If you don't understand what the Republican's are up to you're just not really paying that much attention

Sorry, but to me, it's so obvious.  Guess what...if your waiting for the Mueller prosecution, good luck.  By the time this gets going and finished Trump will be finished with his 4 years, and what they need in place (dismantling government) will be done.  You didn't have your eye on the prize.

1.  The Republicans  in power know that this is their last hurrah and they will loose, not only the next election, they will cease to be viable.  They have a chance to mold conservative christian philosophy influence that will be challenging to undo.  If they don't act now they have lost their chance to reclaim their evangelical stronghold for good.  This is why they love Trump's distractions.  Morality be damned!
2.  The left leaning republican and the right leaning democrat have melded into one and have become powerless and unable to fight back because they refused to accept the US and the world is changing dramatically in ways they fear.  This only feeds the beast of No. 1 and renders them powerless and feeble at best.
3.  Donald Trump is their prize possession.  He distracts with his crazy, unpredictable behavior, so they can go, relatively, undetected dismantling government in a way that big business can be the driving force/control of the nation.  This is why Donald Trump was their choice all along and also why he shifted to Republican.  He will benefit financially which is all he cares about, and they will benefit politically which is all they care about.
4.  The Republicans I speak of aren't the republicans of the past, they have shifted to tea party leaders who have, as stated above, hijacked the party.

What would have thwarted this entire fiasco is very simple.  We have a 4 party structure in place that is crammed into 2 parties, busting at the seams, in my opinion.

1. Tea Party
2. Republican Party
3. Democrat Party
4. Progressive Party

What is so simple has been made self destructive beyond imagination.  Our two party system has created a money driven machine that paralyzes the governments ability to govern for the people.  Driven by fear, this system has to be predicated on feeding the beast of power, money, and manipulation in a way that stricken politicians into believing there is no other option, and holds the voting public hostage through a electoral process that is antiquated.  This is most important today because both the old Republican and Democratic parties are lame ducks, unable to affect what they are supposed to be best at, bipartisan negotiating.  This was a calculated process placed by McConnell and Boehner (remember him) convincing the public that Obama was not willing to negotiate with them, in my opinion.

While, on paper, it appears that the Republicans have majority rule, yet...they actually do not.  The radicalized Tea Party does, and Trump is their Trojan horse, while Ryan, McConnell, Pence, etc get the work done to dismantle any policy that doesn't represent conservative, white, christian values of the present, and big business that will "do the right thing".  Yeah...right.

Take a gander at any evangelical leader on TV such as Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson, etc...who have changed their rhetoric to be so out there it's frightening.  They weren't always this emboldened, or downright crazy, well...somewhat crazy, but now bat crazy.  Alt-Right is so empowered under this new Tea Party platform that they don't need white hats to hide behind.

We have a problem that has an easy solution.  4 parties, limit monetary contributions to all and see what happens.  What do we have to loose?  It can't make things worse.