I don't think they're scared at all. Instead, I think that crash-and-burn, and then blame the other guy, was the plan all along. Deflecting all blame towards

I don't think they're scared at all. Instead, I think that crash-and-burn, and then blame the other guy, was the plan all along. Deflecting all blame towards the other guy has been the standard practice for at least multiple decades now. It's not something that is kept in the pocket and used for special occasions; that play has instead been a constant in US national politics for a rather long time now. The only new part with this administration is actively throwing monkey wrenches into the works and then acting all surprised when things break, or just failing to admit that they've broken a thing. (But they're not stupid; they knew that doing this would break stuff.)