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There are only so many hours in the day or neurons in our minds to devote to politics, but it's nonetheless important that we raise our sights above the daily displays of the Trump administration's bumper-car incompetence to take in the bigger picture. When we do, it becomes clear that Trump's highly personalistic, anti-ideological presidency is an expression of a much broader trend in the GOP namely the thoroughgoing dissolution of the party's ideological coherence.

This breakdown in unity and consistency within the Republican Party can be seen across a range of issues. Over time it will render the party increasingly incapable of governing and most likely prepare the way for a much more dramatic shift in the party's direction in 2020 or beyond.

Health care. The House Freedom Caucus wants to gut ObamaCare, including provisions that force insurance companies to cover "essential health benefits" (like maternity care, hospitalization, and mental health services) and preclude them from charging more for consumers based on their gender or medical history. In place of these provisions, the HFC prefers a market-based system that would supposedly lower costs and increase efficiency and innovation while leaving millions fewer covered by health insurance. Party moderates, meanwhile, including the so-called "Tuesday Group" in the House, would prefer more marginal adjustments to the Affordable Care Act. Adding to the chaos, a recent poll shows that a plurality of Republican voters favor a single-payer system that most of the party's elected officials, as well as nearly all of its lobbyists and activists, passionately denounce as "socialized medicine," and which many Democrats consider too left wing to touch.

Taxes. Since Ronald Reagan, promises to cut taxes have formed the core of the GOP's appeal to voters. But today, the agenda has fallen into disarray. Some, like Grover Norquist and assorted billionaire funders, want cuts, cuts, and more cuts, the better to "starve the beast." But other Republicans are more worried about the deficit and so prefer to pair revenue trims (or even modest enhancements) with specific spending reductions. Still others, including (on some days) the president himself, want to experiment with consumption taxes (like a border adjustment tax). Put it all together and we're left with a bundle of contrary impulses and priorities when it comes to the GOP's signature issue.

Foreign policy. Both parties are dominated by hawks liberal internationalists on the left and neoconservatives on the right. The supremacy of the neocons in the GOP has persisted despite their leadership of the #NeverTrump movement and continued skepticism about the president's competence, instincts, and entanglements with Vladimir Putin. Yet those who reject the neocon conviction that every global problem can be remedied by the generous application of American military power received a significant boost when Trump ascended to the White House, bringing Mr. America First (Stephen Bannon) with him to the West Wing and placing him (temporarily) on the Principals Committee of the National Security Council. That, like everything else in the Trump administration, was not to last. But the churn at the top of the party around such fundamental issues has reinforced the impression that everything is up for grabs in today's GOP, including its stance toward the wider world.

Crime/drugs. The GOP remains broadly "tough on crime." But in recent years, several high-profile Republicans have shown a willingness to work with Democrats on various forms of criminal-justice reform, especially reductions in mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses. Yet Trump comes from a faction of the party that is far more interested in emphasizing "law and order," and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, shows every sign of working against any reform at all. If anything, Sessions seems eager to move in the opposite direction, toward a re-intensification of the drug war, including harsh sentences for convictions.

Immigration. The GOP has been split on immigration for many years, with the party's rich donors and the Wall Street Journal crowd firmly leaning in the direction of open borders and the grassroots of the party taking a far more draconian line, including support for the forcible deportation of undocumented immigrants (invariably denigrated as "illegals"). For a long time, the former group held the preponderance of the power in the party and found themselves checked from time to time by the latter. But with Trump's election that balance has been upended. Now it's the anti-immigrant forces who hold the power and their opponents who've been placed on the defensive. But regardless of who holds the cards at one time or another, the fact is that the party is, and shows every sign of staying, deeply divided on the issue.

The two areas where the GOP remains broadly unified are social policy (especially abortion) and the Supreme Court. Given the importance of the Court in adjudicating our most polarizing disagreements on social policy, it makes sense that the party largely stuck together through the rancorous year-long battle to succeed the late conservative justice Antonin Scalia, which included a successful effort to deny a hearing or vote to the nominee of a Democratic president and culminated in the nuking of the judicial filibuster in the Senate.

