It’s no wonder recent surveys show that the number of Independent voters in this country has easily surpassed that of Republicans and Democrats. Truth is, most Americans simply don’t like or trust either party. And after the events of the past week, is it any wonder?
Voters took their wrath out on the Democrats in the 2016 election. And now that the GOP has crashed and burned on one of its central promises during the campaign will the voters cast a similarly harsh judgment on them in 2018?
If Republicans believe they were given control of Washington because the voters like them, or for any reason other than the Democrats’ failures, they are in a serious state of denial. And the electorate will surely show no more patience with them than they did with Obama, Pelosi & Co.
So what’s a new president to do? Well, in response to the snarky letter written to the president by his friend Maureen Dowd in the NY Times, here is a dueling correspondence from yours truly:
Dear Mr. President:
Welcome to Washington. The unrelenting ugliness of your first two months in office, highlighted by the healthcare meltdown, is your new reality. A reality in which you can’t pick and choose your negotiating partners as you did in building your business empire. A reality where you must do something contrary to your every instinct – suffer fools – because you need their support. A reality where you cannot snap your fingers and have people bow to your will.
It is a world unknown to you — surely more than you could have ever anticipated when you were seeking the job at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
It is a world where you must rely largely on others – mostly unpopular and discredited politicians – to create with spit and bailing wire what you must sell. And where you must turn over much of your foremost expertise – negotiating – to a guy clearly out of his depth as a dealmaker, Paul Ryan. Ah yes, Ryan: a terrific policy wonk and thought leader, but entirely miscast in his current leadership position – a fact that is now flagrantly obvious after the healthcare debacle.
It is a world where you, an Independent governing as a Republican, will face predictable and intractable opposition not just from the Democrats, but from many wary Republicans who are hardly prepared to fall on their sword for the sake of your presidency, as perhaps your employees did in your business.
It is a world where, even though you were not around for their recent failures, you inherit all the past baggage of your newfound party. And of course, you will also be blamed for their future transgressions whether you contribute to them or not.
It is a world where trust is only a rumor, a reality effectively on display as conservatives, moderates, special interest groups and self-focused nihilists formed a circular firing squad to trash what could have become one of your signature achievements.
It is a world where promises are, at best, things to simply be considered rather than delivered.
It is a swamp insulated by a bubble, where personal and party loyalty is regularly abandoned for the sake of expediency, where a permanent swamp-ocracy will undermine your every effort to drain their place of residence, and where common sense yields to opportunism in, as you might say, a New York minute.
Joy, or more precisely schadenfreude, is now emanating from the swamp creatures, including your friend Ms. Dowd, who calls your administration “Incompetence, Inc.” But not only do these swampo-crats ignore how Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton and others overcame early defeats, they may actually be doing you a favor by pivoting from the incendiary “Trump is Pure Evil” meme to the more conventional “Trump is Incompetent” narrative, as observed by Scott Adams in The Burning Platform.
And therein lies the one particularly promising development for you in all this. Because this is now a world where all the political “experts” – you know, the ones who mocked and laughed at you, who boldly predicted you would not run, then would get clobbered early in the primaries, then would not win the GOP nomination and then would certainly not be elected president – are the same ones now predicting the imminent demise of your administration.
Perhaps you should take this as a sure sign that you will ultimately succeed.
Sincerely,
Tim (and the fine folks at Liberty Nation)
