After the Freedom Caucus turned the 126-page American Health Care Act into a smoking heap of ashes, the White House started considering their own scorched-earth legislative strategy. To outflank those entrenched conservatives, Trump’s administration now seems ready to reach across the aisle.
Reince Priebus said as much yesterday, completely dashing lingering hopes of unifying the Republican Party. “This president isn’t going to be a partisan president,” the White House chief of staff insisted on Fox News over the weekend, before floating the idea of “potentially getting a few moderate Democrats on board.”
And while that democratic compromise might sound nice, it’s little more than the wishful thinking of bitter Republican leaders long frustrated with recalcitrant conservatives. Ultimately, a bipartisan kumbaya isn’t going to break out.
Until Republicans fell apart Friday, nobody on the Right wanted one either. Democrats were out of power and treading water. That all changed when Speaker Ryan pulled the Obamacare overhaul from the floor. Looking to retake the House and hang on in the Senate during the 2018 midterms, Democrats have little incentive to bail out the administration.
For the next two years, the Democratic National Committee’s best strategy is to become the do-nothing-party. Of all of their moves so far, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer’s best decision has been stepping back and letting Republicans implode under their own incompetence. As a result, good faith compromise would be counterproductive.
It also seems impossible. Democrats would be awkwardly pressed to cooperate with a president they’ve repeatedly demonized as the fascist, sexist, racist scourge of representative government. Three days after the election, then-Minority Leader Harry Reid summed up this sentiment when he described President-elect Trump as “a sexual predator.” It’s safe to say any significant public change of heart from Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer wouldn’t be welcomed by the Democratic base.
What’s more, any sort of detente between Trump and Democrats would amount to a Republican defeat. After calling Trump incompetent, Schumer previewed a Faustian bargain. “Provided our Republican colleagues drop replace and stop undermining the [Affordable Care Act],” Schumer said yesterday on ABC, “we are willing to work with our Republican friends.”
In other words, if they break seven years of promises, the two parties can be friends. And that’s not conditional to just healthcare reform. Schumer and company have already taken shots at the rest of Trump’s agenda. Meeting their demands would require a hard pivot left for the president, one that would require abandoning the right flank of his own party.
Priebus might not acknowledge that fact but Schumer embraced it. If Trump wants to reach across the aisle, “he’s going to have to tell the Freedom Caucus and the hard-right special wealthy interests who are dominating his presidency,” the minority leader said, “he can’t work with them.” But even Trump can’t burn that bridge.
Looking to the future, the White House has a choice. Trump can either try whipping conservatives back into the establishment fold with a mix of concessions and threats. Or Trump can put conservatives out to pasture in hopes of winning over the Democratic opposition. The first looks difficult and the second seems impossible.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
