In the wake of President Trump's decision last Friday to sign a temporary continuing resolution that reopened the government for three weeks, thus ending the longest federal shutdown in American history, the most popular interpretation of this development (widely held in all but the most pro-Trump corners of the conservative media) was that Trump had conceded defeat in a one-on-one battle of wills with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi, by most accounts, had personally outmaneuvered, outwitted, and simply out-toughed the president. The resulting headlines tell this story clearly enough: "How Nancy Pelosi Ended Donald Trump's Shutdown" by Ezra Klein of Vox; "'She's Not One to Bluff': How Pelosi Won the Shutdown Battle" by Politico; "How Nancy Pelosi Used Her Smarts and Strength to Absolutely Dominate Donald Trump" by columnist Elizabeth Drew.
This Pelosi-centered frame prevailed even though the precipitating legislative maneuver that preceded Trump's concession occurred in the Senate. Last Thursday, Mitch McConnell introduced a Trump-backed proposal that included billions in funding for a border wall; it received only 1 Democratic vote (from Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the Senate's least liberal Democrat) and lost 2 votes from arch-conservative Republicans. McConnell then allowed consideration of a Democratic alternative "clean bill" that lacked wall funding, which attracted a higher level of support by combining a unanimous vote from Democrats with 6 defecting Republicans. It was clear at that point that momentum had turned against the White House.
According to a report from Axios, it was only after Chuck Schumer told McConnell that Trump's idea for a "down payment" on the wall funding was a non-starter among Senate Democrats that Trump was convinced to drop his demands and reopen the government. Schumer had previously goaded Trump into taking responsibility for the shutdown during a December meeting in the Oval Office that Trump had abruptly opened to the press. Throughout the entire process, Schumer and Pelosi seem to have worked in close collaboration to oppose the White House and congressional Republicans—even appearing together to deliver the response to Trump's national address on January 8. Yet the same media stories that featured blaring headlines crediting Pelosi for besting Trump relegated Schumer's role to brief passages in the bottom paragraphs when they mentioned him at all.
Why have the two Democratic leaders received such different coverage, in both quantity and quality, during and after the shutdown? Here are three reasons for this pattern:
1. Personal Reputation. Before the shutdown occurred, Pelosi was widely considered to be a committed liberal, while Schumer was viewed as much more of a "squish." This distinction is not unjustified. Yet it reflects the differing institutional constraints of the two Democrats as much as their personal instincts. The procedural complexity of the Senate requires its leaders to be more transactional than the majoritarian House, and Schumer's need to defend ten members of his caucus running for reelection in Trump-carried states during the 2017–18 session of Congress constrained his ability to lead the public opposition to the president—in contrast to Pelosi, who was freer to play offense. But it also meant that media analysts and partisans on both sides were likely to view the shutdown resolution as a victory for the supposedly tougher and more principled Pelosi regardless of the true nature of events. (Note the January 15 headline from the satirical Onion: "Chuck Schumer Honestly Pretty Amazed He Hasn't Caved Yet.")
2. Job Title. Put simply, Pelosi is the leader of a majority and the most powerful legislator in her chamber, and Schumer is not. It is thus natural in a sense for her to be treated as the primary face of the opposition to Trump, even if the Senate minority's ability to exercise obstructive power via the filibuster is a fundamental characteristic of our political system. Pelosi was also in the position to send a highly-publicized letter to Trump disinviting the president from giving his State of the Union address until the shutdown was ended, which certainly added to the perceptions that the larger partisan standoff over the border wall amounted to a personal conflict between the two of them.
3. Gender. Nancy Pelosi has been a highly skilled and effective legislative leader for 16 years, including a very productive previous tenure as speaker between 2007 and 2010. It is hardly a coincidence, however, that after almost two decades in power she has achieved a newfound status as a national feminist icon at a time when the opposing president is Donald Trump. Even for the mainstream press, the idea of anti-Trump forces being led by a woman is simply too good a story line not to adopt as the dominant frame of the current partisan divide in Washington. Journalists are especially interested to know what Trump thinks of Pelosi—a curiosity that does not extend equally to Schumer or many other Democrats.
