Trump is making Republican leaders look downright pathetic

The telltale characteristics of an abuser are well known: volatility, extreme jealousy, cruelty, controlling behavior.

So when are Republican leaders going to quit rationalizing and acknowledge the truth about their toxic relationship with Donald Trump?

They have managed to convince themselves that they need to appease the former president because he alone can stoke the conservative base enough to accomplish their return to power in 2022.

But the fragility of that premise becomes more apparent every day, as Trump increasingly turns his wrath on them, undermining their legitimacy and questioning their fitness to govern.

On Tuesday, Trump even went so far as to call for the ouster of Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) as Senate minority leader. “Should have never lost the Senate in the first place, thanks Mitch!” Trump wrote in an email blast. “New leadership is needed, and fast!”

Of course, the blame for Republicans losing the Senate more properly belongs with Trump himself.

He was the one who depressed GOP turnout in the Jan. 5 runoff election that determined two seats in Georgia by claiming it was “illegal and invalid.” In refusing to concede his own defeat in the state, the then-president also made the baseless allegation that there had been “massive corruption” in the general election.

Trump’s latest beef with McConnell stems from an interview that his former attorney general William P. Barr gave to journalist Jonathan D. Karl. In it, Barr said McConnell had pleaded with Barr to dispute Trump’s claims of massive election fraud, but was too cowardly — or too calculating — to do it himself.

“Look, we need the president in Georgia,” McConnell told Barr, “and so we cannot be frontally attacking him right now. But you’re in a better position to inject some reality into this situation. You are really the only one who can do it.”

When the account appeared in the Atlantic earlier this week, Trump took out his rage on both Barr — whom he branded a RINO, short for “Republican in name only” — and McConnell, whom he called “another beauty” and “spineless.”

All of this was in keeping with everything we know about Trump. Yet even now, Republicans continue to grovel, as if they expect anything different.

Wisconsin state Senate President Chris Kapenga (R) set a new standard for self-abasement after Trump attacked him and other top Republicans in the state for supposedly “working hard to cover up election corruption” and “actively trying to prevent a Forensic Audit of the election results” in the state, which Trump lost but claims he won.

In fact, Wisconsin Republican leaders indulged Trump’s unhinged conspiracy theories: Though there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud, they advanced legislation that would make absentee voting harder and ban the early collection of ballots.

Trump delivered his harangue against Wisconsin Republican leaders on the eve of the state party convention, and it quickly got results. There were calls for the resignation of the top Republican in the state assembly, Speaker Robin Vos, who responded by announcing that a hard-line former state Supreme Court justice would oversee a continuing — and thus far, fruitless — investigation into the 2020 election results.

In a June 26 letter to Trump, Kapenga insisted that Trump’s criticism was false and unjustified. But his pushback was slathered with so much obsequiousness that it was easy to miss.

“Let me first say that very few people have the honor of being named publicly by a United States President. I never imagined mine would be mentioned, much less in this light, from a President that I have publicly supported, and still support,” the Senate president wrote. “I feel I need to respond even though you will likely never hear of it, as the power of your pen to mine is like Thor’s hammer to a Bobby pin.”

Kapenga also noted: “I write this as I am about to board a plane due to a family medical emergency. In addition to my Trump socks, I will pull up my Trump/Pence mask when I board the plane, as required by federal law. I figure, if the liberals are going to force me to wear a mask, I am going to make it as painful for them as possible. I will continue to do this regardless of whether or not I ever hear from you.”

Flattery has been shown to go a long way with Trump, and having demonstrated his bona fides, Kapenga wrote that he hoped the two of them might be able to make up over “a round of golf at the club of your choice.”

But at some point, you would think it would dawn on Republicans that where Trump is concerned, fealty earns nothing in return.