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CARTERSVILLE, Ga.Several miles off Route 41 in Bartow County, Georgia, is the downtown area of Cartersville. It's a throwback place with brick-face storefronts, independently owned businesses, and railroad tracks that bring freight trains straight through the center of the town every 30 minutes.

The Myth of the Kindly General Lee

Here, the firing of James Comey arouses not support or opposition, but rather, indifference. Nobody I spoke with cared either way; it doesn't affect them or their families. People shrugged when asked about Trump's tweetstorms. Most agreed that press treatment of Trump is too harsh. Overall, the focus for Trump voters here is the big picture: the economy, jobs, and border security.

Bartow County is 885 miles from Manhattan, but this is Donald Trump country. He took 46 percent of the vote here during the primary, trailed by Ted Cruz at 25 percent and Marco Rubio at 18 percent. In the general election, Trump trounced Hillary Clinton, winning 75 percent of the vote to Clinton's 21 percent.

Currently, however, President Trumps job approval is clinging to the 40 percent threshold. And while Republican members of Congress, save for a select few, are backing the president, his legislative agenda appears stalled, with the prospects of health-care reform tenuous at best. Tax reform, at this point, looks like a pipe dream.

Trump's struggles have left Republicans, who had once hoped to gain seats in 2018, worrying they might lose control of both the House and Senate. "Obviously no one knows what is going to happen in next year's midterm elections, but analysts who have watched congressional elections for a long time are seeing signs that 2018 could be a wave election that flips control of the House to Democrats, Charlie Cook wrote recently in National Journal.

Trump keeps adding gasoline to fires, yet House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell behave as if its business-as-usual in Washington, D.C. If there is anything to explain their reticence in publicly rebuking Trump, it likely comes from GOP fears of alienating Trump voters across the country.

Ross's Diner has been a Cartersville fixture since 1945. There are no tables (save for one or two outside), just two long counters with stools that hold a total of 30 people. On any given morning, a dozen or so are there at one time, eating breakfast, reading the newspaper, and chatting with each other about a variety of topics, including politics.

Several said Trump hadnt been their first choice. Tony Favero and his wife Elizabeth, owners of two "Larry's Giant Subs franchises in town, initially supported current Housing and Urban Development Secretary, Ben Carson. "We wanted somebody who was a real outsider."

Both backed Trump in the general election, but at this point, Tony is handing Trump mediocre marks. "I would say a C. I'm disappointed he's focusing so much on Syria and North Korea instead of focusing on domestic issues, such as tax reform and repealing Obamacare." Elizabeth was more optimistic, but she also offered a mixed review. Although she believes Trump has achieved more than she thought possible, she also complained Trump is often immature, needing to dial back his impulsive behavior.

Sharon Ross was another early Carson supporter. "He really had it together. His answers to debate questions were thoughtful." She appreciated Carson didn't have a political background. After he dropped out, she voted for Trump to oppose Hillary Clinton. Ross didn't have much to say about his performance so far; she's tuned out of the news entirely, she said. "It's only been four months. Come back and ask me in four years and I'll give my opinion on how he's doing."

The word establishment never surfaced. People spoke only of political insiders and outsiders.

"I was with him the moment he came down that escalator," Debra Cagle, a server at Ross's, said with a smile. Cagle, like the Faveros, wanted an outsider for president. "He can't be bought like those career politicians," she said. She dressed as Donald Trump for Halloween, and readily produces a photo to prove it. Thrilled with the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, Cagle said the biggest problem facing Donald Trump is the mainstream media. "I don't trust anything they report."

She wasnt alone. Ken Wilbur of Powder Springs grew up on a farm near the Cobb County Airport. "I've worked to elect politicians from the local level to the federal level," said Ken Wilbur of Powder Springs. I have no idea why people do it. Hes appalled by what he sees as the medias unfair treatment of Trumps family. If you went after my family, there'd be big trouble. I don't know why he wants that job. I sure wouldn't want it."

"I wish they'd leave him alone, already," said Hugh Siniard. The 61-year-old had recently retired from a utility company after 40 years. He hadnt had a preference in the Republican primary; he'd been prepared to vote for anybody that was not Hillary Clinton. "I'm glad he's holding the liberal media in line," he said.

