well written Josh Marshall TPM - "I think America is stronger than Trump."

[NRaleighLiberal]

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/failing-donald-trump-has-a-new-enemy-democracy#more-1056746

Failing Donald Trump Has a New Enemy: Democracy

By JOSH MARSHALL Published MAY 3, 2017 11:21 AM

We’re now past the 100 Days. And it was more or less universally agreed that, in historical terms and against expectations, it was an abysmal failure. President Trump as much as conceded this with his wild mix of angry denunciations of the 100 Days standard combined with press releases touting meaningless metrics like number of executive orders signed, number of foreign leaders talked to and similar nonsense. Set all that aside. That’s really a given. What I’m interested in now is Trump’s reaction. He failed. He gets that. But why did he fail? In the Trumpian psyche, it can’t be Trump’s personal failure or a failure of strategy. So who’s to blame?

In recent days, we’ve gotten the answer, though I have not seen it put together as such. The problem is the constitution or more generally, democracy.

Over the weekend, I noted Rience Priebus saying President Trump was considering moves to amend or even abolish the 1st Amendment to make it easier for him to sue news organizations that make him mad. This wasn’t a discussion of libel laws. What he’s thinking about requires amending the constitution. Priebus said as much. Some people thought I exaggerated the point or that, whatever Priebus technically said, he couldn’t actually have meant that. Well, Sean Spicer doubled down on the point and expanded on it the next day.

Are these two just saying things to humor their boss? After all, amending the Constitution is complicated and the President can’t do it alone. Quite possibly. But the President has vast powers. His intentions in this regard are vastly important, even if he might have a hard time making good on them. The messages from his lackeys and lickspittles, both publicly and publicly meant to be seen by him, matter a great deal.

Then there were two tweets from the President just yesterday.

The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there! We….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017

either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good “shutdown” in September to fix mess!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017

This was a post-100 Days fail – a stop-gap budget resolution to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year in which Trump got close to nothing he’d demanded. How did he fail so badly? Because Congress doesn’t work well enough. Trump wouldn’t be the first person to clamor for simple majority rules votes in the Senate. But he would be the first President to threaten what we might term a ‘therapeutic shutdown’ to fix the “mess” of American government.

snip - kind of long, very worthwhile - go to the link above for the rest

[2naSalit]

1. Once again...

to the Crybaby in Chief...