Gender is on everybody's mind more than usual these days. If, say, Patty Murray were serving as the Senate minority leader rather than Schumer, it's very likely that the events of the past several weeks would have been framed as "Trump versus two women" rather than "Trump versus Pelosi," even if the legislative roles, sequence of developments, and final outcome had remained the same. At a time when journalists and citizens alike are even more inclined than usual to view politics in terms of the personalities and identities of individuals rather than larger structural or institutional factors, it's worth remembering that the stories we're told are sometimes the stories we're in the mood to hear.
Showing posts with label Chuck Schumer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chuck Schumer. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Thursday, September 14, 2017
The Asymmetric Politics of Trump's Dreamers Deal
Late last night, Democratic congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi triumphantly announced that they had reached an agreement with President Trump over dinner at the White House under which Trump would support legislation shielding the "Dreamers," immigrants brought unlawfully to the U.S. as children, from deportation in exchange for enhanced border security measures (though not Trump's famous "wall"). While there is still considerable confusion about the details of what was and was not explicitly agreed to (confusion stoked in part by members of the Trump administration who probably oppose the deal and are trying to undo it), Trump's willingness to enter a legislative bargain with top Democrats to enact a more liberal immigration policy has predictably taken Washington by surprise.
There will be plenty written in the days and weeks ahead about how this development reflects Trump's own unique personality, unsteady command of policy, and strong feelings of resentment towards Republicans in Congress. Stripping away the individual eccentricities of the current incumbent, however, leaves us with a self-identified conservative Republican president cooperating with congressional Democrats to move domestic policy to the left—which is hardly an unprecedented development. Our Asymmetric Politics framework can explain why Republican presidents seek such agreements, and why Democrats in Congress are also open to them.
One of the most reliable challenges facing Republican leaders is the relative unpopularity of conservative policies among American voters, especially in the domestic sphere. Even many citizens who consider themselves to be conservative Republicans do not support the substantial cuts to public benefits and programs that conservative doctrine prescribes. Despite years of promises, Republicans have so far failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act in large part because of worries from members representing swing districts that revoking health insurance from millions of Americans would prompt a serious backlash, and even pro-repeal politicians—Trump included—repeatedly denied that their replacement plans would result in a loss of coverage despite considerable evidence to the contrary.
Recognizing this danger, previous Republican presidents have found signature issues on which to break with their party's ideological orthodoxy by protecting or introducing popular left-leaning policies. George W. Bush passed the No Child Left Behind Act and the Medicare Part D prescription drug program; George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, an expanded Clean Air Act, and a raise in the minimum wage; and Ronald Reagan reached bipartisan agreements on immigration, transportation, and Social Security. As Matt Grossmann and I pointed out last month, Trump's record in office up until now has been distinctive for its comparative lack of significant left-of-center policy initiatives, despite ubiquitous media characterizations of Trump as possessing significantly less ideological or partisan fidelity than his Republican predecessors.
Trump knows as well as anyone that symbolic appeals to general anti-immigrant sentiment in the mass public can be electorally powerful, especially in Republican primaries. But he also realizes that a specific policy change subjecting the Dreamers, an especially sympathetic group, to mass deportation would be very unpopular. Though he acquiesced to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other immigration hawks in ordering an end to the DACA program earlier this month, Trump immediately sent signals that he was eager to come to an agreement with Congress to preserve the Dreamers' legal protections.
Some observers find it unusual not only that Trump would be willing to make such a deal, but that Democrats would take him up on it:
The idea that engaging in blanket opposition to a president's policies, regardless of their inherent merit, is smart politics because it causes voters to become disillusioned with the effectiveness of the incumbent administration was a major premise of Republican strategic behavior during the Obama years. Here again, though, the two parties are not mirror images of each other. Democrats don't like Trump any more than Republicans liked Obama, but they are much more likely to remain open to opportunities for policy-making cooperation than their partisan counterparts were during the previous administration.
