Every day that goes by sees the news cycle monopolized by yet more chaos coming from the Trump administration: badly written executive orders badly executed, insults and arguments with our allies, a constant barrage of threats, misstatements and outright lies. It has been less than a month since minority President Trump was sworn in, and already discussions about impeachment are starting to crop up.

But Trump is merely the face of a larger problem: the Republican Party. Consider: for all of the glaring problems on display, Republicans are still lined up behind him. Calls for torture of our enemies, calls for discrimination against other religions, nomination of seriously flawed candidates for high office, attacks on the press, all this and more, yet the Republican establishment is barely batting an eye.

Nothing Trump is doing should be a surprise. This is who he was on the campaign trail. This is who he has always been, yet the entire Republican Party could not find a candidate able to defeat him. The party was unable to call him to account for his many flaws. The party was unable to prevent the base it had been cultivating for years from being drawn to him because they had prepared the ground for his campaign of demagoguery.

All their talk of values and respect for the rule of law and the Constitution is shown to be a hollow pretense. It’s power they want, and they’ve made a devil’s bargain with Trump to gain it. If Trump were to step down or be removed from office tomorrow, the country would still be in the hands of the people who made it possible for him to reach the Oval Office.

That reality should alarm everyone.

Larry Roth

Ravena