Donald Trump just backed himself into a corner
Donald Trump has spent the last few days tweeting like a strongman, even though he doesn’t exactly come off as one in public. These have been concerning, to say the least, whether or not Trump himself produced them, or one of his staffers with the same delusions of grandeur, but one of Trump’s routine operations has always been to distract the media and the public at large by tweeting inane things on Twitter – which almost never moves the needle when it comes to Trump. His followers either defend it or say he shouldn’t have said it – and the same is true for most people in the middle as well, who decide that it’s really just words on a screen and not that important.
Every so often, however, he can overstep and give out effective ammo against him that allows us to organize effectively, and he just did that with a tweet in which he declared himself king. No Hitler references, no mentions of Article 2, no rule of law rhetoric – one clear declaration that he’ll probably push back against and claim he didn’t really mean it – but that’s another sign that it’s working, as Democrats in Congress have already said it – vowing “America has no king.”
For what is likely not the first or last time, Donald Trump’s tweet has become a political liability, as Senate Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, have promised to kill any budget proposals put forth by the GOP unless they curb the president’s powers. We’ll see whether or not they do push back, but if they don’t, it merely begs the question of why aren’t Republicans pushing back against someone who’s declared themselves king and won’t do anything about it? It puts the ball back in our court – and this is the messaging we need to badger all congressional Republicans with.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making