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President Trump first asked reporters to define the "alt-right," before saying members of the "alt-left" were also to blame for violence in Charlottesville, while taking questions from reporters on Aug. 15 at Trump Tower in New York. (The Washington Post)

President Trump has dropped all pretense and proudly raised the banner of white racial grievance. The time has come for Republicans in Congress to decide whether this is what they signed up for.

Business leaders decided Wednesday that theyd had enough, quitting two presidential advisory councils before Trump quickly dissolved the panels. Military leaders made their call as well, issuing statements in the wake of Charlottesville making clear that they embrace diversity and reject bigotry.

With only a few exceptions, however, GOP political leaders have been too timid to denounce the president and the reprehensible game of racial politics hes playing. I think the corporate chief executives who bailed are making the right bet: History will remember who spoke out, who was complicit and who stood idly by.

On Twitter (where else?), Trump poured salt in the nations wounds Thursday by coming out firmly against the removal of public monuments to the Confederacy the issue that brought white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan to Charlottesville and led to the death of Heather Heyer.

Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments, he wrote. You cant change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson whos next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish!

President Donald Trumps reluctance to condemn bigotry suggests he does not want to heal the wounds of racism and white supremacy. Fred Hiatt, head of The Washington Post editorial board, says Americans still have reason to hope. (Adriana Usero,Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post)

Some slippery-slope arguments are valid, but the one Trump makes is absurd. He cant possibly be so dense that he doesnt see a clear distinction between the men who founded this nation and those who tried to rip it apart.

Trump may indeed not know that most of those Confederate monuments were erected not in the years right after the Civil War but around the turn of the 20thcentury, when the Jim Crow system of state-enforced racial oppression was being established. They symbolize not history but the defiance of history; they celebrate not defeat on the battlefield but victory in putting uppity African Americans back in their place.

But even if someone explained all of this to Trump perhaps in a one-page memo with lots of pictures he wouldnt care. For him, the important thing is to tell the white voters who constitute his base that they are being disrespected and dispossessed. Its a cynical and dangerous ploy.

We know this is Trumps game because White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon told us so. In an interview with journalist Robert Kuttner of the American Prospect, published Wednesday, Bannon is quoted as saying: The Democrats, the longer they talk about identity politics, I got em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.

But Trumps base wont identify with Nazis and the KKK. Thats why Trump maintained falsely that among the torch-bearing Charlottesville white supremacists there were also plenty of very fine people. And its why he now seeks to broaden the issue to encompass Confederate monuments nationwide, abandoning his earlier position that the question should be left to local jurisdictions.

Thats probably also why Bannon, in the interview with Kuttner, referred to the white-power clowns as, well, clowns. Hes smart enough to reassure Trump supporters that theyre not like those racists and that all the racial game-playing is on the other side.

Trumps desperation is palpable. His approval ratings have slid perilously close to the danger zone where Republican officeholders no longer fear crossing him.

For titans of the business community, the tipping point came Wednesday. The chief executives of General Electric, Campbell Soup, Johnson & Johnson and 3M decided they could no longer serve on Trumps advisory Manufacturing Council or his Strategy & Policy Forum.

Why stick around? Prospects that Trump can actually follow through on a business-friendly agenda, including tax reform, look increasingly dim. And Trumps many sides reaction to Charlottesville wasnt going over at all well with employees, customers or the executives themselves.

Constructive economic and regulatory policies are not enough and will not matter if we do not address the divisions in our country, JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon wrote in a message to his employees. It is a leaders role, in business or government, to bring people together, not tear them apart.

The chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and National Guard also publicly condemned hate groups in the wake of Charlottesville. They, of course, could not mention the commander in chief by name.

But politicians can. And they must.

Read more from Eugene Robinsons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.

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History will remember the Republicans who stick around - Washington Post

An influential McLean County Republican leader said Thursdaythat the local GOP chairman should not have shared a controversial post this week on the party's Facebook page. She also said the resulting backlash was "beyond deplorable" and may energize local Republicans going into next year's elections.

