I have finally resigned myself to the fact that on January 20th, The Orange Julius is going to be sworn in, and there isn’t a damn thing any of us sane people can do about it. So I’m doing the only thing I can do, which is to look to the future and try to make the best of it. But amazingly enough, the first 30-60 days of the Trumpenfuhror administration hold the prospect for high drama, and opportunities for high comedy, while at the same time not exactly getting a lot of shit done.
It’s already starting. In an excellent segment on The Last Word last night, Lawrence O’Donnell cast some doubt about the speed with which the ACA could be repealed, and how. A stand alone bill to repeal Obamacare would require 60 votes to cloture the filibuster in the Senate, and the GOP doesn’t have a super majority. So, they’re planning on using a parliamentarian procedure called “reconciliation”, which can’t be filibustered. The only problem is that reconciliation only works on budget bills. So, repealing the ACA would have to be woven into the budget bill, and only the parts of the ACA that deal with federal budget matters could be included to repeal, not the whole damn thing.
There are a couple of problems with this. First, it is not a quick process, both the House and the Senate present dueling proposals, and then members of both houses, from both parties sit down to merge the proposals into one. This takes time, and usually lots of it. Second, there is already rumbling in the House “Freedom Caucus” that they will not support the current plan with the numbers they see, they want more. But the House has to run for reelection every two years, if they go too far, some more sane members may not be able to support the more draconian measures called for by the Freedom Caucus. I don’t see any way for Congress to have an Obamacare repeal bill on Mein Furor’s desk by February 20th, which they’re promising right now.
But that’s just Congress, and I wanna make fun of His Lowness himself! And that figures to be on the near horizon after January 20th as well. If there’s one thing we’ve learned about the tiny fisted, phyllo dough skinned Diktator, he cannot tolerate being criticized, and he cannot tolerate being defied.And he’s about to get more than he wants of both.
Let’s start with the cabinet. Several of them are in for a very rough ride. Personally, I think Tillerson will barely slip through for SoS, especially since the committee chair is not requiring him to submit his financials. But Jeff Sessions is in deep kim chee, he just has too long and checkered of a past professional history, and too much of it has been caught on tape for him to sail through. Tom Price is no sure thing, and Rick Perry is going to have some fun trying to explain why he should head a department that he wanted to abolish.
Trump is going to be criticized, both inside and outside of the hearings for having nominated them. Trump’s usual reaction to criticism is to take to Twitter and criticize and insult the person or people who criticized him in the first place. Um, yeah, like Democratic Senators have never been criticized or insulted before. They’ll either ignore him, or worse yet mock his response, which will inspire another round of even more furious Tweets, making Trump look like the petulant child that he is.
But the real fun is in the Supreme Court. I must admit, I was very impressed with Chuck Shumer last night on Rachel Maddow’s show. He was very emphatic, and full of fire and brimstone. The proof will be in the pudding, whether he follows through on all of that tough talk, but it was a good start. But he was most emphatic on the SCOTUS nomination. He made it clear that enough Democrats could support a “mainstream” nominee to get them over the 60 vote hurdle. But if Trump nominated a “mainstream” appointee, he would not be acceptable to enough Republicans that they’d bail and still not be able to get a confirmation. And the current list of possible appointees won’t get the time of day from the unified Democrats, this is a matter of honor and principle for them, Obama should have filled that spot. Joan McCarter wrote an excellent DIARY yesterday about Mitch McConnell’s faux and bullshit outrage that the Democrats would do to one of his nominees what he did to all of theirs.
If McConnell is pissed, what do you think Trumpenstein’s reaction is going to be? A bunch of pipsqueak Senators are standing up to him, a billionaire, and the Master of the deal?!? How dare they? His usual reaction to people who stand up to him or defy him is to unleash his highly paid legal beagles to fire off a lawsuit. Tough shit pal, you can’t sue Congressmen or Senators for doing their jobs. And it’s for a good reason that almost anything a Congressman or Senator says in the well of the chamber while Congress is in session is protected from slander and libel laws. Time for you to put your big boy pants on, nowhere to go with that. And you can’t intimidate the Democrats, they have constituents to do that for them.
Donnie boy, welcome to the aforementioned Civics 101 class. Time to get your tiny, Tweet obsessed brain around it, on January 20th you will no longer be a low class, debt swamped mogul, you will be the President of the United States. And other than maybe Melania and your kids, nobody is your friend. You’re going to have to learn to make deals that were never even touched on at Wharton, and you can’t make the problems go away by name calling, Tweeting temper tantrums.
I played hockey for more than 20 years, I started when I was 4, and I was pretty good at it. But I never even made it to the minors much less the NHL. There’s a reason why we don’t get ignorant, bellicose stuffed shirts like you in the White House very often. Politics is a craft. You start it when you’re in diapers, obsess over it single mindedly, pursue the dream and just pray you’re good enough to make it all the way to the top. To put it bluntly, you’re in wayyyy over your head little man, and the clock will soon be ticking. And only the whole goddamn world will be watching. Let’s see how long that hair stays day glo orange pal.