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Yesterday, CB put our current political situation into stark terms. We were chatting about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and how there’s this sense of impending doom, a macabre sense of foreboding around America and the Trump presidency right now. Everyone is on edge, everyone is waiting for another shoe to drop. CB was like, we’re in a abusive relationship with the president. We’re all the battered spouses of a bigly abuser. It suddenly made sense to me, why we’re always on edge, why things feel off-kilter when Trump is quiet for a day.

Many have said that Trump’s war with the NFL was just a deflection from the series of Ls he’s had to swallow in the past few weeks. The latest Obamacare repeal faltered, just like all the rest of them. Robert Mueller’s investigation is likely to involve criminal indictments, and hopefully the dominoes will start to fall soon after. And then there’s the little matter of the Alabama Senate run-off. The choice, for Republicans, was between the Trump-backed Senator Luther Strange versus the “firebrand” GOP candidate Roy Moore. Trump even went down to Alabama to campaign for Strange last Friday (which is where he called Colin Kaepernick a “son of a bitch”). Trump repeatedly tweeted out support for Strange. And guess what? Strange lost.

The stunning defeat of President Trump’s chosen Senate candidate in Alabama on Tuesday amounted to a political lightning strike — setting the stage for a worsening Republican civil war that could have profound effects on next year’s midterm elections and undermine Trump’s clout with his core voters. The GOP primary victory by conservative firebrand Roy Moore over Sen. Luther Strange could also produce a stampede of Republican retirements in the coming months and an energized swarm of challengers.

It marked yet another humiliation for the Washington-based Republican establishment, particularly Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), whose allies pumped millions of dollars into the race to prop up Strange and reassure his colleagues that they could survive the Trump era.

Moore’s win, however, also demonstrates the real political limitations of Trump, who endorsed “Big Luther” at McConnell’s urging and staged a rally for Strange in Huntsville, Ala., just days before the primary. The outcome is likely to further fray Trump’s ties to Republicans in Congress, many of whom now fear that even his endorsement cannot protect them from voter fury.

The tremors began before the polls closed in Alabama. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced on Tuesday afternoon that he would not seek reelection in 2018, dogged by complaints from conservatives in his state over his criticism of Trump. A number of Corker’s potential primary rivals had already begun talks with wealthy donors.

“If you’re an incumbent, you have to assume the wind is against you,” said consultant Tom Ingram, a longtime Corker adviser. “If you do run, you take nothing for granted and leave nothing on the table. You start out with one big strike against you: You’re an incumbent Republican senator.”

[From WaPo]

I would be happy to sit on the sidelines and watch Republicans devour each other, except that the last time that happened, Donald Trump became the GOP presidential nominee. It’s not good for our democracy that Roy Moore is running for Alabama’s Senate seat now. It’s not good for our democracy that someone like Bob Corker – who has only offered some mild criticism of Trump on occasion – is being pushed out by purity-test donors. Now, all that being said… it’s funny that Trump is LOSING. He’s a loser. His candidate LOST. He’s taking so many Ls these days. Hilariously, Trump also spent last night deleting his old pro-Strange tweets. Oh, poor Bigly. I wonder how the abuser-in-chief is going to “punish” us for these losses?

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