Lil Trump and Obama (via)
Funny how the Democrats were so willing to work with Trump and the GOP, in contrast to Senator Mitch McConnell’s scorched earth approach in 2008. McConnell famously pushed his party to not vote with the Democrats a single time and to actively obstruct each and every possible initiative proposed by President Obama. Remember that guy named Merrick Brian Garland?
Rather than trying to bring Democrats to his side, Mr. Trump has instead waged a war of Twitter insults against lawmakers who oppose his agenda. He has picked fights with allies, proposed giant budget cuts to programs dear to many in his own party and inserted himself into the health care fight in ways that hurt congressional Republicans’ efforts, all under the cloud of a federal investigation into possible connections to Russian meddling in the election.
All this has undermined the notion, born just six months ago, that Mr. Trump’s surprising win had rewritten the political map, as Ronald Reagan did in 1980, in a way neither party could ignore. Confident that the political order is largely intact, Democrats have been emboldened to oppose his agenda, and Republicans, who adamantly refused to help Mr. Obama, are learning what turnabout feels like.
“Early in new administrations, members look to work together where they can,” said Scott Mulhauser, who served in senior roles for several Democrats and committees in the Senate over the past decade. “There was a postelection moment where this president might have reached toward the center, delivered on priorities like infrastructure that cut across party lines and reconfigured the electoral math. Instead, he made little effort to collaborate, lurched rightward to his base while taunting the center and the left, and is now feeling the consequences. You reap the discord you sow.”
Some Democrats, including Mr. Schumer, tried to appeal to Mr. Trump early on.
“I told him infrastructure and tax reform should have been the first thing out of the box,” said Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, whom both parties expected to be an early ally of Mr. Trump. But, Mr. Manchin said, the president chose a more partisan agenda. “Someone got to him,” he said.
Mr. Manchin spoke with the president early in his administration — leading to speculation that he might even land a job within it — but has since been largely ignored by White House officials and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, who has mostly iced out Democrats in this Congress.
(click here to continue reading Spurned by Trump, Senate Democrats Take a Harder Line – The New York Times.)
Partisanship is here to stay, the Democrats might as well accept it. The Democratic Party’s rank and file understand the new paradigm, too bad the party officials are seemingly stuck in 1948 mode.
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