McLean County Clerk Kathy Michael issued a lengthy statement on her Facebook page, her first public comments on a controversy that's ensnared local Republicans all week.

It began Tuesday night, when McLean County Republican Party chairman Chuck Erickson shared a message on the party's Facebook page that sided with President Donald Trump and his widely condemned "both sides" remarks on Charlottesville. By Wednesday morning, several Republicans were distancing themselves from the comments. Erickson issued a clarifying statement that condemned the KKK and neo-Nazis.

"I don't always agree with GOP Chairman Erickson, but I can tell you one thing for certain. This man is no racist," Michael said in her Facebook post on Thursday. "Many more can tell you this man has done more to help war veterans and all veterans than anyone you or I know. But you don't want to believe that, do you? It doesn't fit your political narrative. To paint him as a racist is dishonorable and nearly unforgivable.

"I agree that (Erickson) should not have used the GOP Facebook page to air his strong beliefs. I also believe him when he says his remarks were misinterpreted," Michael said.

Michael said questions about what she thinks of Nazis are "insulting." She called for those upset about the backlash to take action in March's primary election and the November general election.

Michael herself is expected to face a challenge next November from Democrat Nikita Richards. Both would have to win the primary before going head-to-head.

Michaeltook aim at those who are painting all local Republicans as racist.

"And to you I say thank you. Thank you for energizing the good Republicans who may have not been energized before," Michael said.

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Clerk To GOP Critics: 'Thank You for Energizing' Republicans - WGLT News

There is no going back to Reagan-era Republicanism.

Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Update, Aug. 18, 2017, at 2 p.m.: This article has been updated to reflect news of Steve Bannons departure from the White House.

Shortly before Steve Bannon was booted from the White House, we caught a glimpse of his contradictory nature. In an interview with left-wing labor journalist Robert Kuttner, Bannon insists he is a class warrior who wants nothing more than to forge a pan-ethnic coalition of working-class economic nationalists that can defeat the smug globalists of Wall Street and Silicon Valley. In conversations with his friends in the White House, meanwhile, he describes Donald Trumps equivocating response to white-supremacist terrorism in Charlottesville as a shrewd way to fire up the presidents base. Ben Smith of Buzzfeed has drawn out the contradictions between these two Bannonisms in a recent column, making the point that theres no rational way to reconcile them. Hes right.

But what would happen if we teased apart the seemingly disparate approaches championed by Trumps erstwhile chief strategist? The answer is that wed get two entirely different visions for the Republican future.

Theres one point on which both Bannons agree, which is that there is no going back to Reagan-era Republicanism. The basic formula for the Grand Reagan Party is that we must keep fighting for tax cuts for the rich (because they create jobs), shrinking the welfare state (because public aid breeds dependency), cutting Social Security benefits for those under 55 (because entitlements are out of control), boosting military spending (because the world is a dangerous place), and increasing immigration levels (because we love the huddled masses yearning to breathe free and we need cut-rate farmworkers and engineers). It is vitally important that we balance the budget, Reagan Republicans believe, which is why we must slash Medicaid spending. But its also crucial that we cut taxes, which will unleash entrepreneurs, spark an economic boom, and lift all boats.

As much as Jeff Flake might long for this kind of neo-Reaganism, Trumpunder the influence of the svengali-like Bannonhas demonstrated that GOP voters have mostly moved on from it. That leaves us with two other possibilities, each of which reflects a different brand of Bannonism.

The first would be a Republican Party rooted more firmly in white identity politics. Imagine Republicans winning not by making gains among non-white voters but rather by doing even better among whites. If a future Republican presidential candidate could match Trumps numbers among non-college-educated white voters and Romneys numbers among college-educated whites, shed be hard to beat. For this to work for the GOP, the whole map would need to look like the Deep South, where Republicans routinely win 70 percent or more of the white vote.

