Sorry, but working with Trump on key legislation would serve two purposes

In both the House and the Senate.

That's what 'leaders' do. They reach across the aisle. They have House, Senate and Executive office with majorities. Them first. Let them play nice for once.

NO....we let him fall and take back everything.

And we don't need taxcuts.

He thinks it will deflect from Trump's travails.

Don't be a sucker.

side would have a meltdown...and I wouldn't blame them.

...how could you make any kind of deal with a man who can't even be counted on to acknowledge that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west?

There's only one deal I can imagine that could possibly work: Trump resigns and trusts the rest of us not to hang him.

Sure obstruction, obstruction and obstruction worked for the Republicans at the polls, but as we are seeing, it didn't work for having a functional party.

I am old fashion, I guess, but I believe the government's first duty is to govern. We aren't going to get universal healthcare with the current situation, but we can possibly improve on the ACA with moderate Republicans. Saying we are going to do to them what they did to us brings us into the danger of being like them. This isn't about retribution, it is about improving American lives.

I get distressed, frankly, when I see intransigent ideologues look to divide by demanding an "us against them" attitude in all cases. That is the attitude that created Trump and could just as easily backfire on us as the it did the Republican party. Trump may yet prove to be the end of the Republican party, but if we can't put people first, we could suffer the same result.

It's that it's impossible. You could make an argument that Democrats should, say, vote to raise the debt ceiling, but if you add a quid pro quo like, for instance, massive infrastructure spending, there's no reasonable expectation he'd ever follow through or even admit a deal was even made.

he can't renege after the fact.

After it passes the House, we have even more influence in the Senate.

as long as we act as Democrats and don't sell out. You point out several very important lines in the sand that should not be crossed and expect any Democratic support. I suspect there are others like women's healthcare and SCHIP, etc.

Perhaps we can "kill him with cooperation."

Don't give him an inch of help. Odds are he's going down for treason or RICO violations anyway. We need to obstruct and watch him fail and his party devour itself, then we swoop in starting in 2018 and finally in 2020 and get our shit done.

We've waited this long for legislation, we can wait till 2018 & 2020.

Why would you think you could work with such a creature that has a long history of failing at business and screwing the hell out of small business contractors. This guy should not be "normalized" by anyone. Attempts to normalize drumpfanov are insane.

with the Democrats, and if you believe that perhaps I can sell you some swamp land in Arizona

Perhaps you haven't been paying attention to who trump had appointed, and who are his close associates.

It isn't going to happen, it is his fantasy to motivate the republicans to come running to his beckon call. He has no intention to work with the Democrats

or it fails, we have the talking point of attempting to be reasonable for the good of the country.

We call his bluff, but hold on to our agenda and principals.

reduce taxes on the rich.

Any premise that includes progressive tax reform is not realistic.

He needs us more than we need him.

That's when to make a deal. When we have the upper hand.

that the infrastructure bill will add more debt weakening the government and diverting revenue for decades.

Five hours after we exchanged messages the first infrastructure trial balloon went up:



The plan will be to put together a terrible tax plan but with some little offering to Democrats plus a terrible infrastructure with some things that Democrats want.

Once they get it passed and have to reconcile it in the Senate they will make the tax part worse and give the Democrats a little bit more on the infrastructure. The Democrats need to be the party of fiscal responsibility because the Republicans add debt which make it impossible for us to establish programs, like universal health care because of the debt burden of the federal government. If we didn't have such a high debt payment we could afford universal health care.

When the economy is collapsing it is useful to have deficit spending to stimulate the economy and add debt. When the economy is up, like it is now, we should be reducing debt not adding another trillion for infrastructure.

If he wants infrastructure then fine, pay for it with taxes on the rich. The reality is that the infrastructure is a ruse to buy Democratic votes for more tax breaks. Some Dems will fall for it.