But don't let such steadfastness fool you. On just about every other issue, the Republican Party is in a state of disarray, its once-unifying ideology crumbling before our eyes.

All that remains to be seen is whether the Democrats can exploit this massive vulnerability.

More here:
The Republican Party is dissolving before our eyes - The Week Magazine

Its possible to get carried away with outrage. Sometimes people mean to say relatively innocent things and they come out sounding wrong. Politics doesnt need to become an indignation factory, and not every Republican gaffe is a sign of incipient fascism.

But Sean Spicers Holocaust comments are important, not just for their shock value for their sheer, breathtaking WTF-ness but for what they tell us about the architecture of the modern Republican mind.

I should have stayed on topic, Spicer lamented later to CNNs Wolf Blitzer. Fair enough.

But these remarks were more than just a digression. Spicer reflects his entire party, not just himself or the man for whom he works. And his most disturbing words the passing phrases that revealed so much got less attention than they deserved. Here are seven keys to this very odd, yet somehow very Republican, snafu.

1. Spicers a mainstream Republican.

Spicer doesnt come from Steve Bannons white nationalist/right-wing populist cadre. Hes a product of the mainstream Republican Party, years in the making. He worked on GOP political campaigns after graduating college, then became Communications Director for the Republican leadership on the House Budget Committee. He took a similar role with the Republican House Conference, co-founded a PR firm, and became Communications Director for the Republican National Committee in 2011.

Spicer was reportedly recommended for his White House role by Reince Priebus, the former RNC chairman turned White House Chief of Staff. In one of the few signs of good judgment Donald Trump has ever displayed, the president has reportedly been angry at Priebus over that recommendation ever since.

2. Spicer was trying to score points.

Spicer wasnt trying to shock and outrage the American people. He was trying to win a rhetorical battle against Russia. He said, You, lookwe didnt use chemical weapons in World War II. (Was he considering the fact that we, the United States, did use nuclear weapons in that war twice? Probably not.)

Yknow, you had someone who is despicable as Hitler who didnt even sink to the, to the, to using chemical weapons. So, you have to, if youre Russia, ask yourself, is this a country that you, and regime you want to align yourself with?

It sounded as if Spicer expected the press room to respond with a collective, Oh, snap! Instead, of course, the press room responded with whatever sound a roomful of people makes when it calls forth the memory of millions of people being rounded up and murdered with chemical weaponry.

3. It seems to have been a talking point gone terribly wrong.

Its also worth noting that Spicer was apparently using, and mangling, an administration talking point given to other administration officials as well. Later in the day, Defense Secretary James Mattis told reporters,

Even in WWII chemical weapons were not used on the battlefield. Even in the Korean War, they were not used on battlefields. Since WWI theres been an international convention on this.

That was the point Spicer was probably instructed to make. The inclusion of Hitler was probably his own act of improvisation an act that went very, very wrong.

4. This was the most horrifying comment of all.

When reporters reminded Spicer about Hitlers use of chemical weapons in the concentration camps, Spicer said:

I think when you come to sarin gas, there was no (Hitler) was not using the gas on his own people the same way that Ashad [sic] is doing. (emphasis mine.)

Ive tried to parse this sentence several different ways, and can find no other way to interpret it: Spicer is saying that the Jews and other victims were not Germanys own people when Hitler gassed them.

More than 500,000 Jews lived in Germany, and over 191,000 in Austria, when Hitler came to power in 1933. Of the 240,000 who remained in these two countries by the start of World War II, an estimated 210,000 or 88 percent were murdered during the so-called Final Solution.

Not their own people? Jews in prewar Germany and Austria enjoyed full political, social, and economic equality. They participated fully in cultural and civic life. Jews played a leading role in Viennese intellectual and artistic circles. The completeness of Jewish integration is often cited as one of the main reasons why so many Jews stayed until it was too late. They simply could not believe that they were being systematically exterminated by a society that had accepted them so fully.

By saying that Jews, gays, Romany, and others murdered in the camps were not Hitlers own people, Spicer seemed to suggest that a nation is only reflected by its dominant social group. Religious and other minorities are always the other, no matter how integrated they may be by law and rights.

