It’s not as if Donald Trump has had trouble getting Congress to back his every play. No matter what he does, he knows that turtle-man and boy blunder will be there to—silently, silently—acquiesce to his every play. However, there are a tiny handful of Republicans in Congress who have raised their voices. Not so shockingly, these squeaky wheels seem to come from either locations where Trump is particularly unpopular, or from the not-inconsequential ranks of those Trump went out of his way to humiliate during the campaign.
Now that Trump is feeling out the limits of what he can do with a jagged scribble of the pen, he’s preparing to put the boot on anyone who dares object.
"He's going to take names. He’s going to look at the people who are supportive and who aren’t," Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), one of the few Republicans who has at times criticized Trump, told The Hill. "I suspect he will be rigorous in calling attention to those he believes are hampering his legislative efforts."
Making these attacks was part of Trump’s daily Twitter fit during the campaign, and it’s continued after his sparsely-attended inauguration. He’s taken regular swings at everyone from Saturday Night Live to the media to a federal judge.
So far, the new president has been much more reserved when it comes to going after lawmakers. But several Republicans said it’s only a matter of time before Trump cracks the whip on Capitol Hill.
Trump hasn’t even turned his Twitter on them, and Republicans in Congress are already trembling. That’s not a great sign that they’re going to deny any of his most outrageous demands.
Of course, there are people in the Senate who Trump will never tire of tweaking.
But the idea that any senator or representative should fear this primary school-level taunting falls somewhere between sad and pathetic. Sadthetic.
“He could whip votes from Twitter,” said Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), who saw Trump personally get involved in his state’s GOP chairmanship race to defeat the handpicked candidate of rival Gov. John Kasich (R), a onetime presidential rival. “He’s definitely got an agenda and he wants to push it through. He’s going to use every arrow in his quiver to get those things accomplished."
Congress is seriously doing business out of fear that their names might appear in a tweet.
The thing that should be reassuring Congress they can withstand the stubby fury of Trump’s Twitter finger is exactly how often he fires off those snotty, Putin-coddling snippets. It’s. Just. Constant. And the more Trump uses it, the less potent it becomes. Like the buzz of mosquitoes in summer, it’s always there. Background noise.
Congress can swat him when they want by actually denying him one of his treasured bits of nonsense. Or, the next time Trump fumbles out his greasy, aging, unsecured phone, people could simply laugh off his entirely laughable attacks. However, that would require Congress to act with a trace of dignity and just a modicum of spine. In other words: highly unlikely.