There are some things you can’t explain away, like 56,000 Americans dead (so far) from the coronavirus, an administration response that has been chaotic and incompetent, and a president whose communication about the pandemic has been so uninformed and embarrassing that his own aides are trying to figure out how to keep his mouth shut.

Consider what it says that we read this paragraph not on Feb. 27, not on March 27, but on April 27, after the pandemic has progressed so far:

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Pressure mounted Monday on the White House and Congress to develop a national strategy to test Americans for exposure to the novel coronavirus, as health and economic experts said the current patchwork of testing efforts is insufficient to allow the economy to reopen safely.

A national testing strategy might indeed be helpful! Perhaps the Trump administration will get around to it one of these days.

In the White House, aides are now working “to convince President Trump that speaking to the public about the health and medical implications of the virus is potentially too damaging to be worth the risk,” a fear made all the more acute by the recent PR disaster of the president suggesting that injecting people with household disinfectants might be a good idea. Instead of having him continue to go out and demand praise for his administration’s bungling response to the pandemic, they’ll stage events where he can talk up the economy.

Meanwhile, Republicans with their own elections to worry about are wondering if they can slowly back away from the president and his stench of failure. Recently the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the arm of the Republican Party responsible for electing Republicans to the Senate, circulated a memo advising candidates “Don’t defend Trump, other than the China Travel Ban — attack China.” In response, according to Politico, a furious Trump campaign informed them “that any Republican candidate who followed the memo’s advice shouldn’t expect the active support of the reelection campaign and risked losing the support of Republican voters.”

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The advice was pretty poor to begin with, considering that Republicans have tried and failed again and again over the past few years to win elections with appeals to xenophobia and fear of immigrants. But the fact that even some Republicans acknowledge that defending Trump is a losing strategy is extraordinarily revealing.

It shows that they have little confidence that six months from now voters will be applauding Trump’s leadership. More likely, we’ll still be dealing with the horrific death toll of the pandemic and an economy struggling to overcome the massive job losses and slowdown in commercial activity we’re now living with. Even if the public health and economic situations are improving by then — no sure thing by any means — Trump’s failures may only be clearer, no matter how many times he says he has done an incredible job.

For vulnerable Republican senators — of whom there could be as many as eight — the calculation will be particularly vexing. Defend Trump and his handling of the crisis, and moderate voters could reject you in disgust; criticize him, and Republican voters still loyal to the president could leave your box on the ballot blank.

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But with each passing day as the election nears, and with each new revelation of administration incompetence or appalling presidential statement (of which you know there will be plenty), the incentive to emphasize their independence from Trump will increase.

Just as Trump’s own conception of loyalty is one-way — you’re supposed to give it to him, but don’t expect him to give it to you — every politician’s primary concern is his or her own self-interest. Republicans running in states such as Colorado, Arizona or North Carolina could reach a point, based on both the polls in their states and the overwhelming evidence of Trump’s failure, when they decide that sticking by him does them more harm than good.

So the end of Trump’s term could in some ways resemble what happened to George W. Bush, who had enjoyed nearly universal support in his party but found himself increasingly alone toward the end of his presidency. With the Iraq War disaster dominating the headlines, Bush never got above 40 percent approval after the 2006 midterm elections, and Republican officeholders concerned about their own survival began drifting away from him. Then came the economic crash of 2008, and though he could claim it wasn’t his fault, that didn’t make Republicans with their own elections to worry about any more eager to be associated with him.

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Sidling away from Bush didn’t help, though: That year Democrats not only took the White House but also won every close Senate election and increased their margin in the House as well.

In 2016, Republican elected officials had no choice but to take a risk: Their fates were tied to Trump, and they told themselves that perhaps he wouldn’t be so repellent or mess up so badly that the association would make it impossible for them to win their own elections. With this year’s election just six months away, the fear they had then might be coming true. And there’s almost nothing they can do about it.

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