It is undisputable that Donald Trump plumbed new depths for what the Republican Party considers "too far" for their own politicians to go. Trump proved that no scandal -- sexual, financial, business-related, personal, factual, political, international interference in American politics, white national, conspiracy theorist, or insurrectionist -- was "too far" for him to go, at least with his own massive and committed base of supporters within the party ranks. Many other Republicans either now in office or running for office have taken this new low standard to heart, as GOP politician after GOP politician is caught in scandals that previously would have forced them to resign or be voted out of office the first chance the voters had. The big unanswered question is whether any standard (no matter how low) even remains within the party for anyone not named "Donald Trump." How far is "too far," these days, for Republicans?

Of course, there are really two standards at play here. The first is what the Republican Party thinks, and the second is what the voters think. We don't have a clear image of either one of these, at this point in the process, but it might become clearer as we wend our way through the primary and general election seasons.

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The very first column I ever wrote (for the Huffington Post, I didn't actually start this blog until a year later) was titled "Democratic Demagoguery." It urged Democrats to take a page from the Republican playbook and learn how to viscerally present issues and their party's agenda, in order to get more voters to vote for them. It started off (you'll soon note that this was 2006, as some of the current "hot button" issues plainly show) with the following:

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Supreme Courts are commonly referred to using the name of the chief justice who runs them. In my own lifetime, we've had the Warren Court, the Burger Court, the Rehnquist Court, and now the Roberts Court, led by Chief Justice John Roberts. The chief justice is not selected or elected by the other justices, it is a permanent position that only changes after the death or retirement of the previous holder of the title. But it is becoming increasingly obvious (and will continue to become so) that the current court is no longer being led by Roberts. We might as well just adjust to the new reality and start calling it the Alito Court instead.

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Primary season is about to get underway across the country, and this year all eyes are on the various Republican contests, as seen through a single lens: Donald Trump's endorsements. This is horserace political commentary at its best or worst (depending on your outlook on horserace reporting in general). Tomorrow night will kick off this frenzy, with one of the most-watched races around -- the Senate primary in Ohio. But while much ink will be spilled dissecting the outcome of this race and many others (in the weeks to come), when considering Trump's endorsement record and the relative value of such endorsements, it's important to consider a few factors which might get lost in the fray. So let's take a look at the biggest of these.

How red a state is it?

A Republican primary in a ruby-red state is a different beast than one in a purple state. In a solidly red state, the Republican primary essentially is the election -- whoever wins is going to be elected in November, in other words. In a purple state, there is also the consideration of how strong the candidate will be in the general election against the Democratic nominee.

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As we write this, everyone inside the Beltway is getting ready for the upcoming White House Correspondents' Dinner, which President Joe Biden has said he will be attending (after a hiatus of presidents attending due to COVID and, earlier, due to Donald Trump having incredibly thin skin). But, as usual, our invitation seems to have been lost in the mail or something. Ahem.

We are excited with a sort of "something good is about to happen" feeling, however, because the House Select January 6th Committee has finally announced a preliminary schedule for public hearings. Here's the story (as it stands so far):

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[Program Note: This is the conclusion to the first part of this article, which ran yesterday.]

If Republicans do take control of both chambers of Congress, the margin of control in each will be the most important variable. In the Senate, the margin will likely be fairly close, but nobody really knows what it might be like in the House. If Republicans have a blowout House election season and pick up dozens and dozens of seats, this will almost certainly make Kevin McCarthy's job a lot easier; but if the margin is tight (maybe not quite as tight as the one Nancy Pelosi has been dealing with, but perhaps within 10 or 15 votes) then any faction bigger than the margin will be able to dictate its own terms -- as the Tea Partiers proved, the last time this happened.

Of course, there is no guarantee that Kevin McCarthy will actually become speaker. If the margin is tight enough, then the whackadoodle fringe of the Republican caucus might decide to oust him for some perceived unfaithfulness to Trumpism. It's doubtful that they could force one of their own (Jim Jordan, perhaps?) on the rest of their caucus as speaker, but there is a curveball plan that some of them are already openly flirting with -- nominating Donald Trump for speaker of the House.

