BTRTN: It's Different When Coats Turns on the Turncoat

[reggieandlee]

3. Perfectly fair question...

I have no statistical source to quantify the breadth of awareness of Dan Coats among Trump's base. I do believe that his awareness jumped exponentially -- across the political spectrum -- when he launched his famous tweet. And in the news swirl that followed, it became clear that he was a long standing member of Trump's team who had openly defied the president. So it is hard to gauge the impact of Coat's rebellion among the rank and file, but the coverage was at saturation levels during a period of intense media coverage.

But Republicans in government know who Coats is, and I assume most have a sense that he is a long-standing staunch conservative who is highly aligned with some of the party's more extreme positions, most notably on LGBT issues. They also may know that Coats has a long-standing and deep mistrust of Russia and Putin. Taken in sum, it must have appeared to be a very sharp act of defiance on Coats' part. One of the key points the article was making was that Republicans in government saw one of Trump's own people openly rebel and emerge unscathed. That could embolden others to do the same... and the consequence of that would be a direct influence on the rank and file.

Thanks for commenting.