Trump or Pence? Either way, the Koch brothers have won

The Democrats’ favorite party game these days is guessing whether they would be better off politically with a full four years of Donald Trump in the White House or with some kind of political upheaval that would produce a President Mike Pence. It’s the old quandary of dealing with the devil they know versus the devil they don’t know.

Or, to be more precise, the dangerously ignorant, erratic, boorish narcissist they know versus the smugly pious tool of the Koch brothers they don’t know.

Trump is such a disaster that Republicans who care about the republic and care about the future of their own party — like Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker and Arizona’s two senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake — are now openly ridiculing their president’s policies and personality. McCain decried Trump’s “half-baked, spurious nationalism.” Flake has called Trump’s behavior in office “reckless, outrageous, and undignified.” And Corker called Trump a “constant non-truth-telling” person who is “debasing” the presidency and the country.