THE FINAL WORD
Yes, there is an off-chance of an initial overture to Trump and the Republicans on an infrastructure bill or some around-the-edges fixes to Obamacare, but that will likely just be a pretext. No grand bargain will emerge in this political climate, and Pelosi and company will quickly switch from tepid outreach to all-out attack. Americans who would like to see more constructive governance and efficient administration on all sides should get ready for disappointment. With a divided Congress and a hyper-partisan atmosphere emanating from D.C. across the entire country, it will be an all-out street fight. The economy, health care, and immigration will take a backseat to Russia collusion, Trump’s tendency toward personal indiscretions, and whatever clowns come out from the shadows to be a part of the anti-Trump circus. acrimonious. The anti-Trump movement still wants payback. For the president, this may not be a bad situation, politically speaking. While he no longer can have any realistic expectation of successfully shepherding a major policy win through the legislative process, Trump excels at rock ‘em sock ‘em politics. The Democrats’ impeachment proceedings in the House may be preordained, but Senate removal while Republicans have a majority is a fantasy. Absent a political catastrophe, the Democrats won’t get to 51 votes to take Trump out of office, never mind the two-thirds that the Constitution requires.
The best outcome from the White House’s perspective will be a sweeping 2020 re- election victory that restores Republican control of Congress and gives Trump a free hand to pursue his more controversial (and central) campaign promises, like building a wall on our southern border. After all, the stadium-sized crowds of Trump supporters during the 2016 election weren’t chanting “cut my taxes.” In the meantime, political discourse is only going to get more acrimonious. The anti-Trump movement didn’t see the utter repudiation of Trump that they hoped the midterms would bring. They still want payback. And the Special Counsel, with Robert Mueller at the helm, looms in the background, ready to drop a report that could completely upend American politics. The anti-Trump voices in the media – those who have been warning about fascism and the erosion of norms – will only get louder and crazier. They have a vested interest in the failure of this administration, as many of the largest news organizations in the country have staked their credibility on unearthing a Nixon-level bombshell to bring it all crashing down. If they can’t conjure it from the increasingly flimsy Russia collusion narrative, no doubt the self-styled mandarins of our democracy at the New York Times and CNN will find it somewhere else. But remember this, above all else: Politics, as the cliché tells us, is indeed the art of the possible. In the era of Trump, anything is possible. Strap in, America.
“ Political discourse is only going to get more
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November 2018 Nove ber 2018
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