But for all his discontent with the media, Siniard was still waiting to see Trump deliver on his campaign pledges. "I'm happy with Neil Gorsuch," he said, "but I want Trump to focus on what he promised, such as securing the border and putting people to work here in the United States." Siniard supports the construction of a border wall and Trump's infrastructure proposal.

This is the predicament now facing conservatives and Republicans in Congress. Trumps supporterstheir own primary votersare standing by him. But while Trump supporters want him to focus on the big picture issues such as health care and tax reform, the president spends most of his time consumed with the kind of trivialities other presidents leave for spokespeople to handle. Trump still sees the presidency as a brand to sell, rather than a political office in which to shape an overall agenda for the country. Instead of talking about his tax reform plans when asked questions, the president is still reminding people he won the election.

A 70-year-old man, who spent 50 years cultivating an image and personality, isn't going to adjust it, even while occupying the Oval Office. When Rod Rosenstein named Robert Mueller to as special counsel, the Trump administration released a brief, level-headed statement reiterating its belief no collusion between Trump's campaign and foreign entities existed and looked forward to the end of the investigation. The following morning, Trump took to Twitter, lashing out at the investigation, calling it the "single greatest witch hunt of a politician in history." He followed it up with another tweet, complaining about the lack of the appointment of a special counsel in the Obama administration.

At this point, it does not appear that anybody in the White House can communicate to Trump the urgency to dial down the tweetstorms and outbursts. (Kellyanne Conway defended Trumps tweeting as going directly to the people.)

That leaves leaders like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell in a bind. They worry about Trump alienating the swing voters some of their members will need to win reelection but if they make their concerns public, Trump supporters may see it as an attempt to undermine the president. In March, Trump threatened lawmakers who didn't back the AHCA with a primary opponent. Many Republicans represent districts that went strongly for Donald Trump in 2016, and while they hold safe seats for the general election, none of them want to waste time and resources beating back primary opponents.

Much as Trump voters may detest insiders, the presidents ability to enact his agenda now rests on Ryan and McConnell. Theyre left to perform a high-wire act of politics and personal persuasion, trying to rein in their presidents excesses without alienating their own voters. If they cant pull it off, voters in places like Cartersville are likely to be unforgiving. Couple that with a resurgent Democratic electorate, and the wave election Charlie Cook warned about comes closer every day.

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The Republican Dilemma - The Atlantic

Republicans could hardly contain their excitement after Hillary Clinton said she plans to get involved in the 2018 midterm contests, which Republicans see as a chance to contrast themselves once more with Clinton, the two-time failed Democratic presidential candidate.

"Hillary Clinton is a face that Republicans would love to have out there as much as possible and Democrats want to see as little as possible," said Doug Heye, a former Republican National Committee communications director. "Hillary Clinton was and is a divisive figure in the party."

Clinton promised to get involved on Wednesday, when she delivered a lengthy speech that blamed her November loss on President Trump, his alleged coordination with Russia and several other factors. In particular, she blamed the Democratic National Committee for not helping her enough in the general election and blamed the press for overplaying the situation involving her private email server.

Her remarks were widely seen as another example of her failure to take responsibility for the loss. But it also left Republican groups salivating at the idea of using her as a foil to raise money.

The GOP campaign arms of the two congressional chambers the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee both plan to fundraise off Clinton in the coming days and weeks, as they have in recent months off Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has long been a Democratic foil for Republicans in campaign cycles. The NRCC said it is set to use Clinton in states like Minnesota, Maine and Ohio against various Democratic candidates.

"The NRCC would welcome Hillary Clinton getting back out on the campaign trail with Democratic candidates," NRCC spokesman Matt Gorman told the Washington Examiner. "She's still, in so many battleground districts across the country, unbelievably unpopular, and an overwhelming amount of voters still find her to be untrustworthy."

As for her own party, Clinton angered Democrats on Wednesday by going out of her way to bash the DNC. In her remarks, she said the party apparatus gave her "nothing" in the general election and said their data operation was "mediocre to poor, non-existent," and "wrong." She also praised the Republican National Committee's operation.

Despite that, Pelosi claimed Friday that Clinton would be more than welcome by Democrats to lend a helping hand, just as all party leaders are.

"There are going to be all kinds of messengers in this," Pelosi told reporters on Friday when asked if Clinton was a good messenger for the party. "Some people will be more helpful in some places than others."

