In a stunning one-two assault, Mr. Corker of Tennessee, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Mr. Flake took on the president in terms rarely, if ever, heard from members of a sitting president’s party.
Mr. Corker, who has been feuding with the man he once contemplated serving as vice president, accused Mr. Trump of serial lying and debasing the office.
“We must never regard as normal the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals, we must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country,” Mr. Flake said.
.. But Mr. Corker, Mr. Flake and Mr. McCain remain the outliers.
.. Mr. McConnell left his lunch with Mr. Trump and members of the caucus to emphasize the issues that bind congressional Republicans to Mr. Trump and play down the divisions underscored by Mr. Flake and Mr. Corker.
.. They have been willing to look past some actions and pronouncements by Mr. Trump that they consider beneath a president in hopes of pushing into law some of their long-sought goals, the most important of which are tax cuts. And with no substantial legislative achievements so far, the party is all in on a tax overhaul, recognizing that failure to deliver one will be a political disaster. That necessity ties them tightly to Mr. Trump, at least for now.
How Breaking Bad Foreshadowed Trump
Ostensibly evil, White can also be seen as providing catharsis: a radical therapy. His words are mild, but his deeds tear asunder one politically correct temple after another, leaving them in ruins. Even White’s signature product, his 99.1 percent pure blue meth, and the show’s ever-present luminous green suggest a kind of detergent, a toxic agent dealing death both to the poisoners and the poisoned and thereby cleansing the earth.
.. In the final season of Breaking Bad, Walter White has to rely on neo-Nazis to kill on his behalf. And whenever we see Mexico in Breaking Bad, it is a land of murderous drug pushers who worship the Santa Muerte. Everyone else in Breaking Bad is white, and, because of his chemotherapy, White himself is literally a skinhead.
.. Trump is best understood as a man of the 1980s, and much about him recalls that bygone era: the décor of his buildings, his 1986 deal to buy Mar-a-Lago, his best-selling 1987 book The Art of the Deal, and his bouffant hairstyle. Fast-forward to 2017 and Trump’s guiding principle appears to be resetting the clock back to the Reagan era:
.. Like Walter White, Trump has imported into an elite social universe a dose of desperation from the other side of the tracks. That is their common appeal, which Cranston has spotted.
.. Something must be done. If it isn’t done quickly, even Trump may be given short shrift. And his successor would surely promise more-radical solutions. Trump’s election, then, may mark not the end but the beginning of a protracted period of upheaval.