What IS the Trump agenda, really?

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are not only the de facto House and Senate Majority leaders, they are now co-presidents. The election results have officially been overturned without abolishing the electoral college. Make Democrats great again!

Back in April, we thought we had seen it all. A Republican Party in control of all branches of government got run over by a parked car and gave Democrats everything they wanted in the budget bill — the first time in modern history that has happened with a governing majority. Now Republicans are trying to outdo their accomplishments and give Democrats everything they want in several bills. They are insidiously tying Harvey relief funding to an increase in the debt ceiling and passing a budget bill funding Planned Parenthood, refugee resettlement, and sanctuary cities, but not the border wall.

And outdoing the Republicans in capitulating to the Democrats? President Trump.

Remember when the Trump White House told us in April the president would fight “the next time” in September? Well, now the word is the fight will be in December! Yup, Trump has learned the ways of Washington very quickly — cave now so you can cave later, even more “bigly.”

The president has now agreed to tie the relief funding to an unconditional increase in the debt ceiling and give the Democrats everything they want on the budget until December 15. Oh, and Congress will also pass an insurance bailout and unconditional renewal of the CHIP program.

Some might blame this on congressional leaders. Sure, they are who they are. The scorpion is going to sting. But Trump, while he was criticizing McConnell for giving in on the debt ceiling, had his own Treasury Secretary ask for the same policy. And now, just like in April, he is surrendering. What is the Trump agenda, really? You can’t exactly fight a recalcitrant congressional leadership when your statements say one thing, your tweets say another, and your cabinet officials say something entirely different.

Republicans are actually going backward from when they only controlled the House. In 2011, at least they secured some spending cuts for raising the debt limit. Then again, now that Republicans are in complete control, we can see their true priorities.

There’s nothing new here for those who have watched the betrayals of the past seven years since Republicans took back the House. What is new, however, is the reprehensible use of Harvey funding to write a blank check for the rest of our government. These terrible national disasters are all the more reason to cut government and save the funding for when we really need it.

Trump has now adopted the talking points of the Left on the debt ceiling, just days after criticizing McConnell for saying the same thing:

Trump via pool: "Always we’ll agree on debt ceiling automatically because of the importance of it."

— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) September 6, 2017

So much for the promise to bring down the debt “fairly quickly.” The debt will now surge well over $20 trillion once the dam of the debt ceiling is removed. And so much for Trump’s much-hyped FY 2018 budget, which will now go down the drain. Every single word of it.

Now he is promising to work with Pelosi to promote amnesty. GOP leaders are holding hearings on amnesty as early as next week … while they also hold hearings on bailing out Obamacare.

It’s fairly safe to say Democrats got more out of this than they would have with Hillary as president.

There is nothing left for conservatives in this administration and certainly nothing left for them within the broader party. With all the conservatives out of the West Wing, there is no way to sustain a major policy victory. Even the half-hearted rescission of Obama’s amnesty, which was then countermanded by Trump’s public support for legislative amnesty literally minutes later, was only pursued because of a lawsuit by conservative state attorneys general.

What is it going to take for conservatives to finally realize they are not wanted in this party? Are we going to spend the next few years arguing over nothing, or will we take our destiny into our own hands and chart a new path?