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GOP Unlikely to Reprise Role it Played in Nixon's 1974 Exit

Associated Press

   NEW YORK - On Aug. 7, 1974, three top Republican leaders in Congress
   paid a solemn visit to President Richard Nixon at the White House,
   bearing the message that he faced near-certain impeachment because of
   eroding support in his own party on Capitol Hill. Nixon, who'd been
   entangled in the Watergate scandal for two years, announced his
   resignation the next day.

   Could a similar drama unfold in later stages of the impeachment process
   that Democrats have now initiated against President Donald Trump? It's
   doubtful. In Nixon's time, there were conservative Democrats and
   moderate Republicans. Compromise was not treated with scorn.

   In today's highly polarized Washington, bipartisan agreement is a
   rarity. And Trump has taken over the Republican Party, accruing
   personal rather than party loyalty and casting the GOP establishment to
   an ineffectual sideline.

   "In the past in the U.S., party members would dissociate themselves
   from disgraced leaders in order to preserve the party and their own
   reputations," said professor Nick Smith, who teaches ethics and
   political philosophy at the University of New Hampshire. "But now
   President Trump seems to have such a personal hold on the party -- more
   like a cult leader than a U.S. president -- that the exits are closed
   as the party transforms into his image."

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