Trump regret syndrome is spreading like a wildfire as reality finally sets in

Trump regret syndrome is spreading like a wildfire as reality finally sets in

“I just kept watching,” a Republican acquaintance told me in disbelief. “And I just kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting for him to do something. Anything. I yelled, ‘Stand up for your country, for the love of God!’ And nothing. Not even a peep.”

“I’ve had it,” he said. “There is some shit I will not eat. I’m done apologizing for Donald J. Trump. Done.”

As a serving member in a state Republican Party organization, my acquaintance has taken a great amount of grief over the past three years. When Donald Trump first arrived on the political scene in 2015, he urged his colleagues to hear the billionaire mogul out. He appreciated the tough talk on immigration, the no-nonsense attitude that both differed from regular politicians and dared put them in their place. He thought Trump might not be the worst response to the Barack Obama presidency, which he considered weak and conciliatory.

After Trump wrested away control of the party from the GOP establishment, my acquaintance bought a Make America Great Again hat and slapped a Trump/Pence sticker on his car’s bumper. He met the nominee as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and rolls his eyes when his liberal colleagues and relatives post their Robert Mueller fantasies on social media. He’s stood by Trump when he criticized Gold Star families, waffled on condemning the neo-Nazis who rioted in Charlottesville and, until this week, has never so much as considered the possibility Trump had colluded with Russia.

“I’ve had it,” he said. “There is some shit I will not eat. I’m done apologizing for Donald J. Trump. Done.”

This repudiation was earned after Monday’s disastrous press conference in Helsinki, where President Trump stood side-by-side with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a despot who has cracked down on his citizens’ individual freedoms and has quite likely ordered the murders of dissidents, journalists and political opponents. It was bad enough, my acquaintance fumed, that Trump didn’t challenge Putin’s record, but the coup de grâce came when the president criticized U.S. intelligence agencies’ assertion that Russia interfered with our elections and instead supported Putin’s denial of meddling.

That disbelief echoed throughout the Republican Party on Tuesday, even as Trump half-heartedly tried to claim he had misspoken — an entirely typical non-denial denial. Trump supporters and critics alike struggled to wrap their heads around his bizarre display of deference to a tyrannical foreign leader. Republican congressional staffers told me privately they were still trying to come to terms with what had taken place in Helsinki. Some told me their worst suspicions had been realized, while Trumpian true believers wrestled with emerging doubt.