"That would be great," Pelosi added of Clinton's involvement. "She is highly respected in our country, and it's going to take everything to defeat the Republicans because they will have endless special interest, secret, dark money flowing like black substance into the campaign, suffocating the airwaves with their misrepresentations. So we'll take everything ... We are proud to enlist all of our leaders in that effort."

At the moment, Democrats have the wind at their back in the battle for the House as they look to make inroads in suburban districts. That includes Georgia's 6th Congressional District, where Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel are running neck-and-neck despite longtime Republican control of the district.

Republicans, however, hope their numbers advantage in the House 239-193 could be too much for Democrats to overcome. Either way, Republicans are eager to make Clinton an issue for Democrats.

"For a lot of Democrats ... Hillary Clinton is the candidate who lost to Donald Trump, and that is the worst thing you could be for a Democrat right now," Heye said. "Any time she's out trying to respond to Trump or trying to explain away her loss, she reminds Democratic voters of that fact."

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Republicans can't wait to run against Clinton again - Washington Examiner

NewsBusters (blog)

Eichenwald Accuses Republicans of Defending 'Right-Wing Terrorists' NewsBusters (blog) Appearing as a guest on Saturday's AM Joy, MSNBC contributor and Newsweek senior editor Kurt Eichenwald accused Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Republican members of Congress of defending "right-wing terrorists" during the Obama administration ...

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Eichenwald Accuses Republicans of Defending 'Right-Wing Terrorists' - NewsBusters (blog)

We dont know the reality underlying recent reporting about Jared Kushners meetings this past December with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. and the head of Russias government-owned development bank. The only two plausible explanations seem to be that Kushner was involved in something supremely sketchy, or that hes extraordinarily nave and incompetent.

What we do know for certain is that if the Washington Post and New York Times had run similar stories about the top-level son-in-law aide to a Democratic president, that son-in-law would have been out the White House door before the dead-treeversions of the newspapers hit doorsteps the next morning.

Or not. Its more than likely that,if a Democratic president attempted to put their son-in-law in a comparable position of power, the intense outcry would have prevented it from happening at all.Try to imagine Hillary Clinton proposing that Chelseas husband Marc Mezvinsky like Kushner, a rich New Yorker with a convict father and no relevant experience should be in charge of reinventing government, solving the opioid epidemic, reforming the criminal justice system, and negotiating peace in the Middle East.

Even speculating about such a thing, however, is irrelevant, because a Democratic president whod bragged that shed fired the director of the FBI in order to relieve the pressure of a counterintelligence investigation would already have been impeached 37 times. In the run up to the 2016 election, prominent Republicans were calling for Clinton impeachment hearings to start on her inauguration day, or even before she took office.

All of this is a symptom of the extraordinary rightward tiltof the U.S. political system one that goes deeper than even most Democrats and progressives understand and which makes it unlikely that well ever get the full story about President Trump and Russia, nefarious or not.

To take a particularly salient example, there hasnt been a significant investigation headed by a Democratic special prosecutor or independent counsel since the Nixon administration. The last one was Archibald Cox, whod been solicitor general during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and then was the first special prosecutor appointed to look into Watergate.

After Richard Nixon ordered the Justice Department to fire Cox in 1973, the next special prosecutor was Leon Jaworski. Nominally a Democrat, Jaworskivoted for Nixon in 1960 and again in 1968. After Watergate, he went on to support George H.W. Bush in the 1980 presidential primaries and then, after Bush lost, founded Democrats for Reagan.

And thats essentially it. In the subsequent four decades it became accepted D.C. wisdom that a special prosecutor investigating a Republican administration cant be a Democrat, whereas one investigating a Democratic administration must be a Republican.

So Lawrence Walsh, who ran the Iran-Contra inquiry beginning in 1986, was a member of the GOP. For his troubles he was mercilessly attacked by his fellow Republicans.

The first independent counsel to investigate Whitewater during Bill Clintons presidency was Robert Fiske, a Republican. When he found that White House aide Vince Foster had in fact killed himself rather than being murdered by the Clinton octopus, columnists and GOP politicians predictably declared that this raised questions about Fiske. So he was replaced by Kenneth Starr, another Republican, whose inquiry went so far afield from Whitewater thathe ended uplooking into Clintons affair with Monica Lewinsky, leading to Clintons impeachment. Whitewater was finally wound down in 2003 by Robert Ray, a third Republican.

