JD Foster: Democrats’ Trump Hatred Blew Up In Their Faces During Gov’t Funding Civil War
In “ The Godfather Part III ,” Michael Corleone tells his nephew, “Never hate your enemies. It clouds your judgment.” Corleone’s wisdom is on full display watching the Democrats’ fog-bound performance in the recent…
In “The Godfather Part III,” Michael Corleone tells his nephew, “Never hate your enemies. It clouds your judgment.” Corleone’s wisdom is on full display watching the Democrats’ fog-bound performance in the recent budget Continuing Resolution (CR) fight.
Why do politicians never learn Corleone’s lesson? It’s fine to get all emotional in public, and Democrats excel at this. But behind closed doors, where stratagem is decided and decisions are made, unchecked emotion produces disaster. Fortunately for the Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) limited the damage, but just barely.
The fundamental reality regarding the CR was always that if the Republicans played it simple and straight, agreeing to fund the government at Biden administration levels through the end of the year, then Democrats would be trapped. After much internal wrangling among Republicans, President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson performed a minor miracle getting a mostly “clean” CR through the House.
This hardly seemed a win for many Republicans who were looking for substantial spending cuts. But another kind of win occurs when you achieve the minimum and your opposition self-inflicts a major defeat. On this score, Republicans got their big W.
Reality check: When you have no cards, fold them early. Though few Democrats yet grasp this fact, in the CR battle they held one small deuce. That deuce was to show independents and moderates that Democrats could still behave like the adults in the room. Had they supported the clean CR from the outset, the Democrats’ adulthood would have been affirmed and the Republicans’ win would have been minor.
But no! Democrats, having brought themselves to a fevered pitch, attacked the CR as though the short-term alternative, a government shutdown, would have better served their purpose.
True, a shutdown would have appeased the rabid left-wing base, but only temporarily. As Schumer observed in an interview