@snood,
snood wrote:
Cycloptichorn wrote:
They don't make enough popcorn for weeks like this. I'm surprised not to see more commentary here as the last several days have been crazy. More from me later on Trump's new Dem alliance and how stupid he is for pursuing it.
Cycloptichorn
Please tell me why it's certain he can't turn this apparent willingness to deal with Dems to his own advantage.
No problem:
The Dems themselves loathe Trump and their base absolutely hates his guts. No willingness on his part to do deals with the Dems will change the fact that he's a scumbag and a fool, and a dangerous loose cannon WRT international politics. He's also a turncoat - as he lacks any ideological motivation other than to self-promote endlessly, the Dems couldn't work with him in good faith on any sort of long-term basis as they KNOW he would stab them in the back at the first opportunity to do so.
I say that last part with confidence as he's just done exactly that to his current purported allies. Why wouldn't he do it to the Dems? He would if he thought it benefited him to do so. So, there's never going to be even a hint of trust there from the Dems' side. What more, the Dem base (me and people like me) would crucify our leadership if they started doing anything other than transparently manipulate his stupid ass.
This deal that Trump agreed to is a trap and he's too stupid to see it. It gave the Dems what they wanted policy-wise (Harvey Funding, shortest-possible debt ceiling increase) in exchange for literally nothing on Trump's side. The deal is ultimately a terrible one for Trump in three ways:
First, it directly alienates and infuriates his biggest allies in Congress (Ryan and McConnell). They were shell-shocked when Trump abruptly announced in the middle of their meeting that he was going with the Dem plan - the very same one Ryan had called 'Ridiculous' only an hour earlier in press interviews.
Second, it inserts the Dems into basically every negotiation from here on out. He's loving the positive attention and is very likely to pursue further bipartisan deals. This means that his agenda is essentially dead as the Congressional GOP isn't going to go along with this at all, or whatever ends up passing will essentially be a Dem bill. Just disastrous for the Conservative position. There will be no further GOP-only bills this cycle.
Third, the debt ceiling wasn't put off far enough to help the GOP at all. In fact, it's going to hit in December now (another low work month for Congress) and the tough negotiations there will come up at a very, very bad time for the GOP, with several major bills that will be unpassed at that point and an election right around the corner.
So, a huge tactical blunder. Just a tremendous one. Especially in light of the Russia investigation. If Trump pisses off the GOP Congress, who does he think is going to protect him?
Cycloptichorn