The Escape Forward

There are Republican voices who decidedly do not emulate this president nor his policies.

Nothing like having an internal enemy to compensate for an external defeat. That is how Donald Trump thinks, who balances a defeat in the Senate with a cleansing of people in the White House.

That’s how small leaders exercise the power they have. And it is in this way that Trump wants to disguise his great political defeat in the news stream. By having Trump supporters fill the social networks with stupid discussions, he apparently disguises the chaos which reigns in the offices of Washington.

The failure to destroy “Obamacare” was even more crushing, because it represented the Republican refusal to give into Trump’s demands. The session in the Senate was symbolic: It is true that John McCain, who cast the last vote against the bill, was immediately responsible for the end of the legislative process on the bill. And yes, the weight McCain’s career carries implies a renewed symbolism for the final vote.

But it is also very symptomatic that the great opposition to this action by Donald Trump came from two women with a history in the Republican Party. Lisa Murkowski, the senator from Alaska, and Susan Collins, senator from Maine, were the women who, since the beginning, have opposed Trump’s efforts to overturn “Obamacare” without him having any concern about having an alternative ready to go.

It was also Sens. Murkowski and Collins, even more than McCain, who felt the full brunt of the pushback against their actions: the continual insults in television studios by known figures from the ultraconservative right, which are almost as unrepeatable as the commentary of the new White House communications director.*

It was these senators who sent the true signal of this vote: That the Republican Party establishment is not available to align with Trump in an unconditional manner, and that power is not to be maintained at all costs. In 2019, the country returns to vote and many Republican candidates will be confronted with the unrealistic policies of this administration.** The two senators, along with the historic McCain, demonstrated that Donald Trump’s autocracy will not find an open path. It is true that interests will often prevail, and that the weight of established lobbyists will be superior to the sense that many elected representatives have of what is just and beneficial. But there are Republican voices who decidedly do not emulate this president nor his policies.

It is important to keep in mind that this will not be, after all, the only time that the Republican Party will need to impose its voice on Trump. It will be a repeated situation, which could take on dramatic contours if some impeachment scenario gains sufficient credibility to be discussed. With the Russian case growing in complexity, this possibility is taking giant steps toward becoming reality.

*Translator’s note: Since this opinion piece was published, the communications director referred to has been fired.

**Editor’s note: The next U.S. congressional election is in 2018.