Martin Longman makes an interesting point at the Washington Monthly this morning:
The last thing that Paul Ryan was thinking at that moment is that he might have the opportunity to put his repeal and replace Obamacare bill on President Trump’s desk. Frankly, he didn’t even want that outcome, and he was hardly alone.
But he was wasn’t thinking three steps ahead, like Chait is asking us to do. He wasn’t calculating that the GOP would be better off in the end with a President Clinton. He considered a Clinton win a disaster, too. It’s just that, given the choice, it was obvious that Trump wasn’t an option because he wasn’t in any way “in keeping with our party’s principles and values.”
But Chait is correct that rank-and-file Republican voters largely stayed with Trump, meaning that they “brought disaster upon their country.” This led Trump to make a fatal miscalculation. He thought he won with a partisan vote so he should be able to govern with an exclusively partisan coalition. That was incorrect because his victory was a victory over both parties, and the Washington Establishment didn’t accept him irrespective of which party they represented.
Trump’s agenda is bogged down; Republicans’ agenda is bogged down. Washington Republicans didn’t support or vote for Trump. Democrats didn’t support him. In essence, DC is stuck because there are, basically, four parties – Trump and company, “establishment” Republicans, the Freedom Caucus Republicans and the Democrats; none of them are working with anyone else.
Superficially we have one party in control in DC. In reality, we have gridlock because the Republican coalition can’t work with itself to govern and Democrats (who worked with Boehner to make things happen) have no reason to work with either Paul Ryan or Donald Trump.