The main reason for this, as we explained in Asymmetric Politics, is that the Democratic Party is a social group coalition, not an ideological movement. Democrats correctly perceive their constituents as more interested in achieving real-world policy accomplishments furthering their concrete group interests than in remaining true to abstract ideological doctrines or engaging in obstruction for purely electoral aims. Most Democrats are willing to share credit, even with the detested Trump, if they can successfully find a practical solution to the Dreamers' current legal predicament. They came to Washington to legislate, and will happily do so if they can deliver the policies favored by their own partisan base.
We are, of course, a long way from an actual bill hitting the president's desk, and there are many ways that the current agreement can fall apart. But if Trump maintains the capacity to learn from experience, he would do well to take note of the lesson offered by this week's events. He can be a consistently conservative president, or he can be a legislatively productive president. Maybe he'll wind up being neither. But it's really hard to be both.
There will be plenty written in the days and weeks ahead about how this development reflects Trump's own unique personality, unsteady command of policy, and strong feelings of resentment towards Republicans in Congress. Stripping away the individual eccentricities of the current incumbent, however, leaves us with a self-identified conservative Republican president cooperating with congressional Democrats to move domestic policy to the left—which is hardly an unprecedented development. Our Asymmetric Politics framework can explain why Republican presidents seek such agreements, and why Democrats in Congress are also open to them.
One of the most reliable challenges facing Republican leaders is the relative unpopularity of conservative policies among American voters, especially in the domestic sphere. Even many citizens who consider themselves to be conservative Republicans do not support the substantial cuts to public benefits and programs that conservative doctrine prescribes. Despite years of promises, Republicans have so far failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act in large part because of worries from members representing swing districts that revoking health insurance from millions of Americans would prompt a serious backlash, and even pro-repeal politicians—Trump included—repeatedly denied that their replacement plans would result in a loss of coverage despite considerable evidence to the contrary.
Recognizing this danger, previous Republican presidents have found signature issues on which to break with their party's ideological orthodoxy by protecting or introducing popular left-leaning policies. George W. Bush passed the No Child Left Behind Act and the Medicare Part D prescription drug program; George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act, an expanded Clean Air Act, and a raise in the minimum wage; and Ronald Reagan reached bipartisan agreements on immigration, transportation, and Social Security. As Matt Grossmann and I pointed out last month, Trump's record in office up until now has been distinctive for its comparative lack of significant left-of-center policy initiatives, despite ubiquitous media characterizations of Trump as possessing significantly less ideological or partisan fidelity than his Republican predecessors.
Trump knows as well as anyone that symbolic appeals to general anti-immigrant sentiment in the mass public can be electorally powerful, especially in Republican primaries. But he also realizes that a specific policy change subjecting the Dreamers, an especially sympathetic group, to mass deportation would be very unpopular. Though he acquiesced to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other immigration hawks in ordering an end to the DACA program earlier this month, Trump immediately sent signals that he was eager to come to an agreement with Congress to preserve the Dreamers' legal protections.
Some observers find it unusual not only that Trump would be willing to make such a deal, but that Democrats would take him up on it:
Slightly surprised Dems are working w/ Trump--even to advance their own agenda. Their attitude might have been: "Why give him ANY wins?"— Matt Lewis (@mattklewis) September 14, 2017
The idea that engaging in blanket opposition to a president's policies, regardless of their inherent merit, is smart politics because it causes voters to become disillusioned with the effectiveness of the incumbent administration was a major premise of Republican strategic behavior during the Obama years. Here again, though, the two parties are not mirror images of each other. Democrats don't like Trump any more than Republicans liked Obama, but they are much more likely to remain open to opportunities for policy-making cooperation than their partisan counterparts were during the previous administration.
The main reason for this, as we explained in Asymmetric Politics, is that the Democratic Party is a social group coalition, not an ideological movement. Democrats correctly perceive their constituents as more interested in achieving real-world policy accomplishments furthering their concrete group interests than in remaining true to abstract ideological doctrines or engaging in obstruction for purely electoral aims. Most Democrats are willing to share credit, even with the detested Trump, if they can successfully find a practical solution to the Dreamers' current legal predicament. They came to Washington to legislate, and will happily do so if they can deliver the policies favored by their own partisan base.
