Trump’s Wrong on Russia. But the GOP Won’t Say So.

Even when Trump’s position is a political loser, the GOP gives him a pass

One of the fascinating aspects of American politics over the past five years is how Donald Trump has managed to cow almost every high-profile Republican politician in America into deferring to him, despite the fact that he is, in most cases, less popular than they are. Split-ticket voting is less common in the U.S. than it once was, thanks to growing partisan polarization and what’s often called the nationalization of political campaigns. Yet in both 2016 and 2020, Trump underperformed most Republican Senate candidates (and mildly underperformed Republican House candidates). Yet with the exception of the few Republicans who have become explicitly anti-Trump — including Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger in the House, and arguably Mitt Romney in the Senate—most Republican politicians are leery of saying anything that might be perceived as crossing Trump, even on issues where his position is plainly unpopular.

The most recent, and striking, example of this came on Sunday, when Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, appearing on ABC’s This Week, refused to criticize Trump’s failure to condemn Vladimir Putin for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Cotton forthrightly stated his position on the war— he wants the U.S. to do what it’s doing, namely side with Ukraine and supply it with weapons. But when This Week host George Stephanopoulos asked him why he would not “condemn” Trump for calling Putin’s moves…