President Trump continues to stir the cocktail of emotions on which his voters run:
After excluding House Republicans from his defense team, President Donald Trump announced Monday night that eight of them would serve as his personal warriors.
Republican Reps. Doug Collins (Ga.), Mike Johnson (La.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Debbie Lesko (Ariz.), Mark Meadows (N.C.), John Ratcliffe (Texas), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Lee Zeldin (N.Y.) will “serve as part of his team working to combat this hyper-partisan and baseless impeachment,” according to a White House news release Monday.
“Throughout this process, these Members of Congress have provided guidance to the White House team, which was prohibited from participating in the proceedings concocted by Democrats in the House of Representatives,” the release said. [Politico]
With a helping of mendacity, steaming on the side – Trump was invited to participate in the impeachment phase, and turned the opportunity down.
But, back to the point, warrior is an emotional term, connoting sacrifices made for the greater good by the individual, with implications of a particular moral goodness to that composite entity.
The logic is, of course, backwards – there were plenty of Japanese who gave their lives for the greater good of an Imperial Japan, an entity which condoned committing unspeakable atrocities in China, for example – but it, nonetheless, has a strong instinctive appeal, especially for the committed Trump cultist.
Essentially, this role for the Representatives make them into a bulwark against the destruction of the Trump base, and this is necessary because if the public opinion polls take a nose dive from their already-precarious position, the Republican Senators may find the pressure from constituents to find Trump innocent to lessen, and perhaps they would then vote for country over Party.
That’s the fear of Trump and the senior members of his advisors.
