Democrats Don't Realize That Trump Can Make Their Wishes Come True

Trump derangement syndrome (TDS) is real malady and Democrats have it bad. Democrats are so invested in Trump hatred that they don’t comprehend that they are on the cusp of realizing much more of their agenda under Donald Trump than they could possibly have accomplished under Hillary Clinton.

The first sign of hope for Democrats was the Republican failure to reform Obamacare. The tax reform bill repealed the individual mandate and that was enough for President Trump to proclaim Obamacare “essentially repealed,” leaving the vast majority of the health law untouched. The GOP has gone silent on further attempts to repeal, reform or replace the Affordable Care Act. Republicans fought for six years under President Obama to repeal Obamacare, but President Trump has apparently stifled the repeal movement.

Next, President Trump turned to immigration and infrastructure, two subjects near and dear to liberal hearts. The president proposed a deal with Democrats to extend DACA and unveiled a $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan. In keeping with the Trump-brand philosophy of doing things in a “YUGE” way, Trump’s proposals were even bigger than the programs enacted by his predecessor. President Obama’s DACA program enrolled about 700,000 participants. Trump’s version would expand that to include an additional 1.1 million. President Obama’s 2009 infrastructure bill had a price tag of $787 billion. Trump’s plan is twice as hefty at $1.5 trillion.

CNBC editorialized that “Democrats would be crazy to reject Trump's DACA deal,” but reject it they did. Were they crazy or were they merely deranged?

But wait, there’s more. A promise kept by candidate Trump was to engage in protectionist trade policies. In 2016, Trump said that his views on trade were “very similar” to those of Bernie Sanders. Trump withdrew from the TPP, is renegotiating NAFTA and has enacted several tariffs. Protectionist Democrats should be ecstatic.

Democrats have spent years calling for a gas tax in the name cutting carbon emissions. President Trump recently endorsed the idea of a twenty-five cent gas tax as well. The Trump tax would not be intended to stop global warming and would instead be used to generate revenue for his infrastructure spending, but will Democrats really want to quibble over the purpose when they can soak auto owners, save the planet and blame a Republican president?

To top it all off, President Trump today signed a memo that instructed the attorney general to propose regulations banning “devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns.” That’s right. President Trump is not only enacting the first significant gun control legislation since 1994, he is using his executive authority to bypass Congress to do it. What liberal cannot celebrate a new gun control law that isn’t subject to the congressional stalemate?

In fact, President Trump’s progressive proposals are more likely to become law than anything Hillary Clinton would have proposed. Hillary’s agenda would have been DOA with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. On the other hand, Trump can probably deliver enough Republican votes to pass the Democrat wish list into law… if the Democrats can get over their TDS to form a bipartisan coalition.

On the other side of the aisle, there has been remarkably little furor as President Trump moved to the left. Immigration and deficit hawks have been largely silent as Trump acceded to “amnesty” and a trillion-dollar deficit. Thus far, there has also been little reaction to his bump stock ban even though conservatives have traditionally had zero tolerance for new gun control measures.

Apparently, Trump Derangement Syndrome is a bipartisan epidemic.

Originally published on The Resurgent