--- Column by Doug Gibson
Just what in the hell is President Donald Trump (seen above) doing with his after-the-fact tantrum/demand that the finally negotiated stimulus/budget deal be changed? The president knows that his administration was involved in negotiations that resulted in a deal that included $600 direct payments for individuals, $1200 for couples, and $600 for dependents ... depending on income.
Demanding that it be increased to $2,000, or he may not sign the deal, brings us to a situation that after today, may lead unemployment benefits to end for many. It could also shut the government down in nearly three days.
I speak as a supporter of the president despite his checkered past and still mercurial behavior. He's done a good job in office. My support for his re-election was based on policy. I wanted him to win. I'm not happy to have a future commander in chief who I fear, by 3 p.m. every day, has forgotten what he ate for breakfast, and even lunch is a bit foggy. I also believe that the Democratic Party, the past generation, has moved further left than the Republican Party has moved right.
But he lost the election. Politics is cyclical. This was a unique year in which massive voting produced curious results. Trump gained in popularity but a consistent antipathy for Donald Trump the past four years -- truth be told tub-thumped with enthusiasm by still-influential media and arts -- made Joe Biden the getter of most votes in our nation's history.
Donald Trump is mad he lost. Everyone gets it. He believes he was cheated out of the election. He is angry and resentful that prominent GOP pols, notably Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are saying it's time to accept the results. This anger is what motivates President Trump's $2,000-or-maybe-I'll-not-support-this-deal switch midweek. He did it to both embarrass -- and potentially damage -- pols such as McConnell.
Trump's frustration is so high that he is willing to hamstring two Republican U.S. Senate seats in Georgia, in which Republican incumbents are running against a pair of pseudo-socialists. The vote is scheduled for Jan. 5. If the Democrats take both seats, they will control both houses of Congress.
Democrats seized on Trump's remarks, using them for political advantage. Speaker Nancy Pelosi dragged in Congress for a unanimous consent vote for a $2,000 stimulus, meaning a single vote against would kill the proposal. No Democrats spoke, so the GOP was forced to kill it, providing "wonderful optics." This minor comedy provided Pelosi the opportunity to deflect that she refused every reasonable-OK-not-atrocious stimulus deal offered prior to Election Day, preferring the president not get a political victory rather than provide needed relief.
Let's be honest, the stimulus relief and budget deal is terrible legislation. It exemplifies everything that is bad about Congress; a hasty, cobbled together, several-thousand-page sleep-aid of mostly indecipherable legal speak, chock-full of pork, favors and personal preferences, with cash thrown at the "proles."
But, unfortunately, what I have described is kind of the norm for Congress. It's up to voters to throw these enablers out, and we never seem to do that.
The point is that the president knew the game, and the negotiations. If he wanted $2,000, the very public, taped demand he made could have been out two weeks ago. It shouldn't be tossed in after the fact, after the deal was reached.
Because the president did this out of personal pique, I am hopeful that later today, or perhaps Sunday, even Monday, Trump will back away from his implied threat to create chaos, and sign the budget/stimulus package. He can then resume -- to his heart's consent -- his quixotic attempt to change the election results.
And then, after Jan. 21, we'll have a new president. I will call him my president. And I hope Republicans challenge him often, and effectively.
