Donald Trump's "nut-case battalion" appears to be abandoning him, according to a newspaper's editorial board, and they're hoping Republican lawmakers will do the same.
The twice-impeached one-term president inspired a violent rebellion Jan. 6, and now those right-wing fanatics seem to be turning away from him after he publicly endorsed the COVID-19 vaccinations he received months ago, wrote the editorial board for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
"He inspired pandemic skepticism, and now the skeptics are rejecting his appeal to get vaccinated," the board wrote. "He cultivated wild-eyed conspiracy theories and even gave White House press passes to the worst of those nut cases. Now the leader of the nut-case battalion is reportedly questioning whether Trump is a 'dumbass.'"
"We'll leave it to the experts to pronounce on the accuracy of Infowars host Alex Jones' 'dumbass' diagnosis of Trump," they added. "But Jones' assessment is an indication of where the Trump brand might be headed."
Trump's supporters booed him at the Alabama rally where he promoted vaccinations, Jones questioned his intelligence and many of the right-wing militants accused of plotting the U.S. Capitol riot remain jailed on serious criminal charges that could keep them in prison for years -- and the board hopes those are all signs of saner future for the Republican Party.
"These are just a few of the signs that extremists on the Republican side no longer blindly stand behind their formerly beloved leader," the board wrote. "If the extremists in Trump's base are jumping ship, perhaps now is a good time for saner, more moderate Republicans in Congress to do likewise."