5. Or maybe this was his most horrifying comment.

In no way was I trying to lessen the horrendous nature of the Holocaust however, I was trying to draw a contrast of the tactic of using airplanes to drop chemical weapons on innocent people. (Emphasis mine.)

What? The men, women, and children who died in the camps werent innocent? Try again, Sean.

Any attack on innocent people is reprehensible and inexcusable, Spicer added. Good to know.

6. Republican scapegoating of minorities didnt begin with Trump.

The othering of concentration camp victims, and the taint of guilt applied to their memories, are presumably inadvertent. But words reflect thought processes, both conscious and unconscious. Spicer wouldnt be the first Republican to scapegoat a religious minority, just as Trump wasnt the first.

Republican candidates Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich targeted Muslims in their 2012 presidential campaigns. Rep. Steve King had been making racist remarks for years before his bigoted other peoples babies comment got media play last month.

In fact, race baiting, stereotyping, and othering of minorities have been core elements of Republican rhetoric since the days of Nixon and Reagan.

Thats not to suggest that Sean Spicer intended to marginalize or other the Jewish community or any other with his remarks. But when you become accustomed to thinking of minorities as less than full participants in a national community, it can become a hard habit to break.

7. Spicer quickly moved from the horrifying to the banal.

When pressed, Spicer attempted to draw a distinction between Hitlers use of chemical weapons and Assads aerial bombardment of civilians. That distinction, which was both morally and logically incoherent, was expressed in the following fashion:

I understand your point. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. There was not, in the, he brought them into the Holocaust centers, I understand that. But Im saying, in the way that Assad used them where he went into towns, dropped them down to innocent, into the middle of town, it was brought. So, the use of itI appreciate the clarification. That was not the intent.

This was apparently the first time the term holocaust center has been used to describe the locations where Nazi genocide was conducted. (Common terms, as most people who are not Sean Spicer know, include concentration camps and death camps.)

Holocaust center seems like a fine Republican phrase. The GOP believes that corporations are people, after all, and idolizes the buzzwordy world of the private sector. So why not inject some corporate-speak into that gravest of all conversations, the conversation about mass death?

Holocaust centers? Thats the way people talk when theyve come to think of a nation as a body of identical-looking people and of government as a profit center for themselves and their friends.

Holocaust centers? It makes the largest and most horrifying murder machine in history sound like a network of Federal Express hubs for the transshipment and extermination of human souls.

Get used to the moral outrage and the corporate lingo. Welcome to Republican America, circa 2017. All our operators are busy helping other customers. We appreciate your patience. The Center will be with you shortly.

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7 Secret Keys To Sean Spicer's Very Republican Holocaust Gaffe - Huffington Post

When news broke in March that an independent commission was recommending a $14,000 pay raise for Minnesota legislators, Republican Speaker of the House Kurt Daudt came out swinging.

In 2014, Democratic majorities in the Legislature put an initiative on the ballot to create the salary commission, and voters overwhelmingly approved it in the 2016 election. But Daudt, who's been Speaker since 2015, quickly sought advice from attorneys about whether the Legislature could block the raises without violating the state Constitution. He issued a press release and called a news conference to make his intentions clear: Middle-class families needs must come first.

Paul Gazelka had a different take. When approached by reporters, the majority leader of the Minnesota Senate said voters took the issue out of legislators hands. He had no plans to fight the commissions decision.

The reactions, from two leaders within the same party, reflect dramatically different leadership styles now at play in the Capitol.

Daudt, now in his second term as Speaker of the House and sizing up a run for governor in 2018, has emerged as the leader of a more openly conservative caucus, and a more vocal opponent of Democratic policies, particularly the legacy and priorities of DFL Gov. Mark Dayton. Gazelka, only four months into the job of Senate majority leader, has chosen to operate mostly behind the scenes, building friendly relationships with Dayton and other Democrats in the minority.

Part of the sharp difference in style can be attributed to the two leaders different political realities. After the dust settled on the 2016 election, Daudt emerged with a 77-seat caucus and a comfortable majority in the 134-seat Minnesota House, allowing him to push more conservative policies on everything from education and health and human services funding to Real ID compliance. Gazelka and Senate Republicans hold the chamber by a single vote, a tight margin that has already proved difficult in getting controversial bills passed.

