OPINION:
Anyone thinking President Donald Trump “won” the omnibus bill battle only had to watch his news conference as he prepared to sign it. This was the most resigned and deflated Mr. Trump we’ve seen in more than two years.
Deflated, maybe. Not defeated.
In a scene straight out of a boxing movie, Mr. Trump got tagged, wiped the blood off his mouth, then grimly waded in. The haymakers are coming: The Democrats just don’t realize it yet. Any defections from Mr. Trump’s base at present would return immediately with the next significant victory.
In the past few months, despite hoopla about the Virginia governor race or Pennsylvania’s house race, the trends have in fact been going Mr. Trump’s way.
• His approval in the latest Fox poll, at 45 percent, is the highest in some time. He has already hit 50 percent in Rasmussen. Moreover as political analyst Larry Sabato says, “You have to add 10 points to any Trump poll” to account for the shy Trump voters.
• Pollster Richard Baris of People’s Pundit Daily has Mr. Trump two points higher in Florida now than when he won the state in 2016.
• Voter registrations in key battleground states have shifted dramatically — and consistently — to Republicans (net changes of +17,000 in AZ, +61,000 in FL, +72,000 in NC, and +85,000 in PA). Republican registration has improved in 10 of 12 battleground states, and in every battleground state Mr. Trump won where it can be tracked.
• Mr. Trump’s tariffs have already produced compliant negotiations in many nations and sent the message to others. After initial disapproval, the stock market has shaken these off.
• Polls show the tax bill now popular (surprise, surprise).
• A pending deal with North Korea to dismantle its nuclear weapons will be a feather in Mr. Trump’s foreign policy cap, which boasts remarkable improvements in relations with Israel and Saudi Arabia.
• ISIS has been consigned to a spot somewhere near the Third Reich and the USSR in the dustbin of history.
• Mr. Trump’s record number of judicial confirmations continue to reshape the judiciary for a generation.
• Mr. Trump’s tariff initiatives have almost certainly cemented large numbers of new voters in Michigan, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
But there are other serious “known unknowns” about to hit the Democrats and favor Mr. Trump and, unless they step in it further with more outrageous spending, the Republicans:
• The inspector general report looms. Many suspect this will recommend an indictment for Andrew McCabe and possibly other FBI officials who flagrantly abused the FISA process in a failed attempt to “get Trump.” Michael Horowitz, the inspector general, has hinted strongly that there is already a grand jury looking into what amounted to a coup against not only Mr. Trump but Jeff Sessions.
• Even thought the House Intelligence Committee has wrapped up its investigation into “muh Russia,” three other House and Senate committees continue their work, none of them good news for Democrats.
• Mike Huckabee, on Fox in January, noted that a new prosecutor had arrived in Little Rock, Arkansas, to investigate the Clinton Family Foundation there. A prosecutor without a grand jury? Not likely.
• Completely off the radar, the congressional “sex fund” lurks, with its names subject to being leaked at any time. There are up to 100 names on this list yet to come out, and chances are the Democrats comprise at least (if not more than) half of these.
• Rumors continue to swirl about Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, which would give Mr. Trump his second Supreme Court justice.
None of this — in any way — will be good news for Democrats in the coming months. They continue to flounder, searching for leadership.
Unable to divest themselves from Hillary Clinton, the 2018 Democrats are reduced to being fronted by a disturbing high school kid who flashes Nazi-type salutes, Hollywood “stars” who the next minute are accused of Weinstein behavior and an aging porn star who has yet to produce any evidence at all of a supposed affair with Mr. Trump that happened in the last decade. This is the modern Democratic Party.
Meanwhile, quietly and quickly Mr. Trump gathered himself, defiantly announced that border “wall” construction (funded with 2017 budget money) would commence the Monday after the House explicitly prohibited him from using 2018 omnibus money to build the wall.
Perhaps he got snookered in the omnibus deal, but he did get all the military funding he needed, taking that off the table in the October negotiations.
Regulations are being shredded at an astonishing rate; inane “global warming” rules especially have been gutted. New NSA director John Bolton has made it clear he will purge the remaining Obama/deep state holdovers, adding focus and momentum to Mr. Trump’s foreign policy. Mr. Trump’s reordering of his Cabinet testifies to a housecleaning of anyone not with the program.
In short, the omnibus setback was real, but temporary, akin to a single tank in a battalion losing a tread. The MAGA offensive, meanwhile, continues to gain momentum on all other fronts with Mr. Trump in Pattonesque-style continuing to say to the Democrats, “I read your damn book.”
• Larry Schweikart is the co-author (with Michael Allen) of “A Patriot’s History of the United States” and producer of the PBS documentary “Rockin’ the Wall.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.