By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS—Maybe, just maybe, some day the fever will break, and Republicans will realize Donald Trump has led them to nowhere but disaster.

Sadly, that day does not seem to be here yet.

The GOP seems determined to emulate the children who, lulled by the supposed magic of his playing, followed the Pied Piper into the river and their deaths. They cannot break the spell.

Trump already has cost Republicans so much.

Four years ago, they controlled the White House, the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives and, thanks to chicanery of then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, the U.S. Supreme Court.

Now, they control only the Supreme Court and the pressure on Democrats from the most activist parts of their base mounts to adopt hardball low-ethics tactics like McConnell’s and pack the high bench.

All these setbacks can be laid at Trump’s door.

He lost a presidential election—and, make no mistake about it, he did lose—by more than 7 million votes and turned red states purple and purple states blue even though he presided over a robust economy. No other incumbent president running for reelection has managed to do that.

Normally, national disasters such as the coronavirus pandemic are political boons for incumbents. Such crises give presidents the chance to rally the nation, to pull people together and to make even the most reasoned political opposition seem like unpatriotic disloyalty. Trump squandered that opportunity, too.

Then he spent months pouting and conjuring up fantasies in which he actually had won in 2020. That cost the GOP the two Senate seats up for grabs—and thus control of the U.S. Senate.

Prior to that disaster, his undisciplined first two years—when he behaved with all the restraint of a hyperkinetic toddler hooked on crack—lost Republicans the House and made Nancy Pelosi, D-California, speaker.

Nor have the hits slowed since Trump lost the White House and the Senate.

On Jan. 6, he encouraged a mob to storm the Capitol. Members of the Senate and the House had to flee for their lives and at least five people died while Trump watched the debacle on television and did nothing. At best, his conduct constituted an abdication of duty. At worst, it involved aiding and abetting insurrection.

When Congress contemplated investigating the origins and causes of the Jan. 6 insurrection, Republican leaders in the House and Senate did yeoman work. They negotiated a deal that would have created an investigatory committee with an equal number of Republicans and Democrats on it, equal staffing by the parties, the same powers of subpoena and a guarantee to wrap up the investigation by the end of 2021, so it wouldn’t bleed over into next year’s elections.

Trump threatened to throw another temper tantrum if Republicans went along with the inquiry, even under such favorable terms. So, the GOP did an about-face and rejected the deal.

Now, Republicans face an investigation in which they cannot control what witnesses are called, what questions are asked or even when the whole process will wrap up.

The GOP has been reduced to complaining that the process will be partisan.

The Democrats’ rejoinder is obvious—if it is partisan, that’s because Republicans and their pouting former president chose to make it so.

Even as that political disaster for the GOP rolls out, another is waiting in the wings.

Trump’s business has been indicted on criminal charges. So has his longtime chief financial officer. The speculation has been that prosecutors are putting pressure on the CFO to “flip,” but it appears they may not need the Trump cohort to make their case. The records released so far demonstrate that Trump executives engaged in a widespread attempt to evade paying taxes that involved criminally fraudulent practices.

Thus far, Trump has not been charged personally, but the whole thing has the feel of a net tightening.

Worse for the GOP, the prosecutors are moving with deliberate speed and may be timing the worst and most damaging revelations to land during next year’s election season.

That will put Republicans, once again, in the untenable position of defending the indefensible.

Maybe they will figure out what’s happening to them before then.

Then again, maybe not.

The piper continues to play, and the tune makes the river look so inviting.

FOOTNOTE:  John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.  

The City-County Observer posted this article without bias on editing.