In this piece, we logically explore many of the available data points that surround selected members in Congress and their passive, servile response to Trump’s irrational and dangerous behavior. Rather than looking at each action or inaction as an independent event, we string them together as a collective whole, in search of an organizing principle that unites the sum of these Congressional missteps. Drawing upon political and psychological insights, as well as Occam’s razor — the reasoning principle used by scientists and academics that states that the most obvious explanation is usually the correct one — we lay out an evidence-based case that many behaviors executed by key GOP Congress members are unreasonable, from a Republican and conservative point of view, possibly indicative of deeper, non-policy-oriented entanglements.
The first clue that the Republican members of Congress are behaving irrationally and counter to their conservative values relates to the GOP leaders’ refusal to impeach the president, even though Vice President Pence would be Trump’s inevitable successor. On the surface, ushering in a President Pence would appear to be both a brilliant and logical move for the Republicans. If Pence were president, Congressional Republicans, many of whom strongly opposed Trump in the GOP primaries, could accomplish just as much of their policy agenda, if not more, with a lot less collateral damage. Congress’s failure to create this change suggests that something outside the realm of normal politics cements Republican leaders to Donald Trump.
