump on Twitter.
“You are a despicable divider; the wors[t] social poison to afflict our country in decades,” Cardenas tweeted. “This ad, and your full approval of it, will condemn you and your bigoted legacy forever in the annals of America’s history books.”
Mitt Romney, a Trump foe-turned-ally, more mildly chided the president in an opinion piece published Thursday as he runs for Senate in Utah. He said he couldn't "conceive of thinking or saying" the news media is an enemy as Trump does.
As is well known by now, a lack of consistency afflicts not just the GOP but the workings of the executive branch. Trump is talking about sending 15,000 troops to the border. The number, by all accounts, took Pentagon officials by surprise. What the soldiers will do if and when they get there is another question bound to provoke another round of dissent.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
