An Emergency?

Political scientist Jonathan Bernstein weighs in on Donald's national emergency declaration, which is supposed to happen this morning at
10.00 ET:

As the political scientist Richard Neustadt pointed out, presidents who act alone by giving orders usually do so out of weakness – and their unilateral actions tend to weaken them further. Several Republican senators publicly warned Trump not to take this step. It’s a good bet that they’ll now be less likely to defer to him on other things and more likely to tell reporters what they think about him. House Democrats will probably insist on riders restricting presidential actions in next year’s appropriations bills. Even within the executive branch, Trump is going to find constituencies that aren’t happy about “their” money being taken away and used for a wall – or perhaps tied up in court and not spent at all.

It’s never clear how these things will affect public opinion, but so far polls show that using emergency powers is even less popular than building the wall. Democrats will surely score points by talking about money wasted on a wall that was supposed to be spent on the military. And if Republicans wind up splitting on Trump’s declaration, it will almost certainly get even less popular.

Trump’s approval rating may hold up even so. But one obvious conclusion to draw from this saga is that his preoccupation with pleasing his strongest supporters is foolish. They didn’t give up on him when he surrendered after the shutdown, and they wouldn’t have given up on him if he’d just signed the funding bill and moved on, wall or no wall. The problem is that those supporters won’t be enough to get him reelected, just as they weren’t enough to avoid big Democratic gains in 2018.

Keeping a loyal audience happy may be the overriding concern in reality television. But not in politics. (Read the article here.)