@edgarblythe,
That is, I think, right on the money. We've known for over two years that the Koch crowd wanted Pence in the top spot. And I've been writing for two years that any hopes Trump would be given the boot or forced to resign has to be tempered with the understanding that:
1) Pence would replace him
2) This replacement, tethered to a massive marketing campaign across right wing media and flowing into mainstream media as well, will provide a real opportunity to rebrand the GOP and conservatism (just as the "Tea Party" was used to rebrand the GOP and conservatism after the disastrous Bush years). "Trump was not a real conservative", they will say just as they said it about Bush (both father and son, actually).
And the GOP voters' memory hole will spread open to disappear the past and help them now gobble up what they are being fed.
As Reich's contact suggests, the next two years will be very ugly indeed. Even given such a rebranding and presuming I'm right about how most GOP voters will respond in two years, the GOP knows it cannot retain/maintain power unless they violate the fundamentals of representative democracy through voter suppression, redistricting and operating as they are now in Wisconsin and Michigan.
