Ronald Reagan would have rejoiced to have had a Republican majority in Congress. The Gipper had to settle for one in the Senate for a part of his presidency. That meant getting on the phone to move Democrats in the House of Representatives in his direction in that painstaking political process of policy pitching. But nobody did that better than Reagan.
Dwight Eisenhower was in a similar position. He was a widely, and indeed, wildly popular Republican president who had to deal with a Democratic-controlled Congress. But Ike got along well with Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson so they could do business. As for the House, there were enough Southern Democratics who voted with the Republicans to make it act sometimes like a Republican majority.
But President Donald Trump has a real Republican majority. But his Republicans can’t seem to decide if they’re in the same party or wish to constitute a third or even fourth one.
The budget debacle of this week, in which the GOP lost the funding for the wall and surrendered money for sanctuary cities, would be curiously pathetic if it were not so agonizingly stupid.
I thought the Republicans won the last election? Didn’t the Democrats run this sordid and pusillanimous campaign that was all about some failed Secretary of State with all those security issues? They kept blaming Russia, right? And when it was over, their leaders in the Senate and House started to behave like extras in “The Snakepit,” with Chuck Schumer reading civil war letters on Inauguration Day and Nancy Pelosi sounding more and more like a really old and desperately dated Norma Desmond from “Sunset Boulevard.”
That’s how it all unfolded, right? So why are the Democrats proclaiming victory this week over the budget negotiations and doing it pretty convincingly?
Seems like they won this round.
I worked in politics for years as a spin master, always trying to make the worst seem not so bad and the not so good seem fairly good indeed. The nice thing about being a journalist again is the freedom to identify reality for what it is and not what your political masters tell you it should be.
What we had this week is the Great Republican Cave. I don’t know if it will go down in history like the Civil War or Watergate but it is high time that we identifiied a dysfunctional Congress for what it is. Though it is quite true that America’s separation of powers allows the legislative Congress to defy the executive president without the government falling as it would in parliamentary democracy, there comes a point when you have to wonder just what these two forces actually do agree upon.
And you know, I am well past being weary of listening to House Speaker Paul Ryan, who always seems to be doing a sales job of one sort or another. On Tuesday he was spinning tales of the United States Air Force having “to go to museums” for spare parts during the Obama years and how everybody should focus on how at least Trump and Congress can agree on the need to restore the American military. Well, as much as I agree with that objective, I highly doubt the USAF, even under Obama, had to scour museums for spare parts. The story was no doubt gleaned from a Canadian media account of their Air Force technicians having to raid a museum for a C-130 part.
It really seems like the Republican Party is becoming a victim of its own success. Or perhaps it is leary of appearing too insenstive to the weakness of the Democrats.
Well, it’s head-shaking time and we need to remind these folks that just a scant six months ago, none of the mainstream media, Democrats or Republicans gave Trump a hope in hell of winning the presidency and with each passing day the likelihood of disaster in the House and Senate loomed larger.
Try to remember that you won this election, Republicans. You don’t need to beg and borrow from the Dems, who will only take advantage of you.
And boy did they ever this week.