Progress in many areas where the parties could work together is being blocked because of the need for Trump and the Republican Party to kowtow to conservative ultras.
.. It was ironic that hours after Trump’s triple axel on the question, Judge William Alsup halted the president’s original effort to end DACA by citing Trump’s own words to make the case against him.
“Does anybody really want to throw out good, educated and accomplished young people who have jobs, some serving in the military?” Trump had said in September. Well, the other Trump seemed to want to do just that.
.. Trump is also stuck with his promise to build the border wall despite the fact that a USA Today survey of Congress last fallfound that fewer than 25 percent of Republicans were willing to endorse the plan. But the wall is all about his brand.
.. The cost of extremism is obvious on other matters as well. The Children’s Health Insurance Program is a genuinely bipartisan achievement that, at low cost, gets health care to 9 million young Americans. But the renewal is hung up because House Republicans are demanding that it be paid for by cutting Obamacare spending on various preventive-care measures. Really? Since when is prevention a partisan issue?