Progressives man the barricades the day after Donald J. Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States.
Youtube / Ibrahim Ka-Almasih Garba

It is not as if Donald J. Trump is a neoliberal  (erroneously also called a “conservative”), which he has not been in the past. In fact, before he became a Republican presidential candidate, his expressed opinions seemed to be more consistent with progressivism. Had Democratic progressives not reacted to his election with complete hostility, they would have had a much better chance than with any other Republican presidential candidate of bending Trump toward their views. This suggests Donald Trump is not the main focus for progressive action; he merely presents an opportunity for progressives to nullify the results of the 2016 elections.

The Consequences of Progressive “Total Resistance” To Trump

Truly,  Trump’s current ideology appears to be a work in progress, and one of the consequences of progressive “total resistance” seems to be to move his ideology farther toward the neoliberal Right. As is well known, Trump does not react well to opposition, particularly opposition that questions his good character. By presenting implacable hostility and resistance, progressive leaders are only driving Trump into the arms of more traditional, neoliberal Republicans.

For this particular consequence, more traditional neoliberals can only be grateful. Even now, Trump sometimes exhibits a tendency to view government action as solutions to social and economic problems. For example, Trump’s mercantilist views of foreign trade have led him to suggest punitive tax treatment of American corporations that invest in foreign countries. Trump has also shown an occasional attraction to more government management of healthcare. Nevertheless, the Democrats’ implacable hostility and opposition have constantly raised the Donald’s ire, making him more receptive to Republican suggestions. If progressive hostility leads Trump to consider economic deregulation and corporate tax cuts as better solutions to the off-shoring of American jobs, neoliberals should hope all the more that progressives will antagonize Trump even further.

Unfortunately, that has not been the only result from progressives’ total hostility. By their intemperate rhetoric and the increasing violence found in their protests, they have been driving us even farther toward actual civil war. Progressives can not express extreme contempt and hatred for a large fraction of Americans and not expect to receive such contempt and hatred in return. The growing danger is the hostile antipathy of each side for the other fuels a positive feedback of exponentially growing hatred. Progressives (and neoliberals who follow their example) should be very careful for what they wish.

What Do Progressives Want To Achieve?

What can progressives possibly expect to achieve  with their “total resistance”? Suppose somehow they are able to drive Trump from office. They would then be faced with a President Mike Pence who is certifiably more of a neoliberal than Trump, and certainly much more skillful as a politician. Would they then do their best to drive Pence from office? Short of violence, how could they achieve that?

Driving both Trump and Pence from office is clearly an unrealistic and impossible expectation, one that Democratic leaders almost certainly are not entertaining. Even getting rid of Trump, given the lack of evidence for the ridiculous charges against him of “collusion” with the Russians and for obstruction of justice, seems far from possible. What then do Democratic leaders want?

There are at least three goals Democrats can realistically expect to attain with their acerbic “total resistance”.  First, they can hope to placate and solidify their own base. The Democratic base fully expected Hillary Clinton to win the election, causing Donald Trump’s election to be a complete shock. Since the Democratic electorate has also convinced itself over time how especially evil Republicans and Trump in particular are, this enmity combined with the shock has been enough to unhinge the Democrats emotionally. As a result, to keep the Democratic base in the fold and not defect to form a political party even farther to the Left, Democratic leaders must demonstrate how anti-Republican and anti-Trump they are.

Second, they can hope to defame Republicans enough to persuade the electorate to switch to the Democratic party in the next election. This is the classic political reaction to losing power. It has worked in the past; it can work in the future. Given the solid backing in propaganda provided by most of the major news media, this is a particularly bright hope for Democrats.

