Shout the name Donald Trump in a room filled with oh, a thousand good old average representative American citizens, and the reaction will be fairly predictable. Three hundred will cheer loudly and lustily, 300 will immediately lose their lunch, 300 will hunch their shoulders without comment, and 100 will say, “I thought we were gonna get a free meal.”

Those who support the President tend to do so passionately, pointing to the fact that The Donald is working on fulfilling many of his campaign promises, and is succeeding in several of them. The loyal opposition is still absolutely certain Hillary won the election and Trump is nothing but a pretender to the throne.

Both Republicans and Democrats have issues with the Administration, but the Rs at least can point to popular legislation, such as last year’s new tax package, as something that has won favor with much of the populace. Many voters also support the beefed-up military support and even the attempt to make China play nicely in the sand with the other boys and girls on the economic playground.

Meanwhile, the Democrats continue to look for anything that will derail pretty much everything Trump wants to do. That’s not unusual, per se, for the party out of power. When the “Ins” say “Black,” it is incumbent upon the “Outs” to cry “White.” That’s just the nature of politics. You can’t expect to win the next election if you simply agree with everything being done in the pursuit of progress.

At the moment, however, while there is undoubtedly deep-seated loathing directed at the President, it seems to be difficult for the Democrat party as a whole to find that one particular bit of nastiness that will stick like glue to Trump and ensure his demise in 2020, if not before.

What would have been interesting is to have been a passive bystander in the formerly smoked-filled room where the Democrat power brokers are always hard at work pitching ideas that will finally identify the one to bring down the king. I’m thinking a recent conversation might have gone something like this:

POWER BROKER (PB) 1: Impeach 45! Impeach 45!

PB 2: Thank you, Maxine. We appreciate your enthusiasm.

PB 3: Russia.

PB 2: Good, PB3, but we’re kind of looking for new thoughts on the subject here. Russia is always going to be our go-to, kind of like mac and cheese when you’ve had enough of the veggie diet and it’s been a really bad day.

PB 4: Naked pictures of Melania.

PB 2: I think those might backfire a bit. People kind of really like her. I mean, hey, she’s smart, she’s pretty, she speaks five languages fluently, she keeps her son out of the public eye. Shoot, even I like her. Maybe we could go after her choice of husband, but she’snot the smoking gun.

PB 1: Impeach 45! Impeach 45!

PB 2: Again, thanks for your passion, Maxine.

PB 4: What if we got Hillary to say something?

ALL: NO!

PB 3: Stormy Daniels.

PB 2: That’s a good story. No doubt about it. But do we really want to hang our hats on a woman with, shall we say, a somewhat checkered past? Besides, some of Those Deplorables probably think she’s a star and they don’t want us bashing her. We’re gonna need them in 2020.

PB 4: How about we go after a Trump acolyte, maybe somebody like Sean Hannity?

PB 2: Hmmm. Interesting. I never did like that guy. What do you have in mind?

PB 4: Tie him to Trump’s lawyer. Nobody likes lawyers, so there’s a plus right away. We get the special counsel to raid the lawyer’s office and then let it leak that, “Hey, you know Hannity has the same lawyer, right?” Two birds, one stone.

PB 2: Okay, people, this is what I’m talking about. Solid stuff. CNN will love it.

PB 3: Russia. Gotta be Russia.

PB 2: (Sigh) As we’ve said, nobody’s saying we’re abandoning the Russia story. Remember, think mac and cheese.

PB 5: Look, I hate to rain on everybody’s parade, but, frankly, so far all the stuff we’ve tried really doesn’t seem to be working too well.

PB 1: Impeach 45! Impeach 45!

PB 5: Don’t you have somewhere else to be? We all know that’s the goal. But that pesky Constitution keeps getting in the way. We need something really juicy. For now, why don’t we just let him keep tweeting? By himself he gives us more ammunition than we could ever dig up on our own.

PB 2: I like it. Makes our job a whole lot easier.

PB 3: I still like Russia.

 

©MMXVIII. William J. Lewis, III