In order to the end of session on time, the two Republicans will not only need to find agreement with Dayton they'll need to find it with each other.

Both elected to their current seats in 2010, Daudt and Gazelka have gone through political evolutions over the last half a dozen years.

Daudt worked at car dealership and as political operative when he first won his House seat, quickly emerging as one of the more politically savvy freshman in St. Paul. When Republicans lost the majority in the House and Senate in 2012, Daudt rose from a rank-and-file lawmaker to the minority leader of the House. At the time, he was considered a more moderate legislator with a reputation for working well with Democrats, a good position to be in given Republicans' minority status. He was repeatedly attacked by the Tea Party wing of the party, who criticized him for not pushing to trim back state spending enough and making deals with Democrats.

Over the years, Daudt's relationship with Democrats soured, however, particularly after Republicans reclaimed the majority in 2014 and he rose to the speakers rostrum. With the DFL in control of the Senate and Dayton in the governors office, Daudt and the House were positioned as the only Republican foothold in government. He became the de facto spokesman for Republican ideals in budget battles and transportation debates, both of which ended in chaos in 2015 and 2016. As the House majority grew in the 2016 election and Daudts political star continued to rise he pushed the door open for him possibly running for governor in 2018.

MinnPost photo by Briana Bierschbach

Gov. Mark Dayton

Daudt and Daytons relationship also hit a low point late in 2016 over whether to call a special session to deal with rising health care insurance premiums. An open negotiation in front of reporters ended in a shouting match with both storming out of the room. I will tell you that the relationship is damaged, Daudt said at an event previewing the 2017 session. He has done and said some things that I dont think were appropriate. I probably have responded in a way that wasnt the best.

Gazelka's rise was also swift. After serving a single term in the House, he was recruited in 2010 to run against incumbent Republican Sen. Paul Koering, who was openly gay and the center of a media scandal after he dined with a gay porn star in Brainerd.

Gazelka, a mild-mannered, Christian conservative whose district includes Little Falls and Staples, beat Koering in a primary. During his first term, he made social issues a big part of his agenda, co-sponsoring an amendment to the states Constitution that would have banned gay marriage. After the amendment failed and the GOP lost control of the chamber in 2012, Gazelka switched to focus on health care and tax issues.

His eventual rise to power after the 2016 election was unexpected, even for him: Republicans took control of the Senate last fall by just a single seat on the same night their leader, Sen. David Hann, lost his seat in suburban Eden Prairie.

Gazelka emerged the top pick to lead the Senate Republican caucus, now with a one-vote majority. Three days ago, I had no intention of running for majority leader, told reporters after he was elected, surrounded by many of the members of 34-member caucus. That one-vote majority wasnt lost on him from the start he vowed to leave controversial social issues behind and work with Democrats. I guarantee to do my part to do the best for Minnesota, said Gazelka. We have to be able to reach out to the governor and with the House.

Now halfway through the 2017 session, the divide between the House and Senate can be seen through their respective budget bills.

In the K-12 education finance bills, for example, House Republicans eliminated Daytons signature pre-kindergarten education program, which the governor perceived as a political shot. In the Senate, Republicans left the pre-kindergarten funding alone. House Republicans have also called for deeper cuts to health and human services and other government programs than both Dayton and Senate Republicans. The Senates tax cut bill is about $900 million, far more than Dayton's package of $280 million in tax cuts, but far less than the $1.35 billion House package.

State Rep. Greg Davids

I agree with the House approach, of course, Republican Tax Chairman Rep. Greg Davids said. I have a lot of confidence with our leaders. Daudt listens and he is a consensus builder [in the caucus]. Ive served with Gazelka too and hes very calm hes very measured. Hes not going to be the one burning bridges.

Outside of the budget, the biggest policy bridge the House and the Senate need to cross is on Real ID, a federal requirement that all states have drivers licenses with enhanced technology features in order to board an airplane. With a deadline of January 2018 to comply, House Republicans moved ahead with a proposal that not only complies with federal law, but makes it a law not just a rule that the state cannot issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. Dayton wanted lawmakers to go in the opposite direction, giving the state explicit authority to issue licenses to undocumented immigrants to make them more accountable.

