Congressional Democrats are figuring it out. Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, Gary Cohn, who cares? Donald Trump is Donald Trump and Democrats cannot look for a deal.
[Rep. Ruben Gallego] notes that many of his colleagues who once decried his absolute opposition to Trump now agree with him. “At the end of the day,” he added, “this is Donald Trump, and we don’t want to work with him.”
There are two big reasons. One is how Trump does business, as described by the Democratic co-chair of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus:
“There’s a very big difference between jamming you at the last minute with a piece of legislation and saying, ‘Let’s be bipartisan now,’ versus bringing you into the process so the solution is not an ideologically extreme or rigid document,” [Rep. Josh] Gottheimer said.
The other reason, though, is that Democrats are hearing from their constituents:
“Initially, people didn’t have a full appreciation of how he would conduct himself,” said [Rep. David] Cicilline. “They thought, ‘He won, he wasn’t our choice, but he is our president.’ What I’m hearing from my constituents, even some who’ve been more ambivalent, [is] it’s really important to stand up and resist and try to mitigate the damage that he’s likely to cause.”
It’s kind of disturbing to hear that “Initially, people didn’t have a full appreciation of how he would conduct himself” where the people in question are members of Congress who were, in theory, paying attention to Trump’s campaign and transition and first days in office. But even if it took them a while, they came around to reality. Good. Now let’s keep building an even stronger resistance, with congressional Democrats on board.