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Excerpted from a longer piece by WSJ’s Editorial Board
The American people may think they elected a Republican government last November, but it’s increasingly hard to tell. The latest evidence came Wednesday when President Trump accepted a Democratic offer to raise the federal debt ceiling for a mere three months in return for $8 billion for Hurricane Harvey relief.
“We had a very good meeting with [Democratic leaders] Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. We agreed to a three-month extension on debt ceiling, ” Mr. Trump said Wednesday aboard Air Force One on his way to a rally in North Dakota.
“So we have an extension, which will go out to December 15. That will include the debt ceiling, that will include the CRs [to fund the government] and it will include Harvey–the amount of money to be determined, but it will include–because everyone is in favor obviously of taking care of that situation,” he added. “So we all very much agree.”
Ah, dogs and cats living together.
What really happened is that Mr. Trump overruled his Treasury Secretary and GOP leaders who wanted a debt-ceiling increase to run past the 2018 election. Mr. Trump instead gave Democrats exactly what they want, which is to set up an even steeper fiscal cliff on debt and spending in December when Republicans hope to be focusing on tax reform.
Republicans will now have to take at least two difficult votes to raise the debt ceiling, while Democratic leverage will increase when the day of reckoning comes. The chances of a government shutdown in December have now risen sharply, or at least they have if Mr. Trump wants to pass something with more than a few Republican votes.
Mr. Trump may not like GOP leaders Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, but is he trying to elect Speaker Pelosi?
As Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse put it in a press release: “The Pelosi-Schumer-Trump deal is bad.”
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The Wall Street Journal is being deliberately deceptive there. Americans very definitely did elect a Republican administration.
It’s hardly Democrats’ fault that the collective wisdom of the Republican base selected a catastrophically ignorant, preposterously narcissistic dunce with an almost complete lack of political negotiating prowess. That’s on Republicans.
Anyone remember this?
“In many cases, I probably identify more as Democrat,” Trump told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in a 2004 interview. “It just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans. Now, it shouldn’t be that way. But if you go back, I mean it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats. …But certainly we had some very good economies under Democrats, as well as Republicans. But we’ve had some pretty bad disaster under the Republicans.”
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/21/politics/donald-trump-election-democrat/index.html
What are we supposed to take from that, exactly? That Trump understands very little about economics and tends to fall into inane babble when asked virtually anything other than a straight yes or no question?
I hate the bastard. How about this:
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump switched political party affiliations at least five times since the late ‘80s, according to voting records obtained byThe Smoking Gun.
Mr. Trump, who after years of teasing the idea announced on Tuesday his GOP bid for the White House, may soon have to answer for why he left the party as recently as 2011.
Mr. Trump registered for the first time in New York as a Republican in July 1987, only to dump the GOP more than a decade later for the Independence Party in October 1999, according to the New York City Board of Elections.
In August 2001, the billionaire enrolled as a Democrat. Eight years later, he returned to the Republican Party, The Smoking Gun reported.
After only two years as a registered Republican, Mr. Trump left the party again, and in December 2011 marked a box that indicated, “I do not wish to enroll in a party.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/16/donald-trump-changed-political-parties-at-least-fi/
Murphy – It’s not that I disagree or that I’m questioning your animosity towards him. It’s just that an answer like that is very typical of Trump but not very revealing of some hidden Democratic loyalty. What he’s basically saying is that he leans Democrat because he’s noticed that the economy does better under the Democrats, but he’s not a straight-up Democrat because he can’t figure out why it does that, because it shouldn’t, because Republican policies are better for the economy.
In short this can be added to the very long list of reasons why I am continually amazed by the people who imagined and continue to imagine that Trump is anything more than a disaster in the mistaking.
My spidey-sense tells me that Trump is actually in the midst of what he thinks is a clever plan. Most likely in cohorts with the advise of someone like Bannon (from the broom closet). A plan to attempt to set up the Democrats to take the blame for the coming economic fall-out, especially once the debt ceiling can needs to get kicked again in a few months.
Once things turn ugly, Trump will then be able to say (at least in his own mind), “I should never have tried to work with the Democrats. I did try to be a good president by reaching across the isle, but never again. That is the last time I ever give a Democrat’s idea the time of day. Now let’s get back to work.”
If this is in fact the case, then what Trump (and his cohorts) have probably overlooked is the damage being done immediately from fall-out from his fellow GOPers, especially in Congress. When things do actually turn ugly, even his base will want to blame Trump, and not the Democrats.
Trump hasn’t won any supporters from this cozening up to the Democrats, but he has lost supporters, already. By the time SHTF, nobody will want to support him. Regardless of where the real blame belongs.
I wouldn’t put anything evil and/or corrupt past him but he is not much of a genius and I don’t think Bannon would go for anything that included the Dems. More along the line that trump wanted to have someone say something nice about him and he wanted a “win” and people around him in his WH palace said he made a bad move on the DACA issue….he also wanted to “just show those guys” what he could do without them, put them in their place and not defy him again, embarrass them. Punishment is his joyful fun. Simple stuff. He’s an idiot and really does not do well with involved planning. Thinks more along the playground bully kind of stuff.
Too clever by half I think, plus Mr. “Deconstructing the State” Bannon would never go for it.
I agree with Murphy. I doubt Trump has thought farther down this road than the first 12 hours of press reaction.
Hey 6th, did I really read in your note above RTJR’s comment the word loyalty – ” some hidden Democratic loyalty.” Must be a careless mistake — you clearly know that there is no such thing as loyalty in trump!
And it was fun deciphering RTJR’s SHTF meaning. “By the time shit hits the fan nobody will want to support him.” Now I’m working on RTJR…
Murphy
My bad.