In a Hole, President Trump Keeps Digging
"The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast," Trump tweeted Thursday morning. "We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!"
Does Trump really plan to enlist challengers in next year's Republican primaries to incumbent lawmakers in his own party who don't think he's conservative enough? History shows that tactic to be a loser, even for people with considerably more political experience than Trump and Bannon.
In 1938, for example, President Franklin D. Roosevelt waged a similar intervention in several Democratic primary elections to purge the party of conservative incumbents who opposed parts of Roosevelt's New Deal. The effort backfired. Almost all of those whom FDR targeted the most handily won in a humiliating repudiation by state parties of this intrusion into their affairs by the national party.
A similar Trump intrusion in state races faces a similar repudiation. Almost all of the Freedom Caucus members, according to the Washington Post, won last fall by larger margins of the vote than Trump received in their districts.
That helps to explain why the Grand Old Party's conservative wing didn't sound too intimidated by Trump's threats. Breaking slightly with Ronald Reagan's "Eleventh Commandment" -- Thou shalt not criticize a fellow Republican -- Rep. Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, responded to Trump's tweet with one of his own. "It didn't take long for the swamp to drain @realDonaldTrump," Amash tweeted. "No shame, Mr. President. Almost everyone succumbs to the D.C. Establishment."
Amash later told reporters that Trump's tactic would be "constructive in fifth grade. It may allow a child to get his way, but that's not how our government works." Ouch!
In short, Trump is finding that the barnstorming and arm-twisting tactics that took him to the White House can quickly backfire, now that he is the top dog in the Washington political establishment that he ran against.
With his approval ratings and legislative momentum in a deep hole, Trump needs to stop digging and start dealing with people who know how Washington works better than he does. Even if he doesn't stop tweeting, he needs to stop digging.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
(c) 2017 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
