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Only a re-election party on the night of November 3, 2020, could possibly offer the same vindication for America’s most unconventional commander in chief as the 36 hours in which two foundational strands of his political career are combining in a sudden burst of history.
While his 2016 election campaign was most notable for swirling chaos and shattered norms, Trump’s vows to nominate conservative judges to the Supreme Court and to fire up the economy were the glue for his winning coalition.
The struggle to confirm Kavanaugh split the country, deepened mistrust festering between rival lawmakers and threatens to further drag the Supreme Court into Washington’s poisoned political stew. But Trump stuck with it and ground out a win.
So he has every right to return to voters in the next four weeks ahead of the midterm elections to argue he has done exactly what he said he would do. He now has a strong message to convince grass-roots Republicans that it’s well worth showing up at the polls.
Testing the new message
He will get his first chance to road-test his new, improved message at a campaign rally in Topeka, Kansas, on Saturday night.
It’s ironic that it was Trump, a late convert to conservatism — not authentic Republicans like President Ronald Reagan, both Bush presidents and beaten GOP nominees Mitt Romney and John McCain — who finally delivered the Supreme Court majority.
If he is confirmed as expected, Kavanaugh will be Trump’s second nominee to reach the court in less than two years, following Neil Gorsuch.
Of course, the Supreme Court win is the culmination of decades of work by conservative activists and was masterminded by the cunning of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell. But Presidents get credit when they are in the Oval Office when things go well and Trump, whether it is his fault or not, has taken more than his share of criticism.
Trump has so far been uncharacteristically quiet about his banner day — perhaps to avoid any last upsets before Saturday’s scheduled Senate vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
He did pump out two short tweets.
“Very proud of the U.S. Senate for voting ‘YES’ to advance the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh!” he wrote.
Earlier, he had tweeted: “Just out: 3.7% Unemployment is the lowest number since 1969!”
A President of consequence
There is more evidence than the soon-to-be reshaped Supreme Court and the roaring economy to make a case that Trump is building a substantial presidency that in many ways looks like a historic pivot point, despite its extremely controversial nature.
Trump’s bullying approach to trade negotiations has recently yielded remodeled agreements with Canada, Mexico and South Korea. While he exaggerates how much he changed existing deals, he can still boast that his “Art of the Deal” negotiating strategy — another core component of his appeal to his supporters — is working.
The case against the President
Many of Trump’s perceived achievements are hugely controversial, and his opponents will argue that they stain America’s image, reverse a march toward human progress and justice, and will ultimately exert a price the nation will be paying for many years to come.
And Democrats carp that Trump is only building off the far more significant economic work of his predecessor Barack Obama in the wake of the Great Recession and argue that his tax cuts sharply worsened inequality and exploded budget deficits in a way that will haunt the economy for decades.
Trump’s critics say his approach to the world threatens to buckle the international system of alliances and a rule-based trading system that made America the richest and most powerful nation in US history and a beacon of democracy.
They say his presidency is in fact most notable for a culture of corruption, falsehood and demagoguery.
There is a case to be made that Trump’s constant twisting of truth, invention of false political realities and strategy of tearing at the country’s racial, gender and societal divides in order to capture and wield power threaten the eternal values and institutions of the nation itself.
The voters will choose
Most credible pollsters have the President at only around 40% approval, a level that is rarely conducive to successful congressional elections. Republicans are in danger of losing the House of Representatives, a scenario that could cripple Trump’s White House with relentless committee investigations and even the specter of impeachment.
Often the chaos and discord the President sows distracts from more successful aspects of his presidency, and his raging temperament and insistence on waging perpetual political warfare exhaust many voters.
It will be up to voters in November and in 2020 to decide which of the two interpretations of Trump’s presidency — an era of conservative achievement or a disastrous national distraction — becomes dominant.
But it already seems that Trump’s grand design will be difficult for a future President to quickly reverse.
Less than two weeks ago, foreign diplomats at the United Nations laughed at Trump when he boasted about the historic sweep of his presidency — and there was no doubt that he was, as usual, exaggerating.
But it’s also no longer possible to credibly argue — despite the distracting blizzard of controversy, busted decorum and staff chaos constantly lashing Washington — that there is not something significant taking place that is changing the political and economic character of the nation itself.
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