If this is some master plan to bring down Ryan, what is Trump’s end game.
Obamacare exists. He’s totally kneecapped the man responsible for shepherding his agenda through Congress. And - as we learned 18 months ago - there is no one to replace him.
He’s only declared the most conservative group in Congress heretics on Twitter. He can’t go to the Right.
Where do you think he goes for help next?
Everyone should have known that this populist/Reaganite fault line would be rupture at some point during the Administration. I did not plan on two months during the first real piece of legislation.
Here is the fundamental problem we have right now. We have three parties. Democrats. Republicans. And Populists. And it’s possible the only member of the Populist Party is Trump.
Basically, we are seeing what would have happened in 1992 if Perot had won - with the exception that the Democrats actually knew how to run the House and probably could have gotten a year of something out of him before it all went to hell in a handbasket.
Well, first of all I don’t see a master plan to bring down Ryan. Trump wanted that bill passed. Nothing else had even a chance in the Senate. The bomb throwers don’t want to govern. They particularly don’t want to be in a position where they are charged with governing.
The right wing pays better speaking fees than the left so most of those guys are trying to carve out a niche as a darling of the movement to get paid more at some point.
I think the odds are pretty high the NeverTrump Koch brothers funded that effort. “If the GOP pulls your campaign funding and funds a primary challenge, I have deep pockets for you.”
If you are up to speed on left wing thinking, you will know it’s “oppose Trump in everything.” That’s what they have to do to keep money flowing to the DNC. Cooperate in anything at all, their own firebrand money closes the spigot.
So expect to need 60 votes for tax reform, for infrastructure, for stimulus generically . . . for everything.
In other words, this was a killer. Nothing will pass now.
Additionally, the wackos who never wanted to look at the Senate at all . . . they think they have 52 votes. Susan Collins in Maine has zero interest in red meat conservatism. Heller in Nevada is up in 2018 and from now a pretty solidly blue state. He’s not going to vote for anything conservative. That looks like 50 at that point.
Well, sorry, no. Jeff Flake in Arizona is from a red state but he won his seat with only 46% of the vote. He ain’t voting conservative either. And McCain . . . who knows.
The wackos would not even let the process start in the Senate. They were probably funded not to.