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Freedom Caucus chair Mark Meadows, at odds with Donald Trump.

Left, by Katherine Frey/The Washington Post; Right, by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg, both from Getty Images.

Sometimes the most obvious analysis is also the right one. A case in point: last week, Donald Trump tweeted out attacks on the Freedom Caucus, a group of anti-establishment Republicans in the House, for defying his wishes and killing a health-care bill put forward by House Speaker Paul Ryan. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018! Trump urged. Trump aide Dan Scavino followed that with a tweet about going after disloyal Republicans in the primaries. Now, to the amateur observer, this looked like senseless self-destruction. To the more seasoned observer, however, it also looked like senseless self-destruction. Really, to any nonpartisan observer, seasoned or unseasoned, animal or human, it looked like senseless self-destruction. So maybe it was. That Vice President Mike Pence has met with members of the Freedom Caucus and sounded apologetic is surprising only because Donald Trump doesnt like apologies or apologizers. So what do we make of all this?

First, lets be clear on why Trumps attacks on the Freedom Caucus are bizarre. While Trump fights with people all the time, all of his opponents up until now have been ones that his core supporters were happy to see him thrash. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, Lindsay Graham, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz, Rosie ODonnell, George Will, Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Vicente Fox, CNN, The New York Times, MSNBC, The Washington Postall of these were fat establishment targets, and every cry of pain they produced was nourishment for Trumps fans. While Trump often went too farthrowing out unfounded allegations against Obama, attacking Heidi Cruz, belittling John McCains war service, etc.his supporters were required only to forgive his means, not his ends. But the Freedom Caucus is a fellow rebel against the establishment. Its brand is likewise one of draining the swamp. Millions of Freedom Caucus supporters are Trump supporters. This is no attack on a common foe but an attack on a friend.

Political fights with people on your own side arent always damaging in themselves, to be sure. Trump might well be able get away with waging hidden war against the Freedom Caucus, as long as the official line were one about spirited, friendly debate. (The tell-all stories in Politico wouldnt matter.) Trump could even get away with waging open war against establishment Republicans, as long as it were on an issue on which Republican voters sided with Trump, like the border wall. But Trump cannot get away with waging open war against the Freedom Caucus, the very Republicans whose rebellion he claims to champion. For the first time, thousands of Trumps fans are being forced to choose between representatives they know and trust and a president whom they dont yet fully know and cant yet fully trust. Worse, the president is effectively telling them to side with Paul Ryan, the man who represents everything they were resisting when they picked Trump. So its madness, and Trump is without the credibility to pull it off. The members of the Freedom Caucus have track records. Trump doesnt. He cannot win this fight. He can only lose supporters.

Second, why did Trumps staffers allow this to happen? Trump himself is an unpredictable person with an unsteady grasp of the political terrain and a thin skin, so his whims arent all that surprising. But its striking that his aides, too, have encouraged this path. White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has supposedly counseled a tough tone toward the rebels, according to Glenn Thrush and Jonathan Martin in The New York Times, and thats the advice of someone who was previously known to refer to Paul Ryan as the enemy. I can only come up with two hypotheses for this seeming change, for what theyre worth. The first is that Bannon feels that he has done his part to sacrifice a chunk of personal integrity in service of the cause, backing a candidate he has admitted was an imperfect vessel. So he resents that Freedom Caucus members cant likewise suck it up. The other possibility, one that looks more likely, is that Bannon felt his position was slipping and, in order to stay in good stead with his boss, stoked and indulged Trumps self-harming impulses. That Bannon was removed from the National Security Council strengthens this hypothesis. Either way, its bad news for Trump.

Finally, while Trump might be angry at the Freedom Caucus for making him look bad, theres no sign that he made a serious effort to understand their concerns. The line from Paul Ryan, one that Donald Trump seems to buy, is that the Freedom Caucus insists on all or nothing, refusing to participate in the ordinary business of give and take. But this wasnt how the Freedom Caucus saw it. They saw a bill cooked up fast in secret and presented as a fait accompli, with only a few days allotted for superficial discussion. Plus it was a bad bill that made no one happy. This writer happens to think Obamacare is worth saving and improving, but if youre in the Freedom Caucus, living with Obamacare feels a little like sharing your apartment with a Dexter mini-cow. Whatever others say about the cowhowever well it provides dairy products for those in needyou never wanted it, you are committed to getting rid of it, and people are trusting you to make that happen. Then Paul Ryan says you can get rid of the cow if youll agree to replace it with a Welsh pony.

If Trump wants to cut deals with the Freedom Caucus, hell surely have better luck if he meets its members on their own terms. If he wants them to spend a lot of money in the short term, then he can make a case for why it will save money over the long term. If he wants them to yield on funding Planned Parenthood, then he can make a case for why pro-life policies will be strengthened overall, despite that concession. If he wants to get their votes on a health-care bill, then he can make a case for why its the least-bad option for them, given the promises he has made. Every politician, even ones in the Freedom Caucus, knows that votes and laws come with trade-offs. But it seems like Trump, despite a lifetime of deal making, had little to offer them other than cajoling and threats.

Yes, yes, there could be some grand strategy at work that will make this all come together in a few years. There are die-hard Trump fans who still believe this. But there are ever fewer of them, and fewer still now that many have been forced to choose between Trump and their representative in Congress. The comment sections of articles bear this out. So Trump has a lot of damage control to do. Usually, when embroiled in a fight, Trump has just barreled ahead and retracted nothing, letting things intensify and then burn off. That wont work this time. In what has been very good fortune for Democrats, Trump has caused a giant rift within his own team, and widening it will hurt him badly. So hes likely to stop his fight and hope his fans forget about it. Which they mightbut probably wont.

See original here:
Donald Trump Just Started a War He Cannot Win - Vanity Fair