President Donald Trump took the Republican Party's establishment to the woodshed again last week. The party's base of voters loved it, polls now show, even though Trump made a deal with Democrats to do it.
Yet while the establishment suffered embarrassment, it did not suffer the worst damage. Hard-line conservatives did. This is no soft pedaling of a major establishment defeat. Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., probably saw his fondest hopes go up in smoke last week. But consider what Trump's decision to bargain with Democrats means for Republicans who spout that even Ryan is too soft.
Trump met with leaders from Congress at the White House on Wednesday of last week. Democratic leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California showed up with an offer. Their deal would keep the government running and approve disaster relief for hurricane victims. Ryan and Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had nothing. With enough leverage and luck, the GOP might have scraped together enough votes to pass something someday after another bitter and embarrassing family fight. GOP leaders objected to the Democratic deal because it would reduce their leverage in such a fight.
The GOP leaders needed leverage because the Freedom Caucus, for instance, consists of 40 or so very conservative GOP House members. All the caucus' power -- every watt of it -- springs directly from one source. Republicans in Congress want to pass major legislation no Democrat will vote for. Therefore, Republicans need almost all their votes to pass any big item the GOP wants. So, of course, the Freedom Caucus consistently drags the GOP House majority farther to the right than the majority wants to go.
Consider what happens to the Freedom Caucus and their ilk if there is no longer a need for near-unanimous GOP agreement for anything to get done in Congress. Also, to be fair, the GOP majority in Congress would work much better if this Republican president was a capable leader.
Trump got elected because voters are fed up with dysfunctional government. He is fed up with dysfunctional government, too. He let his party's majority in Congress try things their way for eight months.
So Trump took the Democrats' deal, the proverbial bird in hand. Plenty of Republicans in Congress voted for it later. After all, going against a president who has near-unanimous support from their party's rank and file would be political suicide.
There is apparently nothing within reason the president can do that will cost him the support of the base. He is the one and only politician on either side who could accept an offer from the other camp and not be branded a traitor by a dangerously large numbers of his party's primary voters.
Trump did get in a little hot water with his base Thursday. He appeared to back away from his promise to build a border wall. He quickly scurried back.
The polls in the aftermath of the Wednesday deal are out. The president's approval numbers among Republicans moved up slightly. It remains at a near-total 80 percent. Rasmussen, a polling entity known for leaning conservative, found that 72 percent of Republicans were enthusiastic about the president working with Democrats. Even large majorities of Democrats and independents approved.
This deal is the most broadly popular thing Trump has done yet that required any cooperation from Congress.
The so-called "Reagan Democrats" who have voted Republican since the 1980s are happy. Government will function a while. Wall Street is happy. A possible government shutdown was averted. Christian conservatives are happy because they were already getting the judicial appointments they wanted. The GOP establishment is not happy, but no one else cares. They lost control of their party precisely because GOP voters are so frustrated. That was why Trump won the nomination.
And the power of the Freedom Caucus and of right-wingers in the Senate to demand a harder line is shattered. The president now knows Democrats are easier to work with. He can demand and get enough Republican votes in Congress to cinch any deal with Democrats he makes. He not only survived this first bargain unscathed, he thrived. He has no reason to stop. Conservative causes mean nothing to him.
Another group has as much reason to be as upset as arch conservatives at this new state of affairs. They are arch liberals who want the Trump administration to be a non-stop three-ring circus of blazing dysfunction. Something just functioned.
Commentary on 09/16/2017