Washington (CNN) Speaking to a group of donors and lobbyists in Washington on Monday night, Joe Biden said this of the Republican Party post-Donald Trump:

"With Trump gone you're going to begin to see things change. Because these folks know better. They know this isn't what they're supposed to be doing."

That is, without any exaggeration, a radical view from the man who polling suggests is the front-runner to be the party's nominee against Trump in November 2020.

Why? Because the commonly held view among liberals, who compose the base of the Democratic Party, is that Trump is not an anomaly or a virus within the broader Republican Party, he is the Republican Party. That attempts, like Biden's, to say Trump is "other" than the GOP lessens the party's culpability on its capitulation to the darker forces at work in the President's message and the party he represents.

It's not the first time Biden has voiced this Trump-is-terrible-but-Republicans-are-OK sentiment.

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