Susan Glasser: ‘The Republican Party in the Last Decade Has Become the Party of Donald Trump’

EXCERPT:

GLASSER: “Now, a couple points that are important. Number one, just because Republicans are now more willing in tight races to criticize the president, to distance themselves from him, this is going to be very hard for them to do, even harder than it’s been in the past. I mean, we’ve seen it, you know, all the time when unpopular presidents come up to midterm election season, their candidates run away. The difference is that the Republican Party in the last decade has become the party of Donald Trump in ways that make it much harder, I think, for these candidates to plausibly distance themselves from him. Why are voters going to buy that when they all know that personal loyalty to Trump has become essentially the condition for being a Republican elected official today? So that’s one important factor about whether this is going to work or not as a campaign technique.”