Third, they can hope to prevent or delay the GOP from putting their program into effect. The greatest nightmare progressives could ever have would be if the Republicans enacted their economic and social agenda, and it actually worked! Already, the economy is responding positively just to the economic deregulation effected by the Trump administration. If the GOP adds repeal-and-replace of Obamacare and tax reform and cuts to these accomplishments, additional economic growth accompanied with real wage increases could be expected. Nothing could be more destructive to progressive hopes than an actual demonstration that neoliberal ideology works to produce healthy, robust economic growth after eight years of progressive government producing the opposite. Both by not providing any support in the Congress for the GOP agenda and by vilifying the Republican agenda to the public, they can hope to remove enough support for Republican legislation to kill it.

Progressive Tactics To Nullify the 2016 Election

Given the three-fold needs of the Democratic Party — to hold onto their base, to blacken the Republicans in the eyes of the electorate, and to prevent Republicans from demonstrating their ideology works better than progressivism — what can progressive Democrats do to achieve their goals?

Everything Democrats can do to persuade the American people that Republicans are intrinsically evil will also work to keep their base within the fold. All the Sturm und Drang we have witnessed with Trump having been accused of being a traitorous Russian agent, “colluding” with the Russians to ensure he was elected, served this purpose. Now that that track seems untenable, Democrats are pivoting to accusations Trump has “obstructed justice” by impeding investigations into the nonexistent “collusion”. Neat trick!

Ultimately, however, there is precious little Democrats can do in the short-term to neuter Trump’s agenda completely through legal means. Barring an all out civil war, Trump’s impeachment and removal from office is a pipe-dream. That political mechanism for getting rid of a president is a just that — political and not legal. As long as Republicans control both the House and the Senate, that resolution will remain a Democratic pipe-dream.

A much better tactic is to impede and delay everything Congressional Republicans try to do. The more Democrats can delay appointments of the new administration, now at the sub-secretarial level, the longer it will be before Trump can replace Obama-era hold-overs to complete his team. Without a completed team to control the bureaucracy, the so-called “deep state” can work to sabotage the new administration. Last march, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA) told the Associated Press,

Of course, the deep state exists. There’s a permanent state of massive bureaucracies that do whatever they want and set up deliberate leaks to attack the president.

They are fighting to keep hold of their power. This is what the deep state does: They create a lie, spread a lie, fail to check the lie and then deny they were behind the lie.

Another tactic to impede and delay is to encourage discord among Republican lawmakers. This is probably most easily done by frightening constituents with the loss of federal benefits, a task for which allied progressive news media would be most valuable. In the Senate especially, where the Republicans control only 52 out of 100 seats, the defection of only a few Republican votes would be enough to kill a bill. Remember that in this vitriolic and toxic environment, every single Democratic vote will almost always go against any Republican proposal. The Republicans’ own divisions in both the House and the Senate, especially in the repeal-and-replace of Obamacare, are greatly aiding the Democrats.

Another impeding tactic by progressive federal judges, primarily in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the United States, could backfire on them horribly. A number of Ninth Circuit courts have temporarily blocked Trump executive orders instituting travel bans from countries with uncontrolled Islamic jihadist activities. The idea was the bans would be temporary until the administration could figure out rules for “extreme vetting” to weed out jihadist terrorists. These bans were not for all Islamic countries and were not just for Muslim citizens of those countries. The claim could not be made then that the bans were primarily about religion. In fact, what Trump attempted is explicitly authorized under section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which states,

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

Both the circumstances and the explicit statutory law seem to leave the appellate judges who blocked Trump’s executive orders without a leg to stand on. Should any immigrant or refugee, legal or not, from the listed countries (Libya, Syria, Sudan, Iran, Yemen, and Somalia) commit jihadist attacks, the blood of the victims will be on the judges’ hands and the public will know it.

Right now, Democrats can only hope to prevent GOP policies from coming into effect, or that if they do they will be so crippled they will not prove superior to progressive policies. Currently, Democrats have not yet shown an ability to thwart Trump executive orders removing Obama-era economic regulations, and these executive orders have already had a stimulating effect on the economy. Should the Republicans also add both Obamacare repeal-and-replace and tax reform and cuts to these accomplishments, Democrats might be looking at a very long exile from federal power.

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