How Will Congress Cope With Trump?
What can the American people expect from the 115th Congress? Sounds like a trick question, right––or the start of a bad political joke? I mean, what have the American people come to expect from every Congress: dysfunction, partisanship, hypocrisy, opportunism, chaos … Down, down, down the list spirals.
For all his Who’s-your-daddy swagger and drain-the-swamp chatter, Donald Trump is unlikely to make much of a dent in this dynamic. (Some cultures are simply beyond help.) But that doesn’t mean Capitol Hill isn’t braced for upheaval. Every election, particularly one involving a presidential transition, reshuffles legislative priorities and power dynamics. Toss in an erratic, ideologically fuzzy commander-in-chief who stumped hard against both congressional teams, and things could go topsy-turvy pretty quickly.
Democrat or Republican, uncertainty is the name of the game for lawmakers. Yes, the GOP majority has legislative plans that it aims to pursue at top speed. Battle lines are being drawn over issues ranging from tax reform to infrastructure spending to the state of the Supreme Court. The Obamacare cage match is already raging. But where Trump will come down on, and the degree to which he will meddle in, these and other fights remains a sizable X factor. (Even