We are, of course, a long way from an actual bill hitting the president's desk, and there are many ways that the current agreement can fall apart. But if Trump maintains the capacity to learn from experience, he would do well to take note of the lesson offered by this week's events. He can be a consistently conservative president, or he can be a legislatively productive president. Maybe he'll wind up being neither. But it's really hard to be both.
Wednesday, September 06, 2017
How Big a Deal Is Trump's Debt Limit Deal?
Today brought the unexpected news that President Trump had reached an agreement with the Democratic congressional leadership (later publicly endorsed by Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell) to pass legislation combining Hurricane Harvey disaster relief with an extension of the debt ceiling until December 15 and a continuing resolution funding the federal government through the same date. If a bill containing these provisions successfully makes its way through Congress, it will remove the possibility of a government shutdown or default on the national debt for the next three months.
The media immediately formed a consensus that Democratic negotiators had claimed a major achievement at Republican expense. Politico reported that Trump "sided with Democrats . . . relinquishing the GOP's leverage." The Atlantic called the agreement "Trump's Early Christmas Gift to Democrats." Jonathan Swan of Axios even wrote that Trump had "handed Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer the deal of the century."
It's undisputed that Trump indeed quickly accepted Democratic leaders' offer of a three-month debt ceiling extension over his own party's (and Treasury Secretary's) preference for a longer relief period. The conclusion that Trump had betrayed his fellow Republicans was widely shared by both sides on Capitol Hill; frustrated Republican incumbents privately (and in some cases publicly) griped about the president, while jubilant Democrats attempted to control their outward expressions of glee lest they provoke Trump to reconsider his decision.
But did Schumer and Pelosi really pull off the "deal of the century," justifying the multiple expressions of unfettered liberal elation and conservative dissatisfaction that dominated the day's analysis?
The case for why the deal with Trump was a big win for the Democrats and a horrible defeat for the GOP goes something like this: Democrats managed to secure hurricane relief and three more months of government funding without making any policy concessions to conservatives, while simultaneously guaranteeing that another vote on raising the debt ceiling will be required in just three months' time. Because Democratic votes will be needed once again to avoid a potentially calamitous debt default in December, the party will be in good position to make additional policy demands in exchange for its support. Moreover, the need for Congress to spend the last few weeks of 2017 on spending and debt negotiations will complicate Republican ambitions to complete a tax reform plan before the holidays, leaving the party with no major legislative achievements to show for its first full year in power since 2006.
The main problem with this analysis is that it arguably overstates the capacity of both parties—the Republicans today, the Democrats in the future—to leverage government funding and debt ceiling showdowns to extract major policy concessions from the opposition. It's true that some conservatives had planned to hold the debt ceiling hostage in order to force broad-based spending cuts, just as some liberals might now dream of using similar tactics to jam a legislative authorization of DACA through an otherwise reluctant Congress. But we've had enough of these governing crises over the past few years to conclude with some confidence that they are ultimately resolved via bipartisan agreements that more or less preserve the policy status quo. A hypothetical Democratic threat to endanger the credit of the United States over immigration reform wouldn't necessarily have any greater chance of success than the Republicans' misguided 2013 attempt to compel the repeal of Obamacare by shutting down the government.
Whether the Trump-Pelosi-Schumer deal represents a serious blow to tax reform's chances in the current Congress also depends on one's prior estimation of those chances—which were clearly on the wane even before today's news broke. Republicans are not even close to passing the budget resolution that is a necessary procedural precursor to the consideration of their tax reform plan. (Also, they do not, as of yet, have a tax reform plan.) Republicans can even take solace in apparently avoiding a damaging but entirely plausible scenario: a standoff between Trump and Democratic leaders over funding for a border wall that could have led to an indefinite government shutdown, leaving the congressional GOP caught hopelessly in the middle.
