OPINION:
In the wake of an election, it is always tempting to conclude that the winning side will advance from victory to victory and all its efforts will result in unalloyed achievements of its policies. Before last week, we were at that moment in the ascendancy of President Trump and his team. They seemed invincible.
Then the bond market showed up with those three dozen or so House Republicans who may care more about reducing spending than they do about tax reform. They combined to alert us that everything in this world has a limit, and the fortunes of elected officials and their policy preferences are no exception.
It is not that winning breeds complacency or incompetence; it is that the laws of gravity and probability and the relentless nature of diminishing time eventually catch up with us all.
The remorseless reality is that the American system of government is intentionally designed to frustrate, delay and retard change. Power is divided by the levels of government and then divided again by the various components at each level. It is further diffused by staggered terms of office and election years. Only political sentiments that are national in scope and durable over time become embedded in law.
If a presidential administration is fortunate, it can effect a handful of durable changes to the system. In the most recent election, the voters were clear that they had pressing concerns about the management of the economy and an immigration system that routinely allows those who enter the country illegally to perforate the United States. Tackling just those two issues would be enough for most.
The simple truth of American electoral politics is this: The winners are usually disappointed because they do not achieve everything they wanted to achieve, and the losers are usually pleasantly surprised to learn that the winners are, like everyone else, subject to entropy. The winners and losers are always certain that victory will bring significant and enduring changes to the nation. Both are usually wrong.
In Margaret Thatcher’s famous formulation, there are never any final political victories.
Moreover, the irreducible reality is that federal policies change within a fairly narrow range because of the difficulty of navigating the system and, more important, because American voters prefer mostly practical and incremental rather than ideological and expansive change. Consequently, they are not big fans of sudden or extensive alterations (hence Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk’s approval ratings).
The smart voters also worry about precedents. It’s fun to watch Ivy Leaguers and white-shoe law firms squirm a bit, but how will it go for Catholic universities, small evangelical colleges or law firms that have high-profile Republican clients when the inevitable happens and we wind up with a Democratic president?
Finally, it is fair to wonder whether the Trump administration’s trajectory would have had a different and perhaps better arc if it had spent time and political capital on flooding the zone with proposed legislation in addition to executive orders. No doubt Congress would have dithered away some of the proposed legislation, but some of it would have become law, and all of it would have put members of Congress on record (rather than let them complain off the record).
Perhaps less ground would have been taken, but the effort would have energized the legislative branch, the changes would be more durable, and it might have made winning next time a little easier.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor to The Washington Times.
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