I posted this just after DJT became president. In light of today's DJT agreement with the Democrats over McConnell and Ryans' heads it seems of continued relevance. pl
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There are two real question facing the US as to what sort of president will Trump be.
1. Thus far he looks to me to be a man who will play a dominan role deciding major issues himself and will make deals with whomever has the power to entable him to reach his goals.
IMO that means that the Republicans in Congress will either go along with Trump's legislative proposals or see Trump go across the aisle to seek votes.
A good example would be whatever it is that Trump decides that he wants to do about the obvious failure that is the ACA, presently sinking under the weight of far higher costs than expected and smaller enrollments. Democrats understand that the law must be modified for it to survive and to preserve the increase in health care coverage that it has brought. The hardline Republicans in both Houses of Congress want to destroy Obamacare and they have no realistic alternative other than the usual blather about private health accounts. Trump will not want to alienate his working class followers. Why would Trump not make a deal with the Democrats to get what he wants and needs?
2. There is also a danger that the neocon faction among Trump's advisers will succeed in achieving power in his cabinet. The appointment of John Bolton to State, would be ,IMO, an unmitigated disaster. pl
http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/10/politics/donald-trump-barack-obama-transition/index.html
Democrats would be wise to accomodate these moderations and get some things done. 2018 is too much of a risk to play roulette with the Senate.
Time to start watching Fox to see how coordinated the wind change is.
Trump put the feckless cucked GOPe on notice that he didn’t need to deal with them to get things done.
Some blackpillers are screaming about how Trump has betrayed us for the millionth time this year, but the reality is that he undercut the virtue signalling Lispay Graham and Juan McAmenesty who would run to the cameras and declare how they shouldn’t play politics when so many people are relying on disaster relief money. Or something along those lines – you all know the script by now I’m sure.
On DACA, Trump has tossed a live hand grenade back into the Congress. Call it “recon by indirect fire”. The President is doing what he did with the skinny Obamacare repeal: flush out the cuckservatives and make them stand by their vote. Except this time he did it in the House. He wants Paul Ryan and all the other cucks on the floor of the Congress, banging on about an amnesty that they said was “unconstitutional and unlawful” and how they want to do something for illegal aliens.
I’ll give credit tho, to Lispay Graham, who seems to realize the box the President has put them in. He was saying today, I believe, that the mini-amnesty won’t be introduced unless the President personally stumps for it. If he believes that Trump is going to sign off on what he just threw in Congress’ lap, he’s a bigger fool than I though. We will see though.
Personally, I think this was Trump making the unreliable Republicans show where they stand for the 2018 election. No more braying about “muh conservative principuls, muh Constitution” when there’s footage of you weep weeping about the poor (adult) illegals.
The illegals themselves seem to be more than happy to prove every Alt-Right talking point about themselves. Yes, I’m sure that saying “We are going to replace you” while wrapped in a Mexican flag is going to go over well with non communist America. Please, continue.
Kevin Drum’s rather different POV on what has happened, FWIW:
President Trump has “sided with Democrats” in approving a 3-month deal that raises the debt ceiling, funds Harvey relief, and includes a continuing resolution to fund the government through December:
Trump made his position clear at a White House meeting with congressional leaders, agreeing with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) by voicing support for a three-month bill to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling for the same amount of time.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he would add provisions extending government funding and the debt limit through mid-December to legislation passed by the House on Wednesday that would provide $7.85 billion in Hurricane Harvey relief.
“The president agreed with Sen. Schumer and Congresswoman Pelosi to do a three-month [funding extension] and a debt ceiling into December, and that’s what I will be offering based on the president’s decision, to the bill. And we’ll try to get 60 votes and move forward,” McConnell told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “The president can speak for himself, but his feeling was that we needed to come together to not create a picture of divisiveness at a time of genuine national crisis. And that was the rationale.”
I suppose all the outrage theater this morning was basically in service of this: pretending that this bill is all Democrats’ fault. That’s not because the Republican leadership has any real objection to it—all of this stuff was inevitable eventually—but because they needed a scapegoat to placate the ultras in their own party. So they pretend to get dragged into this, even though it’s what they wanted all along.
In fact, it’s better than they could have hoped for. Congress has a ton of stuff on its plate in September, and getting three big things off the table right away is terrific news for them. This gives them some breathing room to consider other things, like FAA reauthorization, Obamacare stabilization, and immigration. I’m not sure how much good it will do them, considering the fault line in their own party, but honestly, Mitch McConnell must be breathing a huge sigh of relief right now. He’ll never admit it, but he is.
I look at it as the president is finally learning how the game is played in DC.
It was a pretty good couple of days where he finally stood up and let the swamp creatures know that he has a few moves left, despite their best efforts to rein him in.
You may remember Dr. King’s admonition that it is hard to ride a man’s back when he finally stands up, DJT finally stood up.
Now he needs to slap down someone in a leadership position to start instilling a little fear in his opponents.
Trump is exposing the Republican establishment for being what they are, Democrats hiding behind a Bible. They have had the opportunity to put up or shut up on both the ACA and immigration (and soon taxes).
Trump said he’d drain the swamp and this exposing of the cuckservatives is the first step. Many of them will be drained in 2018.
The Dems will be drained for siding with the incendiary lunatics in the streets.
The Dems will be drained for siding with the incendiary lunatics in the streets.
What’s the bigger problem, “incendiary lunactics” in the streets or the fact that many of them may not even have voted?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/11/17/the-non-voters-who-decided-the-election-trump-won-because-of-lower-democratic-turnout/#294a691353ab
Eric
There’s really no difference between the two parties. The duopoly produces the same policies. They’re both warmongers, big government spenders, and use the power of government to foster monopolies and cartels at the behest of those who are politically well connected. They only believe in the application of the law for the little people who they smother with laws that make independent living criminal, while those at the apex of big government are exempt from all laws and are free to engage in treason.
Thanks Jack @7,
I could not have said it any better.
Jack & Eric
Your understandable diatribe does not allow for the appearance of a figure who may be outside the two part system. pl
Sir
I haven’t voted for a candidate from the duopoly for president in many decades. I did make an exception last November and voted for Trump.
I will be pleasantly surprised if Trump does bring the Art of the Deal to enact policies that shrink the scale and scope of the federal government. I’m skeptical however since the bureaucratic and political imperative is for bigger government with the revolving door for all the political appointees that craft the details of policy. Trump and Schumer are in agreement that the debt ceiling should be permanently removed. I agree that it is just kabuki as it has done nothing to curtail federal government spending on boondoggles. Every time they hit the ceiling they raised it by making sure the pigs were well fed at the trough.
I don’t see how even a third party can change the dynamic when everyone wants a free lunch and those well connected politically have placed the people in high office to ensure the gravy train. If there’s one thing that became crystal clear when Podesta’s emails were leaked was how Wall St had decided Obama’s cabinet and top officials even before a single vote was cast in 2008. No wonder that Holder did not find it acceptable to prosecute anyone for the credit fraud that socialized the speculative losses of private financial institutions.
Sir,
You’re right. I am so opposed to what the left is doing to our society that I get caught up in the image of Trump as a hardcore Republican who will crush the leftists. I go too easy on the Rs because at least they don’t hate me (a white man who worked hard to get to where I make a decent living) and they at least appear to be for our traditional culture.
I haven’t given sufficient thought to what an *actual* Trump party policy implementation would look like. As you say, I imagine it would be pretty middle of the road, culturally, pro-business and with some reduction of foreign adventures (though probably not a complete cessation). In other words, quite moderate. We all get a little of what we want and we all get most of what we need.