Trumpists against Trump

The shutdown was averted, but Trump couldn’t push through his last-minute conditions. The lesson for Republicans: pushing through their agenda will not be as easy as they think.

Donald Trump has reason to celebrate. The compromise with which Republicans and Democrats ended up averting the shutdown and financing the federal government for now is a good sell to the fans of a downsized state.

Within days, the legislative package shrank from more than 1,500 pages to 118. The members of the House of Representatives and Senate could actually read them before voting — a first! Both camps had to relinquish projects they had woven into the package to push through on the brink of a shutdown — items that otherwise would have lacked majority support.

Trump, Leader of Workers, Is No Fiscal Conservative

But Trump isn’t celebrating. At the last minute, he set a condition that was not met: raising the debt ceiling. Trump wanted Joe Biden to have to sign off on it to avoid getting his own hands dirty.

But that is precisely what dozens of Republicans in Congress didn’t want, in particular those on the right upon whom Trump likes to rely. Even for his sake, they didn’t want to permit more money to be borrowed without cutting expenses.

And that will be a recurrent topic over the next year. A budget deal made at the very last minute can’t paper over the fact that the Republican majority is razor thin and its members disagree among themselves.

As much as the hard right admires Trump’s ability to get things done, it’s also clear to them that Trump, leader of the working class, is no fiscal conservative.