If there is a Republican cascade against Trump, in retrospect, it will look inevitable, as if the steady drip of revelations and testimony was always destined to reach that final dramatic tipping point. But a note to future historians: As of this moment, it does not look inevitable at all. [...]
The obvious figure who could keep a party together composed of MAGA folk and other sorts of conservatives who for one reason or another dumped Trump, it would be Mike Pence. He’s been loyal to POTUS to the point of embarrassing sycophancy. Yet before he joined Trump’s ticket, he was a rigidly conventional conservative with many friends among his fellow House Republicans. And he’s beloved (at least at the leadership level) among Trump’s and the GOP’s single most important constituency: white conservative Evangelicals. As McKay Coppins notes, he could represent a soothing alternative if the stormy barbarian in the White House just vanished [...]
Indeed, Pence seems to have been involved up to the eyeballs in the Ukraine plot. His team’s messaging — Yes, he pressed the Ukrainians to investigate corruption, but he never appreciated that Trump’s true purpose was to pursue the Bidens — fails the laugh test. Pence’s taint presents a political problem for him, but raises a much graver question for the country. If the Senate ever could muster the integrity to remove Trump from office, there would be no Ford to put in his place, only a vice president who participated in Trump’s dirty schemes, from staying at a remote resort to direct government funds to Trump’s failing Irish golf course to extorting an invaded country to fabricate political dirt to help Trump’s reelection. [...]
Besides, outside Utah and LDS circles, and perhaps some Wall Street precincts, Romney has never been and will never be a beloved party titan. He was tolerated by many in 2012 because his rivals turned out to be feckless. But he’s become a symbol of Establishment Republican failure, the most important contributor to Trump’s ascent in the first place. Replacing Trump with the Mittster would be the deepest insult imaginable to mourning MAGA folk who view him as the epitome of the Swamp, both as a politician and as a champion of financial elites. It really wouldn’t make much sense. [...]
By process of elimination, if Trump goes down and Pence is cast aside, Republicans would need to quickly find a unity figure not involved in 2016 or more recent, divisive intra-party squabbles. That narrows it down to possibly one person: Paul Ryan. He’s obviously very well-known, with plenty of friends on Capitol Hill and on Wall Street. He’s been on a national ticket before, with the Mittster, whose defeat no one blamed on him. He’s in the neighborhood, having recently moved back to Washington, probably in anticipation of getting the Mother of All Lobbying Gigs — which fortunately he has not yet secured. He’s from the state many experts believe will decide the 2020 election, Wisconsin. And he knows how to graciously accept a call to service while appearing to resist it, having become Speaker of the House precisely through this role as a reluctant party savior.
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