Calmes: The biggest losers — the GOP and Donald Trump Donald Trump a day after calling the Iraq War “a major mistake” The biggest losers are Republicans, who have spent the last 15 years trying to cut taxes and reform an economy that has produced little except lower GDP and more of the same.
By Charles Krauthammer
This is the first full day of Donald Trump’s presidency, and already there are plenty of signs that he is losing ground. That he has lost so many ground since his inauguration hardly seems to matter. By early afternoon here in Washington, Trump’s White House seems to have been besieged by the same four “enemies” — Democrats in Congress, the liberal media, the national-security agencies, and the Iraq war.
As with all presidents, Trump must face these challenges, but he is no longer the only candidate to confront them. The Republican Party has a president-for-life who is in the process of self-destruction. It is, however, the party establishment, the right-wing ideologues and their lapdogs who have inflicted the damage on themselves.
The GOP’s most obvious achievement this year has been to make the Democrats a permanent minority — perhaps more frightening because it is so irreversible. Democrats have been reduced to losing elections by the simple process of winning elections with less than 50% enthusiasm. And their voters have been made miserable by what seems an endless flow of false issues — like the one-percent tax on the very wealthy, the ban on partial-birth abortions, no-fault divorce and mandatory union-busting. Their voters have become so miserable they can no longer be bothered to vote.
In short, Democrats are a permanent minority because they have lost touch with the electorate. Their base votes because, on Election Day, they see their opponents as hopeless socialists. It took the Democrats a long time to learn that there is “no such thing” as political purity; what is required is a commitment to the common good. But it took them a lot longer to learn that voters are no longer as responsive as they once were to “good