What are the chances that Trump is using blackmail on fellow Republicans?

My opinions of Trump don’t originate from my personal feelings. He himself is obviously very limited in his intelligence and capabilities. As with all recent presidents, I think they are like pretty much all of Congress in that they are one way or another in the pockets of influential groups/organizations/factions/whatever that mostly avoid having an official public presence at all – at most they have agents which also try to be relatively inconspicuous but serve as sacrifices when/if they attract negative publicity (e.g. the Koch brothers, Bannon, ALEC, Karl Rove, etc).

For a long time now, all our presidents and most of our other elected representatives have been directed and confined to ranges of allowed behavior in one way or another, no doubt including blackmail and threats if needed, but manipulation is now an art and a science and the string-pullers can harness most of the wealth and power on the planet if need be, so such crude methods are not needed. One obvious and safe form of this is simply scandals, which are easy to arrange when you own all the news corporations, too.

Trump is not a string-puller. He’s a tool, and will be sacrificed himself when the time is ripe. If he’s overtly blackmailing someone, that would be foolish (but it’s Trump, so could be – his folly is part of his set-up for being sacrificed and distanced from the more mainstream corporate tools), it’s no doubt within the parameters the actual string-pullers have set.

Not very likely. They are all in bed together, so the more the merrier!
(Sorta akin to piglets scrambling to feed off the mother pig’s teats except it’s every Republican vying for a spot to kiss Trump’s a$$.)

I wouldn’t put anything past Trump but his style is to bully rather than to blackmail.

I doubt it, although I wouldn’t dismiss it entirely.

The reason: he’s not that deep and conniving a thinker. Blackmailing people would take a lot of mental effort (to keep things straight), and a lot of consistency. He would always have to have his story straight with each of 50 senators. That’s hard for an intelligent person – it would be even harder for an airhead like Trump.

I seriously doubt it.

Near to zero. That so many apparent rivals and former critics have turned into fawning sycophants, I think has more to do with their own authoritarian mindset.

They’re as fine with socially dominating others as they are submitting to authority. In their Social Darwinistic world, Trump “won” and deserves his fortunes.

Remember—these aren’t people who believe injustice or unfairness exists. In their minds everyone gets what they deserve: the poor are lazy and stupid, the rich and successful are brilliant and wonderful.

Their initial opposition to Trump was founded on their belief that he was a bad candidate who would likely lose the election. They were wrong. And now they gleefully brown-nose, flatter, and appeal to Trump’s narcissism like the good submissive authoritarians they are.

I would say no, or not directly. Like others have said, I don’t think he has close to enough brain power. I wouldn’t be surprised if his lawyers, or do boys were up to something.

I would actually say that there is a higher chance of some Democrats doing it. They have more to gain/lose.

I do consider the cutting of funding for the UN, as a form of blackmail though. Not a smarts thing in this case though. More like a spoiled child taking their ball, and going home, when they don’t get their way…