The issue got even more complicated in March, when five Republican senators voted with all Democrats to defeat the Senate's version of a Real ID bill. Gazelka then wedged himself in the middle of the issue, stricking a deal to remove any rule-making on drivers licences from the bill. The new deal passed off the Senate floor, but a larger debate with the House looms.

Gazelka said he intentionally took the middle ground on many issues to act as a mediator between Dayton and the House in the negotiations ahead. If you look at a lot of the Senate bills, they are in the middle of two sides, Gazelka said. I do see that as the Senates role this time around.

For his part, Dayton said said he recently had lunch with Gazelka and walked away feeling that he genuinely wants to end the session without contention or by going into overtime. He will play a pivotal role in that scenario, Dayton said. However that unfolds.

Dayton also recently had a cordial lunch with Daudt, he added, even if he hasnt said anything good about me since. When asked if he thinks Daudt wants to end the session smoothly, Dayton paused.

I think the proof is in the pudding.

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To battle or buddy up? Republican leaders' styles reflect sharp divide in dealing with Dayton - MinnPost

Four billion dollars separate the House and Senate budget proposals. The Speaker said the House has three concerns with the Senate spending proposal James Call

House Speaker Richard Corcoran finishes his address to legislators as they gather for the first day of session at the Capitol on Tuesday, March 7, 2017.(Photo: Joe Rondone/Democrat)Buy Photo

This is an extraordinary time for the Republican Party. The November election maintained its gripon all branches of state government. Voters also delivered Washington to the GOP as well, increasing the influence of Floridas Congressional Republican delegation and installing a kindred spirit of Gov. Rick Scott in the White House.

But once the celebration quieted, the pressure of governing opened a rift in the coalition. Scott and Speaker Richard Corcoran, oddly representing different corners of President Donald J. Trumps appeal, staged a Tallahassee version of WrestleMania. This week the drama is sure to increase when the House and Senate are scheduled to pass dramatically different budgets for next year.

Scott and Corcoran are on opposite sides regarding whether a fiscally-conservative government provides business incentives. How the Scott v. Corcoran debate will influencethe budget battle remains an open question.

You would think after being at the helm for 20 years they would be good at steering the ship of state, remarked former Florida House Democratic Leader Mark Pafford. Near super majorities in both chambers, a governor and president, you would think you would take advantage of that and start passing laws and implementing philosophies. No one is doing any of that.

The split in Tallahassee became public and vicious two weeks before the start of the 2017 Legislative Session. Corcoran rallied the House Republican Caucus at the trendy Edison Restaurant to go forth and eliminate Scotts pet project Enterprise Florida. He called the economic development agency, which hands out tax credits and other incentives to businesses, an example of corporate welfare.

Scott was said to be livid. He responded with a video depicting Corcoran as a job-killing Tallahassee politician.

The House is an equal opportunity fighter

By the end of this week, $4 billion will separate the House and Senate budget proposals. While the two chambers position themselves for negotiations, Sen. President Joe Negron scaled-back his number one funding request. He wants money and land to handle Lake Okeechobee discharges that occasionally foul the east and west coasts with neon-green poisonous water. Last week he floated a proposal chopping about $900 million from the original plan and reducing the land request by nearly half.

But the plan still involves borrowing money. That's aline Corcoran said the House wont cross.

We are not bonding, Corcoran said Thursday. He's positioned himself as the public watchdog on spending. Meeting with reporters he said the House has concerns about how the Senate proposes handling property taxes, membersprojects and health care spending.

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Three GOP leaders, three divergent visions

2017 Florida Legislative Session

The Pasco County Republican frets about the Senate plan to spend $600 million in federal health care dollars that Congress has yet to appropriate. The Speaker explained that means the money does not exist.

Thats not an acceptable accounting principle, Corcoran said. You do not put money in an account and spend it when it doesnt exist.

Pafford wonders if the inability to agree on fundamental principles foreshadows deeper rifts between the two chambers.

Ive never lived in California but I think what we are seeing are like the rumbling that signals a coming earthquake, said Pafford, who spent eight years being steamrolled by Republican majorities. They are literally all over the place. I think they are trying to define Trumpism in Florida.

