The following article by Michael Tomasky was posted on the Daily Beast website August 16, 2018:
This is the party they have been becoming since the Brooks Brothers riot, and in Trump they have found their leader.
Some friends and I were musing in this post-Omarosa moment about what Republicans would do if a tape in fact emerged of Donald Trump saying the n-word. They’d denounce him, of course. And I’m sure that on some level, most of them would find it genuinely offensive.
But what would they, you know, do? One assumes that Tim Scott and Mia Love, the two African American Republicans on Capitol Hill, would be awfully worked up. Among the remaining 285 white ones, a couple would give thundering floor speeches, probably the same old suspects, Flake and Corker, who are retiring. Ben Sasse would hit social media, as is his ineffectual custom. Then, if recent history is any guide, they’d do… nothing. Another controversy would erupt, the n-word story would move out of the cable-news cycle, and the Republicans would skate away.
The question is why. The conventional wisdom answer, one I’ve believed myself, is “they’re afraid of Trump’s base.” That’s kind of true, but I have come to believe that isn’t the reason.