Days of Change

A Bad Bad Thing

At some point, Donald Trump will betray almost everyone.

Trump’s rise and nomination and presidency have many parallels to Barack Obama. Neither were particularly experienced. They both wanted to negotiate with the Russians behind the scenes. They both are extreme narcissists. They both hate John McCain. Now Trump is joining Obama in actively working to get people with the same party designation to lose elections.

This week’s deal with Sid Chuck and Nancy is the realization of a threat Trump made earlier. Except it wasn’t Obamacare, where Democrats and some Tuesday Group Republicans might have gotten something passed. No, this was Trump getting a first round of hurricane funding and the Democrats have the Republicans passing a three-month debt ceiling increase so they can talk about a government shutdown again in three months. More than working with Democrats, Trump had threatened that everything wrong is the fault of Congress while anything good is the result of his leadership.

Either way you look at it, however, it’s a bad thing. Obama and the Democrats cut corners and forced all of their Senators and most of their Congress members to pass Obamacare right before the midterms. They lost the House and, in 2014, lost the Senate. However, they managed to put so many people on Medicaid that Republicans are afraid to repeal the program outright. In Trump’s case, he’s forcing Republicans to embrace him which could very well lose Republicans the House in 2018. What does he get for it? It’s the satisfaction of sticking it to Paul Ryan, the guy who’s tax plan Trump will likely plagiarize, and Mitch McConnell, the guy who opened a space for Trump to get Gorsuch on the Supreme Court.

The hopeless Trumpers consider this getting something done, if you define “done” as being 90 days. Others at least speculate that Trump strategically gave away his bargaining positions in order to show outlier GOP groups that they can’t hold up a bill without potentially cutting them out of the process. I think President Trump took a page from businessman Trump. If you’re in trouble, stick your partners with the bills, sell out quick and make them declare bankruptcy.

Days like this, I’m glad I voted for Gary Johnson.