I noted yesterday what I think should be obvious: that there is no ‘bipartisan path’. Beyond that, it’s quite something to see how rapidly a number of mainstream media voices have moved from Trump as far-right ideologue putting racist revanchism at the center of statecraft to Trump as post-ideological, pragmatic dealmaker. Serious, what are you people thinking?
But there’s a small, more specific problem with all this talk which may be obvious but still merits saying out loud. There haven’t even been any deals! The ‘deal’ people are talking about is a minor procedural accommodation, an agreement not to go through a round of legislative hostage taking tied mainly to the need to increase the debt-limit – something that should be abolished altogether. It is important to note how minuscule this accommodation really is. Beyond that, it is important to note how much the deal itself is only over a kind of legislative misbehavior which as recently as a decade ago would have been all but unthinkable: holding the full faith and credit hostage to the right of the GOP House caucus.
Not Only No Deal-Making There’s Not Even a Deal
Josh goes into good detail here. The thing that this whole episode reveals is how desperate the DC Press is to normalize Trump, because our system is not equipped to deal with someone like him in the White House.
The press has been DYING to write this current narrative since the morning after the election, and you can see it with every single instance of “it’s the pivot!” and “today, he became president” and “he didn’t take a shit on the street in front of everyone while shouting Nazi slogans, so he’s really maturing and becoming presidential.”
He is not presidential. He will never be presidential (however you define it), and one fucking instance of cutting a deal *for three fucking months of funding in a CR that had to happen anyway* does not suddenly make him some kind of mature, pragmatic, centrist. He is a racist who has filled his administration with racists. He is a malignant narcissist who has done everything he can to use the entire force of American government in the service of his incomprehensibly large and fragile ego.
This narrative is going to collapse within days, like it does every fucking time these idiots exhaust themselves creating it, and then they’ll get right back to drafting the *next* time they plan to write it, probably a week or so after this one collapses.
Not Only No Deal-Making There’s Not Even a Deal
Josh goes into good detail here. The thing that this whole episode reveals is how desperate the DC Press is to normalize Trump, because our system is not equipped to deal with someone like him in the White House.
The press has been DYING to write this current narrative since the morning after the election, and you can see it with every single instance of “it’s the pivot!” and “today, he became president” and “he didn’t take a shit on the street in front of everyone while shouting Nazi slogans, so he’s really maturing and becoming presidential.”
He is not presidential. He will never be presidential (however you define it), and one fucking instance of cutting a deal *for three fucking months of funding in a CR that had to happen anyway* does not suddenly make him some kind of mature, pragmatic, centrist. He is a racist who has filled his administration with racists. He is a malignant narcissist who has done everything he can to use the entire force of American government in the service of his incomprehensibly large and fragile ego.
This narrative is going to collapse within days, like it does every fucking time these idiots exhaust themselves creating it, and then they’ll get right back to drafting the *next* time they plan to write it, probably a week or so after this one collapses.
