A front-page headline in the Washington Post the other day declared: “Trump keeps his grip on GOP.” Hardly a scoop. It’s normal for a president to have a firm hold on his own party. And President Trump, an outsider who latched onto the Republican agenda, is no exception.
A couple days later, the Post story in the upper-right-hand corner of Page 1 was heralded this way: “Democrats launch wide Trump probe.” That was putting things mildly. Half a dozen House committees with Democrats in charge are investigating Trump, his administration, family, appointees, political affairs, businesses, lifestyle, and various antics.
This is abnormal. There’s never been an offensive so vast against a president by his rival party. It took only two committees — one in the Senate, one in the House — to look into the Watergate scandal and drive President Nixon out of the White House in 1974. But Trump is more popular today than Nixon was, and Democrats are taking no chances he might escape their grasp.
The struggle with Trump defines Democrats. A liberal agenda is an afterthought. Democrats couldn’t pass one anyway, given Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell’s control of the Senate and a veto pen in Trump’s hand. Their only serious goal is to remove Trump from office or make him unelectable in 2020.
It’s important to understand the Trump effect on both parties. He has captured the political part of the American mind. What this means is he’s constantly at the center of what Republicans and Democrats discuss, debate, or think about. He’s gotten in their brains.
A whole tribe of political columnists have been affected. They can’t write about anyone besides Trump. His presence caused George Will, the great conservative writer, to quit the Republican Party. Trump’s rise prompted Max Boot, the military affairs expert, to become a liberal. The Never Trump cabal is small, but if you were running for reelection, you’d want those folks on your side.
It’s significant that Democrats have decided to transform Washington into one giant stage to air the evils of Trump. It will last for months. And if they take the next step and seek to impeach him, the drama will continue for months more.
The obsession with Trump eclipses the Democratic presidential campaign and the party squabble over how far it should lurch to the left. Those things are now lonely islands floating somewhere far from the political center. They’re unattached to Washington, where the fate of Donald Trump is being determined. Their media coverage has already taken a hit. Trump is a mightier attraction than the entire field of candidates for the Democratic nomination.
The Earth didn’t stand still when Colorado ex-Gov. John Hickenlooper announced last week he is running for president. Nor will Joe Biden’s entry make the race more exciting. He’s a likable person but that’s not what the Democratic resistance is looking for. They’re resisting Trump. They want a candidate who’s sure to defeat him. Without such a candidate, the House investigations will have to do the job.
There’s an old saying that no politician can survive a frisk. Trump is about to experience the most extensive body search, politically speaking, that any politician ever has. The saying suggests the odds are against him in the showdown with Democrats. Indeed, they are.
Trump beat worse odds in winning the presidency. And there weren’t great expectations he would become a better president than his personal conduct would indicate. A worthwhile trade deal with China would be another odds-beater. A real deal with North Korea would be a miracle.
House Democrats insist they got valuable investigative leads from the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal attorney. And tips may come from special counsel Robert Mueller’s staff and federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York.
But for all that, Democrats are basically conducting a fishing expedition. Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is famous for quoting tales from the fraudulent Steele dossier as if he believed them. Subpoena power is bound to make Schiff and other Democrats more effective. Fishing expeditions often work.
Trump is an entertaining speaker and a resourceful politician. From whom did he grab the reelection theme of combating the threat of socialism? From none other than democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I suspect.
That a socialist has emerged as the nation’s most visible Democrat is quite abnormal. So was Trump’s dramatic vow, in his State of the Union address, to keep socialism from succeeding in America. What’s happening is not business as usual.
Fred Barnes was a founder and executive editor of the Weekly Standard.