Next up was John Danforth, a special counsel for an investigation of the FBIs siege of Waco, Texas, and, of course, a Republican.

Patrick Fitzgerald, who was appointed in 2003 by then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey to look into the Valerie Plame affair, broke the pattern, sort of. Fitzgerald wasnt a Republican, but he wasnt a Democrat either;he was a self-declared independent.

Things have returned to normal, however, with the appointmentof Robert Mueller to head the investigation into whatever happened with Russia and the Trump campaign in 2016: Mueller is a Republican.

A similar phenomenon exists with two key D.C. power positions, director of the FBI and secretary of defense.

Since the ultra-conservative J. Edgar Hoover, there have been six FBI directors, three appointed by Democratic presidents and three appointed by Republicans. All six directors have been Republicans, although James Comey recently changed his longtime GOP registration.

Not all defense secretaries have been Republicans. But three of the seven chosen by Democratic presidents since Jimmy Carter have been and in fact President Obama simply kept George W. Bushs secretary of defense, Robert Gates, who served under Obama longer than he did under Bush. Meanwhile, six of the seven defense secretaries appointed by Republican presidents post-Nixon have been Republicans, while James Mattis does not have a declared political allegiance.

President Obama presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to outgoing Secretary of Defense Robert Gates during the Armed Forces Farewell Tribute for Gates at the Pentagons River Terrace Parade Field in Washington on June 30, 2011.

Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

An in-depth New York Times examination of why Comey broke with FBI policy to publicly discuss the FBIs 2016 investigation of Clinton while following the rules and keeping that of the Trump campaign under wraps was headlined Comey Tried to Shield the FBIFrom Politics. Then He Shaped an Election. But what the Times article reveals is that the politics Comey feared was solely attacks from Republicans. Michael Steinbach, the FBIs former top national security official, is quoted saying that if Comey had not revealed the Clinton emails found on Anthony Weiners computer and Clinton went on to win, Republicansfury would have been so intense that he didnt think the organization the FBI would have survived. None of the people around Comey had any comparable apprehension that keeping the Trump investigation secret could lead to Democrats destroying the bureau.

Similar D.C. stories are legion. In 2009, right-wing provocateur James OKeefe released misleadingly edited videos about the 40-year-old Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, which did critical work registering poor voters. Within weeks, congressional Democrats, then with large majorities in both chambers, killed federal funding for ACORN. Five separate investigations later found that ACORN personnel had not broken any laws or misspent government money. Nonetheless, within a year, ACORN collapsed.

Then in 2010, Andrew Breitbart posted an excerpt from a video of a speech by Shirley Sherrod, a Department of Agriculture official, falsely presented to make it appear that Sherrod held bigoted views toward white people. It quickly spread throughout the rest of the right-wing media ecosystem. Predictably, the Obama administration immediately folded, asking Sherrod for her resignation the same day. Even prominent progressive Benjamin Jealous, then head of the NAACP, criticized her. Sherrod later sued Breitbart for defamation, settling the case in 2015 withundisclosed terms.

And now, as the Trump administration gets going, government staff reportedly fear being personally targeted by right-wing media attacks more than ever before.

In the end, whats most remarkable about this phenomenon is that both parties and the journalists who cover them have accepted it as the natural state of American politics. No one in D.C. seemseven to perceive anything could be any different. Republicans and their conservative media apparatus are engaged in a continuous war against Democrats orany Republican who moves an inch out of lock step. Democrats exist in a permanent defensive crouch, willing to throw any part of their coalition to the wolves at a moments notice and failing to even articulate this dynamic, let alone fight it. For their part, many Washington journalists allow Republicans to setthe agenda by credulously covering even the flimsiest of attacks at legitimate scandals.

So dont fear for Jared Kushner or Donald Trump. As Bruce Bartlett, a GOP apostate and former staffer for Jack Kemp, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, glumly put it, if Watergate happened today, Nixon would have finished his term.

Top photo: Jared Kushner, senior White House adviser, attends a luncheon with Mauricio Macri, Argentinas president, and U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington on April 27, 2017.

