The Donald has formed a third party, for his own ends
IT’S this autumn’s zaniest sitcom. ‘Donald in the Middle’ stars three best friends who get up to all sorts of wacky high-jinks around the nation’s capital. Along the way these former enemies learn the value of bipartisan governance and friendship.
We all get more than enough entertainment from Washington these days. But The Donald’s latest dalliances with Democrats – specifically, his apparently amicable talks with House and Senate leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer – feel like a joke.
After all this time, all those tweets, the insults and the name calling, could he possibly believe that the left will provide his political salvation?
Donald Trump is eight months into his presidency and has nothing to show for it. He blames congressional Republicans for the lack of progress on his agenda.
He’s tried to go it alone (see the so-called Muslim ban), and he’s tried pushing through legislation without Democratic co-operation (see the attempted repeal of Obamacare). Now, he’s pushing at door number three: ditch the Grand Old Party, and grab any Democratic votes going.
With Democratic support, Mr Trump was able to punt a tough conversation on the debt ceiling into the new year last week; that victory brought forward more dialogue with Democratic leadership (as well as rank-and-file members) on everything from healthcare to tax cuts, to immigration reform. In particular, the White House and congressional Democrats are said to be “very close” to a deal on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals programme, which furnishes temporary visas to people who arrived in the country illegally as small children.
This new-found era of bipartisan governance (almost entirely absent during Obama’s years) is being cautiously applauded in some corners. The ideological purity of the Tea Party turned the GOP into the party of “no”; is this, at last, its opportunity to start saying yes?
I wouldn’t count on it. The trick of Mr Trump’s new cross-party cooperation is that it’s not bipartisan at all – it’s tripartisan.
The president has effectively left the Republican Party. He has no interest in leading it or promoting its values.
His willingness to work with Democrats stems not from a desire to deliver on campaign promises, but a need to demonstrate his presidency is a success.
The cornerstone of his ideology is winning everywhere, all the time.
Conservatives are horrified by the prospect of raising the debt ceiling further without a plan to cut future outlays, of combining tax cuts with more government spending, of “fixing” Obamacare instead of replacing it altogether.
But Mr Trump is not a conservative, nor is he a Republican. His allegiance (as I’m sure senior Democrats will soon learn) is ultimately to himself. Democrats are not co-operating with Republicans on legislative issues: they are cooperating with a president from an unnamed third party, an unprecedented situation in US politics.
Mr Trump spent long stretches of his adult life as a registered Democrat and Independent. His decision to run as a Republican in 2016 was long-planned, and almost certainly informed by the knowledge it was his best chance of landing in the Oval Office.
Yet a third party has serious merits. It would allow each party to better define their stances on the issues of the day (as the current system allows the Democrats to oppose whatever the Republicans want, and vice-versa, without discussing why).
But having one’s fundamental beliefs challenged is an exercise in future-proofing. Given we all may find ourselves in an alien political landscape post-Trump, this is a valuable exercise indeed. (© Daily Telegraph, London)