The Senate Majority Leader And A Trump Doctrine

“It doesn’t matter,” Trump said eventually. “We won.”
It doesn’t matter. Nothing really matters. Is this, finally, the Trump Doctrine?

Most presidents have governed from the standpoint of things mattering. Individuals matter. Words matter. Life matters.

“Show up,” Barack Obama said during his farewell address. “Dive in. Persevere.”
“Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself,” George W. Bush said during his second inaugural address.

For about the last ten years or so politics hasn't been about compromises or working across the aisle or much of anything like debating the issues like taxes, issues of war and peace, health care, rebuilding roads, bridges, airports, international cooperation, immigration policies, climate change, agricultural policy, trade policies and any number of other issues.  It's been about getting to the barest of majorities necessary to pass legislation and do a number on your political opponent.

The Presidential Election in 2008 seems like a long time ago.  In 2010 the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is quoted as saying: "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president".  In practice that meant that anything on the agenda for the president was going to be stonewalled.  The newest version of divided government had begun.

If I had a wish it would be for some sort of leadership that would unite rather than divide.  It would signal a renewed belief in a more popular form of democracy where politicians were more responsive to all their constituents versus the lopsided power of monied interests the interests of privilege.

Dan Zak of the Washington Post called the Trump Doctrine a form of Fatalism.  The mid-term elections are Tuesday, November 4,  2018.  Vote and make yourself heard. 









































Politics first overcame policy when the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility's reccomenndations were rejected whe a super majority was nnot reached.  Eventually the Budet


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