But while the policy implications of Wednesday's deal are unclear and possibly quite modest in scope, the political consequences are much more significant. By endorsing the Democrats' offer in negotiations over the stated position of his own party's congressional leaders, Trump humiliated Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, further intensifying the war between the president and his nominal allies in Congress that has been steadily progressing all summer. This was no accident. Trump nurtures a lengthening list of grievances with both men and was apparently looking for an opportunity to land a few punches. The GOP thus moves closer to a state of open schism between its executive and legislative wings, and the hopes of last winter that Trump would happily follow the direction of veteran party leaders recede even further into the distance.
The media immediately formed a consensus that Democratic negotiators had claimed a major achievement at Republican expense. Politico reported that Trump "sided with Democrats . . . relinquishing the GOP's leverage." The Atlantic called the agreement "Trump's Early Christmas Gift to Democrats." Jonathan Swan of Axios even wrote that Trump had "handed Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer the deal of the century."
It's undisputed that Trump indeed quickly accepted Democratic leaders' offer of a three-month debt ceiling extension over his own party's (and Treasury Secretary's) preference for a longer relief period. The conclusion that Trump had betrayed his fellow Republicans was widely shared by both sides on Capitol Hill; frustrated Republican incumbents privately (and in some cases publicly) griped about the president, while jubilant Democrats attempted to control their outward expressions of glee lest they provoke Trump to reconsider his decision.
But did Schumer and Pelosi really pull off the "deal of the century," justifying the multiple expressions of unfettered liberal elation and conservative dissatisfaction that dominated the day's analysis?
The case for why the deal with Trump was a big win for the Democrats and a horrible defeat for the GOP goes something like this: Democrats managed to secure hurricane relief and three more months of government funding without making any policy concessions to conservatives, while simultaneously guaranteeing that another vote on raising the debt ceiling will be required in just three months' time. Because Democratic votes will be needed once again to avoid a potentially calamitous debt default in December, the party will be in good position to make additional policy demands in exchange for its support. Moreover, the need for Congress to spend the last few weeks of 2017 on spending and debt negotiations will complicate Republican ambitions to complete a tax reform plan before the holidays, leaving the party with no major legislative achievements to show for its first full year in power since 2006.
The main problem with this analysis is that it arguably overstates the capacity of both parties—the Republicans today, the Democrats in the future—to leverage government funding and debt ceiling showdowns to extract major policy concessions from the opposition. It's true that some conservatives had planned to hold the debt ceiling hostage in order to force broad-based spending cuts, just as some liberals might now dream of using similar tactics to jam a legislative authorization of DACA through an otherwise reluctant Congress. But we've had enough of these governing crises over the past few years to conclude with some confidence that they are ultimately resolved via bipartisan agreements that more or less preserve the policy status quo. A hypothetical Democratic threat to endanger the credit of the United States over immigration reform wouldn't necessarily have any greater chance of success than the Republicans' misguided 2013 attempt to compel the repeal of Obamacare by shutting down the government.
Whether the Trump-Pelosi-Schumer deal represents a serious blow to tax reform's chances in the current Congress also depends on one's prior estimation of those chances—which were clearly on the wane even before today's news broke. Republicans are not even close to passing the budget resolution that is a necessary procedural precursor to the consideration of their tax reform plan. (Also, they do not, as of yet, have a tax reform plan.) Republicans can even take solace in apparently avoiding a damaging but entirely plausible scenario: a standoff between Trump and Democratic leaders over funding for a border wall that could have led to an indefinite government shutdown, leaving the congressional GOP caught hopelessly in the middle.
But while the policy implications of Wednesday's deal are unclear and possibly quite modest in scope, the political consequences are much more significant. By endorsing the Democrats' offer in negotiations over the stated position of his own party's congressional leaders, Trump humiliated Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, further intensifying the war between the president and his nominal allies in Congress that has been steadily progressing all summer. This was no accident. Trump nurtures a lengthening list of grievances with both men and was apparently looking for an opportunity to land a few punches. The GOP thus moves closer to a state of open schism between its executive and legislative wings, and the hopes of last winter that Trump would happily follow the direction of veteran party leaders recede even further into the distance.
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