What would be the ideological orientation of a Grand White Party? For one thing, the GWP would want to curb non-white immigration, to put the brakes on Americas fast-moving demographic transformation. And it would take a softer line on entitlement spending, not least because older Americans are a disproportionately white, Republican-leaning constituency. On foreign policy matters, the Grand White Party would be more skeptical of foreign intervention, seeing it as a waste of money and time.

A Grand Middle Party could step into the populist void a more 1 percent-ish Democratic Party leaves behind.

Could a Grand White Party succeed? Its possible, at least for a little while. If Democrats campaign on expanding means-tested benefits and raising taxes on high earners, a Grand White Party could argue that Democrats are in effect transferring resources from well-off white families to poor non-white families. If Democrats at the state and local level push desegregation efforts that would bring poor non-white families into suburban neighborhoods currently dominated by well-off white families, a Grand White Party would push back aggressively.

One challenge for a Grand White Party is that college-educated whites and non-college-educated whites often have clashing sensibilities and political priorities. To really ramp up support among college-educated whites, the Grand White Party might have to take stances on social issues that non-college-educated whites would find alienating. On the other hand, the fact that so many evangelical Republicans have rallied behind thrice-married serial groper Donald Trump might mean that paeans to traditional morality have faded in importance.

There is another challenge involved in building a Grand White Party, which is that many white voters would be uncomfortable seeing themselves as part of a whites-only party, so theyd need the party to at least pay lip service to being more racially inclusive. You could argue that this is where Republicans find themselves right now.

What will happen to a Grand White Party as the Latino and Asian electorates continue to expand at a rapid rate? One possibility is that Latino and Asian identities will grow more rigid and racialized, and that Latino/white and Latino/Asian conflicts will intensify. Under these circumstances, the white electorate might shrink, but a combative Grand White Party might compensate by securing a still higher share of embattled white voters. Its also possible that a growing number of Latinos and Asians might come to identify as white, thanks to intermarriage and assimilation. Such a development would shore up an otherwise shrinking white electorate.

There is another alternative for the GOP, though, one that resonates with the Bannonism we saw in his conversation with Kuttner. This version of Republicanismthe Grand Middle Partywould build on a longer-term development, which is that while Democrats increasingly represent affluent college-educated professionals and the non-white working class, Republicans are increasingly the party of the white middle class. A Grand Middle Party would build on this white middle-class base by incorporating a larger number of Latino, Asian, and black middle-class voters.

Join Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz as they discuss and debate the weeks biggest political news.

To do this, however, Republicans would have to embrace a radically different approach to domestic policy. A Grand Middle Party would be more skeptical of mass less-skilled immigration than a Grand Reagan Party. Unlike the Grand White Party, however, it would couch its skepticism in terms of its commitment to helping Americans of all colors and creeds, including lawful working-class immigrants and their children. The goal of a Grand Middle Party immigration policy would be to recruit skilled immigrants who can help shrink Americas poverty problem by paying the taxes we need to finance schools and social programs.

Instead of fighting for tax cuts on the rich, a Grand Middle Party would take a more populist approach. One idea would be to exempt most middle-income families from federal income taxes and replace the lost revenue with a broad-based consumption tax, like those used in Canada and Australia. While a Grand Middle Party would fight measures such as an unconditional basic income that have gained favor on the left, it would embrace work-friendly programs like wage insurance, subsidized apprenticeships and summer jobs, and paid-leave benefits for working mothers, the latter of which is an idea backed by Donald Trump of all people.

If these policies sound like ideas Bill Clinton might have championed, youre onto something. If the most recent Democratic primaries have taught us anything, its that the Democratic Party has changed since the 1990s. On the one hand, younger Democrats have moved sharply to the left, especially on cultural issues. On the other hand, in the post-Trump era, Democrats are consolidating support among members of the cosmopolitan business elite, who tend to find Trumpism repellent. As affluent voters join the Democratic coalition, its possible that the party will grow more averse to old-school economic populism. A Grand Middle Party could step into the populist void a more 1 percent-ish Democratic Party leaves behind.

