Is Our Democrats Learning?

The initial signs are distinctly less than promising:

In the disorienting wake of Donald Trump’s election, Democrats in Congress grasped for some normality. To them — being Democrats reared for decades in a lawmaking culture — this meant some reassurance that they would participate in legislation. They quickly settled on Trump’s proposal for infrastructure spending as a promising venue through which they could trade cooperation for policy leverage. Charles Schumer, the incoming Senate minority leader, sounded excited about the prospect of passing a bill he has worked for years to enact without success. “As President-elect Trump indicated last night, investing in infrastructure is an important priority of his,” announced Nancy Pelosi. “We can work together to quickly pass a robust infrastructure jobs bill.”

And it’s not just the party leadership, either: Warren and Sanders have suggested that they’d work with Trump on infrastructure.

To state what should be obvious, aside from funding the government and raising the debt ceiling, congressional Democrats should be able to give Trump their offer right now: nothing. They should drive down Trump’s popularity by forcing whatever terrible legislation Ryan and McConnell want to pass on party-line votes and stopping anything they can filibuster or peel off a couple senators. There may be exceptions where something really important is at stake and the Dems can extract major concessions — saving important parts of the ACA, say.

But the stimulus plan? Trump’s proposal as of now is complete shit, just some tax breaks for private projects, many of which would be built anyway (and of course the possibilities for corruption are considerable and likely to be realized.) A substantially better one is enormously unlikely to make it past the Freedom Caucus.

I hope this is bluffing, that they’re making a show of being willing to cooperate but will sadly conclude that what’s being offered isn’t good enough. But if the Democratic leadership collaborates on anything remotely resembling Trump’s proposal it would constitute staggering political ineptitude. I mean, look who’s in the Senate majority leader’s seat — obstructionism works! If Schumer ever wants to occupy that position he’d better act likewise.