One heck of a leader
Don’t read this if you’re feeling at all queasy. It was party time at Donnie’s place yesterday.
President Donald Trump recognized the “great chairman” Sen. Orrin Hatch while celebrating the passage of the Republican tax plan Wednesday on the White House steps.
In turn, Hatch, R-Utah, said, “We’re going to keep fighting to make this the greatest presidency we’ve seen not only in generations but maybe ever.”
That’s like holding a bowl of warm shit and saying you’re going to keep fighting to make this the most beautiful marble sculpture we’ve seen not only in generations but maybe ever. You can’t turn a bowl of warm shit into a marble sculpture and you can’t turn a Trump presidency into the greatest ever seen. You don’t have the materials.
Exultant House and Senate Republican leaders gathered with Trump on the White House South Lawn to hail the newly passed tax overhaul and slap each other on the back, with no one heaping higher praise on the president than Hatch.
“Mr. President, I have to say you’re living up to everything I thought you would,” the seven-term senator said. “You’re one heck of a leader.”
I did warn you.
Heck of a job, Brownie. While people died. Oh, but they were poor people, weren’t they?
But what exactly is going on? Orrin Hatch is gross, but he knows better than this. He might see in Trump a useful idiot, but he doesn’t actually believe what he’s saying. Does he?!
Who knows. I’m not convinced he does know better.
Here’s what it looks like to me: the Republicans haven’t much liked Trump, but suddenly they get that enormous tax cut they’ve been trying for. They get the EPA decimated. They get ANWR opened up for drilling. They get Obamacare gutted. They’re finally getting everything they tried to get under Nixon, under Reagan, under Bush…so, okay, he’s grotesque and disgusting, he’s a whining crybaby who embarrasses the US and enriches himself, but he’s the greatest because they are now free to loot the country with impunity, without the limits they had under other presidents. Why? Because everyone is watching the reality TV show star with delight or horror, depending on their political views, and while no one is looking, the Republicans can grab everything. By the time the country gets wise, it will be too late. The current crop will have moved on, richer and fatter, and having set things up in the hopes of a permanent Republican majority, by gaming the system and stacking the courts.
I think iknklast has it right.
One thing Republicans have always been very good at, unlike the left, is not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Sure, Republicans would like to have a president who combined the strict conservatism of Goldwater with the grandfatherly demeanor of Reagan and the wit of William F. Buckley… but if a crude, idiotic, childish buffoon who cares more about his ego than any ideological principle is the vehicle through which they can actually enact their agenda, then they are (mostly) going to jump on board. Bigly.
I think we’re in a new political reality in the U.S. The new reality is that there’s gridlock 90% of the time, but once every decade or so, one party will gain control of the Presidency, the House, and the Senate, and then it’s going to be a race to enact as much of their agenda as possible. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing — well, the gridlock is, inasmuch as it means policy gets frozen for years at a stretch, but it’s not entirely dissimilar from Parliamentary systems where one party wins a majority and is free to run the government as it sees fit. Republicans are ready for that reality, and are developing new norms to adapt to it (see McConnell’s new “no new Supreme Court justices in the last year of a [Democratic] presidency” rule).
In the short term, the good news is that Republicans are going to own the Trump presidency. The Republican Party will become the party for people who approve of Trump, and it’s going to be hard for GOP officials to distance themselves from the increasingly unpopular president.
The bad news is that voters seem to have short memories. George W. Bush went from being conservatives’ poster child to being “oh yeah, that guy. Well, he wasn’t a REAL conservative” before he was even out of office. I’m sure that by 2024, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, or whoever, will be battling for the GOP nomination and saying “Trump? Oh, yeah, vaguely recall that name. Never really supported him.”
The idea that the Republicans will own the Trump presidency… Well, I’d like to believe that it’s true. But given the credulity of their supporters and their well-developed propaganda platforms, do we really believe they won’t be able to keep effectively blaming problems on Democrats? After all, Democrats and child molesters are apparently in a statistical tie these days, in terms of popularity.
Helicam,
It depends on what you mean. Some portion of the electorate will remain loyal Trump supporters, because some portion always does. Herbert Hoover lost the presidency in a landslide in 1932 — but he still got 39.7% of the vote. This is why all of those tedious pieces where a political journalist goes to some diner in coal country and finds that the cranky old white people there still like Trump are so pointless. Elections aren’t lost because the die-hards switch sides.
On the one hand, it’s depressing that it took a child molesting Republican candidate to allow a Democrat to win in Alabama. On the other hand — a Democrat won in Alabama! Some years, they couldn’t even find a Democrat to run in that state. Even with Roy Moore’s flaws, he still might have won in a “normal” election year. When you look at the general trend of all the special elections (plus Virginia’s off-year elections), as well as the generic Congressional ballot polling data, it’s showing an extraordinary swing.
At least for now, the Trump backlash is big and beautiful.
“They get the EPA decimated…They’re finally getting everything they tried to get under Nixon…”
To be fair to (Heaven help me) Nixon, he signed the law that created the EPA.
And maybe I’m hopelessly naive, but I am shocked Orrin Hatch would say those things. In the past he’s seemed not completely unreasonable. Gushing that Trump is on track to perhaps be the greatest president ever is nuts.
Is it a regular thing for US presidents to have celebratory parties whenever a bill is passed or is this just more pandering to the current incumbent’s ego?
Some bills, yes. The Voting Rights Act for instance – that was a big ol’ celebratory party, and rightly so. Reactionaries also have their versions…and yes, this was one of them.
AoS,
Signing ceremonies are pretty well-established, I think. Presidents have been signing major (and sometimes even minor, but feel-good) pieces of legislation, usually in the White House Rose Garden, for as long as I can remember. I found one article that discusses how JFK had the Rose Garden (which originated under Wilson, but had become run-down) redone so that it could be used for bill-signing and other ceremonies, so I think the general tradition goes back at least more than 50 years.
That doesn’t mean that Trump hasn’t taken things to vulgar extremes, though — he can’t help but do so. Earlier this year, I believe he held a party to celebrate the Obamacare repeal bill passing one house of Congress. And of course, Trump’s bill-signing ceremonies have featured the now-standard sycophantic praise for the Dear Leader — traditionally, speakers might thank the President for his support of the bill and efforts to get it passed, but usually as part of spreading the credit around to many people.
Thanks for that, Ophelia and Screechy Monkey. I can understand having high-profile ceremonies for some bills, especially those that have a large positive impact for society in general such as the Voting Rights Act, but it seems that Trump celebrates publically every time he signs something or thinks he’ll soon be signing something, which I don’t recall any of his predecessors doing.
That in itself wouldn’t be such a problem – odd, but not problematic – but for what he’s signing. Every celebration is for an act that screws over the little people and further bloats the wallets of the 1%, which to me is a deliberately callous way of rubbing the faces of the 99% in the dirt.
It says everything about his supporters that Trump is now openly taking the piss, all pretence gone, yet they still lap up his every word.