Thread by @ChrisHenderson

If I hear one more hot take proclaiming John McCain's funeral as some kind of sharpened Sword of Damocles over Trump's presidency, I'm going to lose it. It was not a Cabinet Meeting of #TheResistance - it was a gathering of people who let America slip through their hands. THREAD

Yeah, Barack was a glass of water in the desert. And yes, Meghan McCain gave a eulogy anyone would be lucky to get from their kid, including a good uppercut on her father's principle antagonist. A memorable and potent - but not revolutionary - moment.

But so many people in that room have allowed Trump to happen. McCain's body hasn't even cooled and Lindsey Graham is a full-on Fox News toadie for the Combover-in-Chief. John Bolton is still dangerous and still at large in the Oval Office.

Paul Ryan is sneaking out the back door because his agenda has failed, even as his party controls all three branches, and he can't stand up to Mr. Orange in any case. Mitch McConnell's legislative hypocrisy isn't even worth going into.

Who at that funeral do you expect to rise up and turn this around? Gore? Kerry? Clinton? Three people who dropped elections they could have won. Pelosi? Someone who's getting challenged from within her own fractured, broken party.

The fact of the matter is that not being welcome at that funeral was the best thing to happen to Trump - it allowed him to be a callous dick from a distance rather than a disgusting embarrassment up close.

There are a dozen people in that room who could deal body blows to Trump's presidency, but they are all simply unwilling to protect America at the expense of their own agenda or they believe are restrained by a set of conventions that are long since shattered.

And so what are we left with? Thinly-veiled references in nationally televised speeches? The potential that an exchange of power in the midterms will keep the worst of his agenda from being enacted? That the impotent theatre of impeachment will force a resignation?

Fear of an irrational voter base that votes against their own self-interest in exchange for the empty promise that Trump will address one of their competing suite of grievances has given him an extraordinary gift: the ability to only be as wrong as he wants to be.

Is there hope? Not really. Impeachment is a political exercise that he will survive. What crime would he have to be accused of for both Congress and his base to agree that he's unfit to continue in office? Surely not one on the current menu.

Even if it worked in Congress, it would exacerbate the divisions in the population to a yet unknown height, probably a violent one. It might not be worth it. Lives would be lost. If resignation was on the table, it would have happened by now.