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Jared Kushner Still Has a Job Because Washington Only Fears Republicans - The Intercept

As President Trump and Republicans celebrate the passage of the GOP health-care bill in the House, The Post's Jonathan Capehart offers this piece of advice: Enjoy it while you can. (Adriana Usero,Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

Every new president tries to claim a mandate for his agenda, that because he won the election that means the public supports everything he wants to do. But ask yourself this: Is there anything anything on the agenda of the Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress that enjoys the support of the majority of the public?

Lets look at a couple of examples from the biggest items on their agenda, starting with health care. The latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll finds that an incredible 84 percent of Americans say that its important that any replacement of the Affordable Care Act maintains the ACAs expansion of Medicaid. Even 71 percent of Republicans said so. Which is a problem for the GOP, because rolling back the Medicaid expansion is the centerpiece of the Republican repeal plan. Republicans are arguing among themselves about whether it should be done slowly or quickly, but the whole point of the exercise is to undo that expansion so that they can fund a large tax that mostly goes to the wealthy.

The Senate is right now tying itself in knots trying to figure out how to pass something that satisfies the GOPs conservative principles but that the public wont despise, and it may be slowly realizing that this is impossible. I dont see a comprehensive health-care plan this year, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.)said yesterday, and hes probably right.

Lets move on to taxes. At yesterdays speech announcing his pullout from the Paris climate agreement, President Trump made this little digression:

Our tax bill is moving along in Congress, and I believe its doing very well. I think a lot of people will be very pleasantly surprised. The Republicans are working very, very hard. Wed love to have support from the Democrats, but we may have to go it alone. But its going very well.

It was certainly interesting to hear that the tax bill is moving along in Congress, because there is no tax bill, neither moving along, standing still or spinning in circles. The administration has produced nothing more than a one-page list of bullet points on taxes, and congressional Republicans havent written a bill, either. There have been no hearings, no committee votes, nothing. This is one of those moments when its hard to figure out if Trump is lying or genuinely doesnt realize whats going on; earlier this week he tweeted:

Yet nothing has been submitted, nothing is moving along and nothing is ahead of schedule.

Thats partly because there are some substantive differences among Republicans about what tax reform should include, but its also because they know that whatever bill they come up with is going to be hammered by Democrats for being an enormous giveaway to the wealthy. They could solve that problem by not making it an enormous giveaway to the wealthy, but then what would be the point?

So they realize that its not going to be very popular. In other circumstances, that might be less of a problem they could say, Thats okay, its important to us, so well just push it through. George W. Bush passed two big tax cuts that were largely similar to what Republicans want to do now, didnt he? But theres a difference. When Bush signed his first tax cut in June 2001, his approval rating was at around 55 percent. When he passed his second tax cut in May 2003, his approval was around 65 percent (it was early in the Iraq War, when everything seemed to be going well). Right now Trump is at around or below 40 percent in many polls, so neither he nor Congress is getting the benefit of the doubt.

Are there other Republican initiatives that the public is behind? If there are, theyre awfully hard to find. The Paris accord is extremely popular, so Trumps decision to pull out probably wont go over well. The overwhelming majority of the public opposesongoing GOP efforts to defund Planned Parenthood. Theres little support for the drastic cuts in government spending Republicans advocate. Theyre about to start a push to repeal the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law, which House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), in a remarkably shameless bit of Orwellian spin, characterizes as a way to stop indulging Wall Street. But Americans arent exactly demanding that the nations beleaguered bankers be liberated from their crushing burden of government oversight.

The deep unpopularity of this agenda goes a long way toward explaining why Congress has gotten almost nothing done this year, despite the fact that Republicans control both houses and have a president happy to sign whatever they put on his desk. All Republicans feel nervous these days their president is unpopular, so is their party, and theres the real possibility of a Democratic wave in 2018 that sweeps many of them from office. Thats enough to make a lawmaker skittish about doing anything that might make the voters even more disgusted. So the legislative process gets dragged out for longer and longer.

Congressional Republicans complain that all the drama and scandals in the White House suck the air out of Washington and make it harder for them to focus on their agenda, which is true to a degree. But the real problem is that the public just doesnt want to buy what theyre selling.

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Why are Republicans getting so little done? Because their agenda is deeply unpopular. - Washington Post (blog)