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[Program Note: I had to split today's column into two parts, because it ran so long. When I started writing it, I didn't realize how much ground I was going to have to cover. So today's installment will first take a look at the historical context, and then there's a little rundown on some current Republican candidates at the end. Tomorrow's conclusion will examine in depth exactly what might be expected to happen next year. I suppose it's entirely appropriate for an article on divided government to be presented in a divided fashion, right?]

As distasteful as it may be, it seems like a good time to consider what divided government next year would look like, and what might happen in such a scenario. Of course, nobody knows what the outcome of the midterm congressional election will be, and as Ukraine should have taught us, sometimes crises pop up that aren't a part of the American political cycle at all. So we have no idea right now what the most important issue facing the voters will be in November. It could very well be something that isn't even on anyone's radar at the current moment. But just for the sake of argument, let's assume that Republicans win control back of both the House and the Senate. This would give President Joe Biden a hostile Congress for the remaining two years of his first term.

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President Joe Biden seems to be getting more engaged in the process of the midterm election campaign of late. He has been travelling around the country a lot more (partly this is due to the fluctuating state of the COVID pandemic, of course), he has been making the case for his own record of accomplishments a lot better, and he now seems to be openly considering making a dramatic move that he has actually supported all along: forgiving at least $10,000 of student debt. Notably, this comes only days after Senator Elizabeth Warren publicly urged Biden to start using executive orders to get some things done now, while it could matter for the party's chances in the fall. Maybe Biden got the message.

Of all the things Biden could do with the stroke of a pen, there are two that stand out above all the rest: cancelling student loans and forcing drug companies to lower the prices on their medication. Those two alone would be gigantic leaps forward, at least in the political sense. High drug prices are something everyone hates -- everyone not either on the payroll of or otherwise beholden to Big Pharma. And it consistently winds up near the top of the list in things American voters would like to see the government accomplish, across party lines. While not quite as universal, at least partially forgiving student loans is politically important for one specific reason: the demographic it would help the most.

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Utah Democrats have just announced they're going to try an experiment. Instead of running a Democratic candidate in the upcoming Senate race, they are instead throwing their weight behind an Independent candidate, Evan McMullin. By doing so, they hope to boost his chances over the incumbent Republican Mike Lee. This is an experiment, so there's no guarantee it'll work -- but it undoubtedly will give McMullin a much better chance at beating Lee, so it will be very interesting to see play out.

America has two dominant political parties with a smattering of much smaller third parties. So when one of the big ones decides to sit out an important race, it is indeed noteworthy. Utah hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in over half a century though, so it's not like the Democrats had any real viable shot of dethroning Lee. But in a three-way race, they would probably have siphoned off enough votes to make it impossible for any third-party candidate to win.

McMullin ran as an Independent in the 2016 presidential race, mostly to give Republican voters in Utah a more palatable choice than having to vote for Donald Trump. He pulled in an impressive 21.5 percent of the vote in the state, but Trump still won the state with 45.5 percent. Hillary Clinton got 27.5 percent, meaning that 49 percent of the vote went for either the Democrat or McMullin. McMullin was either on the ballot or a write-in candidate in many other states, but other than Idaho (6.7 percent), he failed to top even two percent of the vote anywhere. Obviously, he was a "favorite son" candidate in Utah itself, and nothing more.

Of course, nobody knows how he'll do this time around. But Utah does have a history of electing strong conservatives to the Senate who are still rational (see: Mitt Romney) and have not gone down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories. Mike Lee, on the other hand, started as a Tea Partier and has now gone full MAGA. So this will be a race between the Trump wing of the Republican Party and what's left of the old establishment Republicans.

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Happy Earth Day, everyone!

It's been a rather bizarre week, which is even more odd since Congress is still off lollygagging, rather than doing the people's business as they are handsomely paid to do. Perhaps all these vacations have a cost? That's what we were thinking, at any rate, when we heard the news today that the House Select Committee on January 6th has punted the ball yet again, and will not even be scheduling public hearings until June, rather than next month. Seriously, guys? You're going to break the biggest political scandal story of the year right at the start of summer?!?

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