As much as Steve Bannon claims to want something like a Grand Middle Party, he and Trump have been adhering almost exclusively to the Grand White Party playbook, with little success. The debate in todays GOP is almost exclusively between those who favor a Grand Reagan Party and a Grand White Party. If something like a Grand Middle Party is ever going to emerge, it seems, it will be after Trump fades from the political scene.

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Grand White Party vs. Grand Middle Party - Slate Magazine

Mitch McConnell's former chief of staff Josh Holmes breaks down the mindset of the establishment GOP. | Alex Wong/Getty Images

SIREN -- THE NEW CIVIL WAR: INSIDE THE MINDS OF TOP ESTABLISHMENT REPUBLICANS -- FROM JOSH HOLMES, the former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the president of Cavalry: If you took a time machine from ten years ago and arrived this week you would be forgiven for assuming Donald Trump was elected president as a Democrat on a platform of the south will rise again!

Trump is using the precious capital of the bully pulpit to talk about confederate monuments in between savage attacks on fellow Republicans. Just think about that. Not tax reform. Not repeal and replace. Not North Korean nuclear capabilities. No focused critiques on extremely vulnerable Democrats who have opposed him at every possible turn.

Story Continued Below

The reality is that every time he attacks a Republican he invites another member in good standing and another segment of the Republican party to abandon him. When youre eight months in and Republicans are all you have left, chipping away at the remaining few is a helluva strategy. The outpouring of critiques from within the GOP about the Presidents handling of Charlottesville could serve as a wake up call for the Administration, but if not, it could also be a Republican Party that begins to reassert an identity without Donald Trump.

WHAT JOSH IS TALKING ABOUT -- @realDonaldTrump: Great to see that Dr. Kelli Ward is running against Flake Jeff Flake, who is WEAK on borders, crime and a non-factor in Senate. He's toxic! Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments. You........can't change history, but you can learn from it. Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson - whos next, Washington, Jefferson? So foolish! Also......the beauty that is being taken out of our cities, towns and parks will be greatly missed and never able to be comparably replaced!

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ITS NOT SURPRISING that Trump doesnt want Flake to be reelected -- he has been vocally opposed to the president, his behavior and some of his policies. This is just the latest back-and-forth between the two in the last month. But calling for an incumbent senators head from your own party is unprecedented. Flake has good relationships with his Senate colleagues and is a reliable Republican vote for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. This type of intraparty pissing match in public is the exact type of thing McConnell hates. Expect Republican senators to link arms and back Flake.

-- SENATE DEMOCRATS will love this. Its like a free gift. It distracts the GOP and could force McConnell and other outside groups to spend millions of dollars in a costly primary tying up money that could be used elsewhere.

-- @AliABCNews: The NRSC unequivocally supports Senator Flake in his reelection bid. NRSC Chairman @SenCoryGardner @SenJohnMcCain: .@JeffFlake is a principled legislator & always does what's right for the people of #AZ. Our state needs his leadership now more than ever.

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What establishment Republicans think about Trump's tirade - Politico

If Republicans want to be in the majority, its not a question of sticking from Trump, its a question of accomplishing things, Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, said in a phone interview, driving away from a town hall-style forum this week in Ada, Okla. And most of those things require a presidential signature.

By the time Mr. Cole hung up, Mr. Trump had reverted to blaming both sides for the violence last weekend in Charlottesville, Va.

The remarkable exchange with reporters at Mr. Trumps Manhattan tower has renewed pleas, from corners of both major parties, for Republicans to break with the president in a more permanent way.

And Mr. Trump seems to be all but daring them, using his ritual Twitter unburdening on Thursday morning to lash out at two Republican senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (publicity seeking) and Jeff Flake of Arizona (Flake Jeff Flake) who have criticized his recent leadership.

