Attacking Trump is a losers game for Republican's

 Jonathon Mosely:

Nikki Haley appears to have discarded her political career by faithfully following what establishment insiders and political "experts" have believed and taught for decades.  The former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador seems genuinely baffled that former President Donald Trump refused to meet with her after Haley very publicly trashed Trump.

Isn't that simply how the game is played?   Well, yes.  Haley is doing things correctly the way they used to be done.  You posture for the media, distance yourself from any controversy, then later patch it up after the storm blows past.  You cynically abandon your friends, hoping that the alligators will eat you last.  Then you have a summit meeting and cut deals behind closed doors.

However, the Republican Party's base is writing her political obituary.  Haley quickly wrote an article in the insider-leaning Wall Street Journal redefining what she said and then wanted to go down and hoodwink Trump.  It's all just part of the game, right?

But that's the problem.  Republican voters have been fed up with inside-the-Beltway games for years.  The norms of politics are exactly what the conservative base is hopping mad about.  And this is by no means just about Haley.  It's about a whole school of thought affecting thousands of Republican elites at the federal and state level.  It's about the consultant class teaching candidates that this is how it's done.

Republican voters want leaders who lead, not hide under their desks playing "duck and cover."  They want Republican politicians to decisively challenge and defeat leftist lies, not run for the tall grass.  Year after year, we watch easily answered lies from the left spread as truth because the Republican establishment has no stomach for robust debate.

The Republican base wants Winston Churchill, faults and all, not Neville Chamberlain.  There was no guarantee that Churchill would defeat the Third Reich.  But it was a sure bet Chamberlain wouldn't even try.  They want General Ulysses Grant, accused of being a drunk, not the dapper, preening General George B. McClellan, who amassed a great army but wouldn't attack the Confederacy.  The first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, sided with the disheveled General Grant with whiskey on his breath over the vain, do-nothing, respectable General McClellan.

The Republican base wants candidates with fire in their belly.  Show me what you're willing to fight for.  Democrats fight like hell.  Republicans cower in fear.  Apparently they don't really believe what they believe in.

So Republicans were mad as a volcano when Mitt Romney allowed Barack Obama to roll all over him.  The conservative base was ready to turn its back on insiders many years before Trump rode down the escalator to announce his candidacy in 2015.  This is not about crossing Trump.  It's about being fed up with those who won't even try.  And the voters are never, ever going back.

But establishment Republicans have perfected the art of pretending to be conservative when they are really not.  Therefore, the conservative base is searching for a "tell."  Are you a fighter?  Or are you a wimp?

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It should be clear from the blowback against those Republicans who voted for impeachment that the base is not going to support those who go along with the Democrats' disgraceful attacks on Trump.  It is a loser's game for Republicans.  They will lose GOP support and the Democrats will not support them either. If they can't support Trump they are better off being silent.