Ravenous and politically frustrated, Trump has gone savage. Angry about his failure to overhaul Obamacare, the president just turned against his own party, pouncing on the Freedom Caucus and promising to “fight them.”
But if Trump hopes that cannibalism will reanimate his anemic administration, he’s mistaken. The president is only helping Democrats.
Eager to swallow the frog, so to speak, Trump started this morning Thursday at 9:07 a.m. by taking a bite into roughly three dozen conservatives. “The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast,” he tweeted. “We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018.” It was an impulsive display of Trump’s peculiar brand of smashmouth politics.
While Trump might think he can reach across the aisle, hopes of bipartisanship are fleeting delusions. Democrats have no incentive to throw Trump a lifeline, no matter how much he offers to work for them. Thrashing around on Twitter does Republicans more harm than good, while simultaneously distracting from the shortcomings of Democrats. They’re praying he keeps this up until Election Day in 2018.
By then, who’s really going to remember Tom Perez’s purge of the Democratic National Committee, or actually recall Sen. Chuck Schumer’s partisan Supreme Court obstruction? Headed to the ballot box, voters will only think about the last time they mistakenly handed Republicans control of the entire government.
That fate can still be avoided. After watching the healthcare bill go down in flames, Trump has to know that the Freedom Caucus won’t break. Electoral threats are unlikely to move the needle for these ideologues because most of them outperformed him in their congressional districts.
Ultimately, the only way to get them on board is with policy concessions. Of course, that’s easier said than done. Trump would need to embrace the policies Republicans ran on for seven years. But it’s better than the alternative.
Democrats are not coming to Trump’s rescue. They’re more than happy to watch Trump bite conservatives on Twitter because each time he eats his own they get stronger.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
