Placing Obstacles

In the right leaning media, there is a lot of astonishment at the Democrats going bat poop crazy, reading deep psychological trauma in President Trump having two scoops of ice cream when everyone else had one or believing that  the Russia collusion story is true despite a continued lack of evidence, which is untenable when one considers the waterfall of leaks on anything that is even mildly embarrassing to the president.  It has become standard for everything Trump does to be somehow compared with Nixon during Watergate.  Cries of impeachment are heard from Representatives and are a common meme on Facebook.  Has the left lost its mind?  No.

This is a strategy.  It is a somewhat desperate one but it is also an effective one.  Thanks to the ubiquitous panic, the travel moratorium - which was mostly going to last 90 days - would have been over in many cases by now but it has yet to be implemented.  Ground has not been broken on the wall, appointments have run at a glacial pace, healthcare reform has been slowed, and tax reform appears stalled.  Trump's 100 days saw lots of executive action but very little legislatively.  The 'craziness' is serving as an excellent holding action.  The longer the delay, the better the chance of Democrats recapturing the House and bringing any hope of Trump having a legislative legacy to an end.

 

The danger of the strategy is that it could alienate voters.  The Democrats have spent most of the last eight years describing Republicans as the Party of No and have now taken that mantle on themselves.  Of course, the Republicans are too inept to throw that label back in the Democrats' faces but a canny electorate will notice.  The Republicans are digging their own graves by repeatedly failing to get legislation to the president's desk.  A lack of successful legislation now that the House, Senate, and Presidency are all Republican will assure Nancy Pelosi's return to the Speakership in January 2019.  Many Congressional Republicans would probably be okay with that.

 

Draining the swamp is going to require legislation.  If Trump is serious about it, he needs to spend more time in the Capitol Building to sell a legislative agenda and use the bully pulpit to browbeat recalcitrant Republicans into passing it.