As I’ve noted many times before, Donald Trump took office with very few ties to the GOP establishment, so he had the freedom to be a genuine populist if he wanted to be. He could have made himself a de facto third party and put his positions up for auction between the Democrats and Republicans. He could have supported a meaningful infrastructure bill and a tax cut directed primarily at his white worker base. Instead, he chose to embrace the parts of the GOP fiscal and economic agenda that are the least popular with the public at large. His association with that agenda will cost him in 2020.
Similarly, the GOP establishment could have treated Trump as a third party, not a true Republican. Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan could have made a far greater effort to distance themselves from Trump’s tweets and white nationalism; they could have made it clear to the public that their relationship with the president was transactional–like, say, our relationship with right-wing dictators in the Middle East. They chose, instead, to tolerate the most obnoxious manifestations of Trumpism in exchange for tax cuts, deregulation, and friendly judges. As a result, the party’s fate is completely tied in with the president’s. If he is shown to be a crook, the public will correctly view them as his accomplices.
Is there a point at which the president and the establishment will realize that they are locked in a death embrace, and let go? My guess is that Trump would have to be polling in the 20s for that to happen.