I thought Congres. GOP were supposed to be lapdogs, who’d always vote with Trump

[Associate Justice PiT]

Sorry to do this guys, but examples of what I’m talking about…

Bold Prediction - zero Republicans cross over to vote against Puzder, Puzder makes it through 52-48.

It really doesn't matter if there are crossovers now.  Today's vote shows that fifty Republicans are cowards who will happily vote in lockstep with their Fuhrer regardless of how unwise it is, and that's all that's needed.

Bold Prediction - zero Republicans cross over to vote against Puzder, Puzder makes it through 52-48.

Better question, will any Republican vote against any of the remaining nominees?

Better question yet, will any of the 50 cowards ever oppose Trump in any meaningful way? (i.e. not just talk it abstractly, a la "maaaaaaaaybe I'll have to vote against Tillerson ")

Of course, this was a failure in the House rather than the Senate, but the same thing would’ve happened if the Senate had gone first.  The fact that they were willing to approve his entire Cabinet except Puzder didn’t actually mean that they’d always go along with him on policy.

The argument some folks seemed to be buying into was that Trump had some sort of unique mind meld with the GOP base, and that would insulate him from defections.  The fact that he spoke with a 4th grade level vocabulary and insulted people made him some kind of working class hero, which made his support from the base more "authentic"....or something.

It's much more common to vote against your party on legislation than on a cabinet appointment.

     It still makes the point that Congressional Republicans are something more than a rubber-stamp to the Trump Administration agenda. Many of them showed less sense than would be desirable (not that this is anything new out of the House), but it does hurt the "Trump as fascist dictator" meme that some people have been pushing. A fascist dictator would have had more success doing something of this sort.

[Associate Justice PiT]

It may have been a red Herring, but it's also noteworthy that both Puzder and TrumpCare were pulled, not actually voted on. I will need republicans to formally vote down something Trump wants before I believe they're willing to oppose him in large numbers.

Problem with that is that the party leadership is capable of counting votes before the vote is held, and will not bother holding a vote if something is going to lose, as we saw in the cases mentioned above.  So unless Democrats are going to start siding with Trump on certain issues, then on any vote for which more than a couple of Republicans are going to defect, there just won't be a vote held at all.

     Indeed, it is hilarious in a sense. The party leadership wants to avoid a situation where the rank and file rebels against them and works to prevent that scenario. On the other hand, Wulfric demands that the rank and file rebels against them to prove that they are capable of independent action. As it happens, the party leadership is working (coincidentally of course) to ensure that Wulfric will never consider the rank and file as being capable of independent action.