UPDATE 1 below
1. Level of bewilderment among “analysts” seems to be increasing. Scott (Dilbert) Adams has a good description of recent “mass hysteria”:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/164297628606/how-to-know-youre-in-a-mass-hysteria-bubble
2. Scott also does not rule out Trump inviting Kim Jong-Un over for a hamburger:
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/165009907411/why-north-korea-and-the-united-states-are-near-war
(Certainly more plausible than the imminent danger of nuclear war touted in media).
Here’s some more links on the general discombobulation as Trump more or less openly works with Democrats to endanger Republican incumbents in 2018.
3. BBC concludes that Democrat establishment won’t cooperate with Trump, because it would outrage their “resistance” base. More realistically it will intensity the split on Democrats side, since they cannot afford to oppose popular measure but base will continue to be outraged.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41192767
4. Why would Trump want to weaken the GOP?
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/07/trumps-dealmaking-weakens-gop-242469
5. This one (from a less ant-Trumpist conservative) is more perceptive, explains why and also why Democrats will cooperate in creating the economic conditions he needs for 2020:
http://thefederalist.com/2017/09/07/trumps-potential-triangulation/
(Oddly ends with idea that Trump only just now starting to grasp the situation accurately described by the article).
6. New Yorker quotes possible outcome from above analysis of Trump/Democrat convergence on populist policies:
“What does that look like?” he wrote. “daca for e-Verify. Minimum wage increase for welfare work requirements. Cutting payroll taxes while raising the phase out. Infrastructure billions for employee labor reforms. Universal catastrophic coverage in exchange for regulatory relief to drive down health care prices.”
New Yorker dismisses that sort of outcome as “fanciful” on bizarre grounds that it would be inconsistent with that magazine’s story that Trump wades “further into the cesspool of white identity politics by ordering the rescinding of Barack Obama’s policy of providing legal protections to undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as minors, which is known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or daca? (Trump’s subsequent tweets and verbal statements urging Congress to take action didn’t alter the fact that the government is no longer accepting daca applications, and the program will expire in six months.) ”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/can-donald-trump-change-course
7. Anti-Trump nativist conservatives are under no such illusions about what Trump actually did by giving Congress six months to deal with “Dreamers”:
http://www.dailywire.com/news/20739/oh-no-trump-tweets-warm-feelings-toward-dreamersat-ben-shapiro
8. But liberals just don’t get it:
9. Neither do mainstream GOP analysts:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/349332-gop-fears-damage-from-trumps-move-on-daca
10. I would have expected Obama to get it, but apparently not:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/06/barack-obama-speaking-up-trump-excesses-daca
Actually it may have been the Guardian taking Obama to be just saying what they want to hear. He was, but on looking at the end of his actual statement I think he does also know that the inevitable result will be that Congress will give Trump the legislation that they would not give Obama:
https://m.facebook.com/barackobama/posts/10155227588436749
11. And NYT explains how Trump doing the opposite of what they reported he was doing about “Dreamers” is due to his inconsistency and sudden switch:
12. Here’s a quite serious and thoughtful Democrat analysis:
“Stay tuned for a probable civil war within the GOP pitting feuding factions against each other, and a resurgent Democratic Party making a strong bid to regain control of Congress in the 2018 midterm elections.”
Obsessive focus on Democrats vs GOP ignores entirely new situation that would result from Trump winning the GOP civil war. Democrats regaining control of House more likely to help Trump win in 2020.
13. This item from Slate seems to have noticed that Trump has just illustrated how he can govern as a bipartisan populist:
“And yet a majority of Republican members who voted—133 out of 223—supported the deal. Likewise, when the Senate approved the deal on Thursday, 33 out of 50 Republican senators supported it.
That’s an encouraging sign for President Trump as he considers making more deals with Democrats down the road. He can simply agree to Democrats’ opening offer, collect all of their votes, and still get about two-thirds of Republican votes, as apparently these people don’t want to oppose their president. He can even send a Wall Street-via-Hollywood smart-ass to insult GOP members ahead of time, just for kicks, and still get their votes. Seems like a model worth replicating in December, or forever”
(But since it was in Slate, maybe it was just being sarcastic about GOP rather than actually noticing. I cannot tell).
14. But this GOP analysis does seem to get some of it:
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UPDATE 1 (Minor typos above plus item numbers above, new items below 2017-09-10T1140)
15. NYT notices Trump represents a third party that has upended the two party system:
(But still no mention that he cannot do much without party in Congress and that is why his focus is on the GOP 2018 primaries).
16. “Business analysts” demonstrate their sophistication compared with the ignorant Trump:
““Trump might understand real estate deals, but he’s a rube when it comes to dealing with Congress. The Democrats want more spending, no tax cuts for the rich, and protection for the ‘Dreamers’ — and those goals now look attainable in a mega-deal this winter.”
Should be obvious that Trump wants more spending, populist not GOP tax cuts and comprehensive immigration reform. Business wants that, Trump wants that, Democrats want that. But “analysts” know he is a conservative Republican so they know he cannot be doing what he plainly is doing:
C21st Left 