There is no doubt that Republicans have collectively amended their approach to the Trump problem in recent months, at least slightly: Finger-wagging counter-tweets and one-off statements of disapproval have often supplanted willful public ignorance. (Many had long retained a habit of telling reporters they had not seen the presidents latest objectionable flourish, no matter how ubiquitous.)

But it is not clear what a meaningful, sustainable divorce from Mr. Trump could even look like.

The most extreme remedies, like impeachment, remain nonstarters in Republican circles. The party has likewise declined to embrace any formalized censure against the president, an option pushed Wednesday by House Democrats though last months sanctions on Russia, passed against the administrations wishes, were a notable bit of bipartisan defiance.

Among Republicans, though, the next steps are complicated by the presidents ramshackle legislative strategy: The White House has effectively outsourced its agenda to its partners in Congress.

Abandoning Mr. Trump is abandoning themselves.

Are Republicans to set aside plans to overhaul the tax code, a party priority long before Mr. Trump arrived? Should they really refuse to consider the presidents broadly conservative nominees?

At least some have arrived at a disquieting conclusion: It is time for the party to dream small, for now anyway.

We cant get an agenda through, Mr. Flake said in an interview on Wednesday, noting the 60-vote threshold for most major legislation. The notion youre going to get all the Republicans, let alone any Democrats, to agree given his standing in the polls and when hes making these kinds of statements is just absurd.

Mr. Flake called it laughable to think that the Republicans signature effort, repealing the Affordable Care Act, could be revived successfully in this political moment.

The most striking appraisal came on Thursday from Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee and a frequent administration ally this year. He said that Mr. Trump had not demonstrated that he understands the character of this nation.

I do think there need to be some radical changes, Mr. Corker told reporters back home. The president has not yet been able to demonstrate the stability nor some of the competence that he needs to demonstrate in order to be successful.

Still, with few exceptions, most Republicans have appeared inclined to slog on.

A Gallup poll this week placed Mr. Trumps approval among Republicans in the high 70s a comedown from his postelection standing but still a large majority to consider, especially for lawmakers in safe districts whose most serious electoral threats often come in a primary election.

The Charlottesville episode has made plain how desperate Republicans are for Mr. Trump to steady himself.

You tell me what he needs to say so we can move beyond this, Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin asked of reporters in his home state.

Your words are dividing Americans, not healing them, Mr. Graham said of the president on Wednesday, two days after issuing an instant backslap on Twitter Well done Mr. President when Mr. Trump gritted through the more explicit denunciation of white supremacists that he seemed to regret hours later.

Some Republicans have taken care to avoid using Mr. Trumps name even as they back away from his remarks, using we as a sort of euphemism for the president they have in mind.

We can have no tolerance for an ideology of racial hatred, Mr. McConnell said in a statement on Wednesday.

We must be clear, Speaker Paul D. Ryan said Tuesday on Twitter. White supremacy is repulsive.

Democrats appear eager to convince voters that Mr. Trumps character and his partys agenda cannot be disentangled. With an eye toward next years midterm elections, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is already pressing the argument that House Republicans have helped pave the way for President Trumps racially charged presidency.

But it is legislative failure, more than any connection to Mr. Trump, that Republicans seem to view as the more menacing electoral iceberg.

House members are not afforded the luxury of the Senates six-year terms, which supply a longer runway for congressional accomplishment and can embolden some in the upper chamber to defy Mr. Trump more freely.

In the Senate, most of those guys arent up next cycle, said Mr. Cole, the Oklahoma congressman and a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Its easier to break when your names not on the ballot.

The partys priority, he said, must be to move legislation on the big three: health care, taxes and infrastructure.

If we get to the end of the year and we havent done any of the big three, then you worry about political trouble, he said.

From many sides.

Jonathan Martin contributed reporting from Birmingham, Ala.

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Republicans in Congress May Be Stuck in a Relationship With Trump - New York Times