I wanted to return one more time — hopefully just one more time — to the question of what Democrats should demand in exchange for their votes on a continuing resolution.
Over the years, I’ve mentioned in various posts that Trump’s world isn’t just winning and losing. It’s the dominationist world in which the only kind of winning is if the other guy loses. Trump’s whole concept of “deals” is based on this idea. The notion of a deal that works for both parties is alien to him. His version of deals is one in which he wins, in which he puts something over on the other guy or forces or pressures him into an unequal bargain. It’s the key to understanding his whole career in business. And as we know much more vividly, it’s the essence of his politics. He wins and you lose. Or to put it more specifically, any working arrangement is one in which he dominates. He’s in charge.
This isn’t a great way to run a civic politics. But as I say in the headline to this post, for the moment, we’re living in Trump’s world. And Democrats need to operate within it.
What that means as of right now is not simply that policy wins are not enough. They’re not enough because, as we discussed yesterday, Trump is operating outside of the constitutional order and Democrats need to make at least some progress pushing him back within it. But there’s an element of this standoff that transcends any particular. Democrats need to hand Trump a loss. They’ll know they’ve won when they see him lose. Take away something he really wants, something he feels he needs. Make it hurt. Make it visible.
This is a tall order given the fact that even with the continuing resolution fight, Trump has most of the power. But not all of it. This isn’t esoteric or emotional. If one doesn’t grasp the importance of this one simply doesn’t understand the symbolic economy of the political world we currently live in. People see constant spectacles of Trump’s power. Sometimes they’re simply fake. But usually they’re quite real. Those spectacles build his power. Each one adds to it. This is among many reasons why the whole idea of “spending political capital” is nonsense. Successfully asserting power builds power. Trump’s constant displays of untrammeled power clothe him in something like the mandate of heaven in the public consciousness — not support for him but the perception of his power and even invincibility. It’s one of the reasons elite political opinion so far takes remarkably little account of how unpopular he’s become and so quickly. For them the assertions of power make up for it.
Democrats need to hand him a loss. The specifics of what that loss includes are important too. But the loss, with its symbolic power, is important all by itself.