Trump’s base has the power in Republican politics; Trump does not

I really liked this from David Graham as it hits a theme that Jonathan Bernstein has argued so compellingly.  Trump is simply a very weak president.  His ability to accomplish his aims, insofar as they ever deviate from that of Congressional Republicans, is just extraordinarily weak.  He gave them conservative judges– they want that.  He gave them tax cuts– they want that.  But has there been anything when it’s Trump vs. Congress not Trump’s base vs. Congress where he got his way?  I love how Graham explains this:

In the next few days, President Donald Trump will have to make a decision about what to do with the National Defense Authorization Act. It’s a clunky name for a straightforward bill—it dictates how the military budget is spent—and it used to be what was known as “must-pass” legislation, because no Congress would dare fail to fund the troops, and no president would dare veto it.

But Trump has repeatedly promised to veto the bill, which was sent to him Friday by large majorities in the House and Senate, and Congress is now poised to override his veto for the first time in his presidency. That would provide a fitting bookend to the Trump years by reprising two of its central themes: pointless defenses of white supremacy, and nearly complete legislative failure…

Another consistent theme of Trump’s presidency (another lost cause, even) has been the futility of his legislative agenda. Trump’s four years in office have been consequential in many ways—foreign-policy changes, judicial appointments, the general erosion of the government—but they have produced little legislation. The president’s much-lauded plan to repeal and replace Obamacare came to naught. Even when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, they would not fund his border wall. None of the big bills he promised for his first 100 days were enacted at all. His two biggest achievements were a package of tax cuts, which fell well short of the tax-code overhaul he’d hoped for, and criminal-justice reform, an existing, bipartisan effort he later soured on.

Now, despite his months of veto threats, Congress has passed the NDAA and sent it to him to sign, and leaders say they’ll override him if it comes to that. As the record shows, this isn’t a lame-duck president seeing his power diminish. Trump’s inability to get Congress to do what he wants fits the pattern of his presidency.

The intransigence of congressional Republicans may seem paradoxical. The House passed the NDAA on a 335–78 vote in the same week that 126 Republican members of the House signed a brief in support of a preposterous and dangerous Supreme Court case that sought to have the vote in key swing states thrown out so as to reelect Trump. How is it that they could kowtow so shamefully there and thumb their nose at him over the NDAA?

But as I wrote about the Supreme Court case, GOP member support was more indicative of a fear of Republican voters, who are increasingly antidemocratic, than a fear of Trump, who at this point is mostly a threat to them because of his ability to direct those voters. This gives GOP members an incentive to jump onto largely symbolic efforts such as the election suit, even as they ignore the president’s other requests.

Members of Congress know that Trump has never had the ability or attention to get legislation done. They were happy to work with him when it suited them—any Republican is happy to cut taxes—but knew they had little to fear by ignoring him when it didn’t. They know that funding the military is popular, but they are unwilling to even play ball by including comparatively minor, symbolic concessions to Trump such as the Confederate-base provision or Section 230 repeal.