And they always come around to protect their party’s phony baloney jobs.

They benefit from the fawning mainstream media that always loves to normalize conservative thinking (even Nazis), even if they themselves understand it’s wrong.  Media has bent over backwards for decades to be nice to conservatives because of the rabid “anti-liberal media” backlash they would get if they didn’t.  But really, as we all know, that weird, misspelled anger will come anyway.  No matter how many glowing pieces about conservatives the NYT runs they will be the enemy.  No matter how much the WaPo tries to be fair to GOPers, they are hated and demonized.

The Trump/Moore/Bannon era gave these efforts to push noble Republicans forward a new mission and energy.  So many figures on the TV that were so wrong during the Bush years are trotted out to pile on Trump/Moore/Bannon.  They make nice noises now but I never forget that Jennifer Rubin and David Frum are not good people.

And for elected politicians it’s just a festival of love for any Republican who has said even one word of denunciation of Trump.  Corker, Flake, Collins, Murkowski, McCain et al. are looked at as the saviors of democracy, even though they’ve done almost nothing to actually stand in the way of Trump’s idiocracy.  All you have to do is one thumbs down and you’re a hero.  But they all come around.

They all prove over and over again why they self-identify as Republicans in 2017 even after the decades where they too watched the steep decline of that party, their echo chamber in the media and their oligopolistic donors, into the party of Trump/Moore/Bannon.  Silence, or even the occasional whisper, is acceptance.

The thought that “certainly Susan Collins can’t go along with this” is almost always proven naive.

As I mentioned yesterday in regards to Lindsay Graham, the main reason that Republicans of all stripes are pushing a terrible tax bill forward is because they’ve been given an ultimatum by their donors that if they don’t get this done they’ll find other candidates in 2018 and beyond.  This is the definition of being beholden to the handful of massively powerful billionaires that have been the major funding sources of Republican/conservative causes for a long time now.  Most people know them by name now, if you pay attention to news media, despite their efforts to remain in the shadows or anonymous.

Koch Brothers
Robert Mercer
Sheldon Adelson
Ricketts Family
Foster Friess
Paul Singer
Ken Langone
Woody Johnson
Peter Thiel

Between them and a coterie of lesser billionaires that contribute to fund numerous super pacs, GOP politicians are almost entirely dependent on that source of money.  Your Aunt Millie who sends $10 to a politician or a cause because they heard about them on Rush Limbaugh is such an afterthought in Republican circles, completely overshadowed by the ready cash these whales have to blow at a moments notice.

So yeah, if Susan Collins wants to continue a career in politics she too has to come around on a tax bill that will negate her much ballyhooed bravery on the ACA.

Even John McCain, who is looking at eternity and legacy rather than another campaign, is likely to go along, in order to not have his soul eternally damned where it matters for him – at the RNC.

None of these supposed moderate or rational Republicans will move a meaningful finger to stop Roy Moore from taking a seat in the senate or go against their party when it matters.  Tax cuts for the donors and their estates matter more than any other issue in Republican ideological circles.  It’s everything to them.

They’ll go down with the ship and allow the country to emulate Kansas before they’ll jeopardize their sweet, sweet billionaire donor honeypot.