Trump’s congressional address

Trump’s recent address to both chambers of congress highlighted the vast difference and hostility between the two parties. It was a kind of spectacle that one would expect with Trump more or less given a standard rally speech, with no room for partisanship or unity. Trump has selected a loyal administration, and the GOP has followed his lead. This is very different from his first administration, which was mirrored in disagreements and disfunction. When Trump was not blaming Biden for the high price of eggs, the president was moaning that the democrats would not clap or jeer from him, boasting about his recent achievements such as renaming Gulf of Mexico to Gulf of America and mocking the democrats.  

Meanwhile the democrats were projecting idealistic youthful vigor by dispatching an old man, Al Green at 77, to wave his cane at the president and rage about hypothetical cuts to the welfare programs. The rest of the democrats sat there with little paddles in their hands as thought they were grumpily bidding in a charity auction. The following day, the Supreme Court handed down a ruling reminding the president that he still lacks certain powers. In this case, the power to unilaterally suspend foreign aid appropriated by Congress. It seems that everybody in Washington enjoys a tidy trifecta, one party controlling the presidency and both houses of Congress, but important legislation has been enacted in spite of thorny interbranch and intramural politics. Think of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or the compromises that produced the budget surplus of the Bill Clinton – Newt Gingrich era. These were not imposed by fiat, there were negotiated. This is how government in a constitutional republic is supposed to work. Lyndon B Johnson, a former senator from Texas, did not get his civil rights act by waving a cane at his opponents. And president Johnson needed to be good at politics, Congress, at the time, was still acting like Article I of the constitution, the one that vests lawmaking power within its hallowed chambers.

Today, Congress is mostly what can be characterized as the parliament of pundits, a bunch of would-be influencers who play for social media clout and cable new hits while doing very little in the way of lawmaking, punting that over to the president and his executive orders. The Supreme Court will stop in every now and then and remind the president that there is a rule book to follow. The democrats need to realize that they lost the election and start moving to the central and start working with the republicans and with Trump. Democrats and republicans in Congress are similar in that neither prty seems to be able of willing to do ordinary politics inside the national legislature. At the same time they are different in that democrats are not to be trusted as they do anything in their power when they are in power to create laws and ignore input from the republicans.

There is a reason why the Congress is the Article I branch. One constitutional architecture set up Congress, not the president, not the Supreme Court, as the supreme federal authority with the power to spend money, impose taxes, declare war, ratify treaties, approve or reject high-level appointments in the executive and judicial branches etc. Congress has the power to remove a president or a Supreme Court justice, the president does not have the power to remove the most obscure member of the House or the most insufferable senator and neither does the Supreme Court. Congress should start acting as though they own the place, because they do. Because it is up to Congress to ensure that the constitution is something more than just a piece of paper. But, for now, Congress simply refuses to do its job, which is both lazy and foolish. Bottom line is that Congress has broken down into two rather extreme entities and there is little or no hope that they will find consensus and start working together. Both parties are to blame for this, but as long as there are no will to change things, Congress will remain dysfunctional and much of the Trump agenda will have to use executive powers.