Donald Trump speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, on February 24, 2017. (Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr)
Growing up in New England, you see some wild stuff in wintertime. A flock of chubby cedar waxwings, 50 strong at least, swarming into a withered cherry tree to strip every last old berry off the branches. A pair of bobcats like oiled smoke disappearing into the woods with the snow hissing down. An old upright piano standing sentinel in a shoveled-out Brighton parking spot announcing a defiant mine. One memory stands out above all, however: A huge dump truck filled with gravel gone sideways on an icy hill, sliding slowly, almost gracefully toward its inevitable crunching doom as its engine howls in futility.
I think of that truck today, and feel like I have a good understanding of what it must be like to be a Republican in 2017.
Sarah Palin made famous the “How’s that Hope and Change thing working out for ya?” line during the Obama administration. One hundred days into the Trump phenomenon, and one is forced to wonder how that “winning” thing is working out for rank-and-file Republicans. Despite controlling the White House, Senate and House, they’ve barely won anything, and the Democrats have had very little to do with the string of disasters and fiascos the GOP has unleashed on itself. It isn’t just Trump, either. These clowns own the whole federal government from soup to nuts, and their response to laying hold of such a rare prize has been to light their own neckties on fire every time they get near the furnace.
Take this last week as a prime example. The first and most important issue on the table was passing a continuing resolution before the weekend to keep the government open and functioning. In the time it took for Trump to fire up his Twitter account on Monday, the bill was suddenly in mortal peril because the president appeared all too willing to hold the process hostage until he got funding for his Mexico…