re: #78 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

You don’t get the rules of the New Media Reality: The GOP does not need to explain anything, it only has to utter talking points that will be taken up, rationalized and defended by the media.

Of course the President can order any sort of investigation into foreign “corruption”, Trump is just the first and only one to totally bypass the normal channels and use his personal lawyer.

Because, his defenders will tell he was brilliant enough to do that to confound the Deep State…

Trump’s acolytes believe that all departments of government should be purged of those loyal to the Constitution and replaced by Trump acolytes. They literally believe that those with experience and knowledge (i.e. “unelected bureaucrats”) need to be removed if they don’t follow every demand of the dictator-in-chief. They adore CEO’s of privately run companies because these people have that power and the worst (e.g. Trump) are contemptuous of those employees with independence.

But this is nothing new — my memory is faulty but “Imperial Life in The Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone” by Chandrasekaran over a decade ago dealt with how the Bush administration, instead of sending Iraq experts to Iraq after the war instead found those who shared their ideology, even on issues such as abortion. So, as others have said, this rot has infested the Republican Party for a long time.