Trumpism, Florida-style

What is unique this year is the party infighting played out in public. The fight is among the same party because Florida is mostly a one-party state.

Its textbook, said Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political scientist. Given the diversity across the state, factions emerge and the battle is within the party (that has control)."

MacManus said Florida is following the typical curve of one-party rule, but there are a couple of unusual dynamics in play. Both Scott and Trump weakened the party establishment by winning without party support. Then factor in term limits; three Cabinet seats and the governors office are up in 2018. When so many people are about to lose their seats and are in the market for a new one,personal ambition can trump party goals.

But more importantly, said MacManus, Florida is changing.

Seniors are no longer the electoral key to winning the state. Millennials and Generation Xers people younger than 50 make up more than half of the Florida vote. Its not Gramps' Sunshine State anymore.

What we saw in 2016 is the political maturation of a new generation and now we are watching it play out as a generational fissure within the Republican Party, said MacManus. A lot of the younger Republicans have very different views about what the party should empathize.

MacManus spoke on the phone while attending a conference in Chicago where some of the papers presented addressed effective messaging to the emerging cohort of voters.

It is a party in transition, she said of Florida Republicans. A lot of what we are seeing reflects the changing age composition of the people in the Legislature and the electorate at large.

Some have been shocked about how this plays out in committee debates, public comments and in the competing attack videos Scott and Corcoran produced. Pafford said it has been as ugly as anything he saw when the House transferred from Democratic to Republican control in 1996.

Others recall when Senate President Bob Crawford brought boxing gloves to a meeting with Gov. Bob Martinez and Speaker Tom Gustafson. Those disputes involved members of different parties, not players supposedly on the same team displaying aggression towards one another.

During a recent visit to the capital city, former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential contenderMike Huckabee calledthe fighting politics as usual.

Like NFL football, politics is a rough game, said Huckabee, now an Emerald Coast resident. People out on the field, they hit hard. That is part of the process.

Huckabee is a political commentator for FOX news. He said at the state level, unlike Congress, the fighting ends because budgets must be balanced, schools have to be funded and roads need to be built.

You can be ideological up to a point, but, ultimately, there are things that need to get done, said Huckabee.

While the House and Senate begin blending their very different visions of the state into a budget that Gov. Scott will sign, MacManus warns there remain potential pitfalls for a party in transition.

The thing Republicans have to concern themselves about is increasingly the Florida Legislature is looking like Washington where nothing gets done, said MacManus.

Lawmakers are scheduled to remain in session until May 5, but the specter of overtime looms large. The current state budget ends June 30.

Reporter James Call can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com. Follow on Twitter @CallTallahassee

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Tensions reflect a Republican 'party in transition' - Tallahassee.com

In a move demonstrating the uphill battle President Donald Trump will face attempting to achieve his budgetary goals, 11 House Republicans have signed a letter expressing support for the National Endowment for the Arts.

The New York Times reported on Friday that the signatories included one Republican who previously voted to defund public broadcasting, though none of the lawmakers were named.

The letter was sent to Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) and Rep. Betty McCollum (DFL-Minn.) the Republican chairman and top-ranking Democrat, respectively, of the House subcommittee with jurisdiction over appropriation of funds for the NEA and National Endowment for the Humanities.

Eliminating the NEA and NEH has long been a conservative pet project, but its also a tricky one to accomplish, even when the Republican Party controls both legislative bodies. The endowments may be favorite targets of small-government, budget-cutting hardliners, but theyve nonetheless enjoyed support from a healthy number of Republican lawmakers over the years.

Several GOP lawmakers expressed their support for the endowments after Trumps bold proposal that they be eliminated entirely. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) issued a statement in March that read, in part: I believe we can find a way to commit to fiscal responsibility while continuing to support the important benefits that N.E.A. and N.E.H. provide. Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) commented, I support the present level of funding for these programs.

Arts advocacy groups likely arent surprised in fact, theyve been counting on some level of Republican support for the arts and humanities endowments to see them through this existential threat. In March, PEN America executive director Suzanne Nossel and Stephen Kidd, executive director of the National Humanities Alliance, each cited a February letter sent by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) to the president advocating for continued support of the endowments. The letter was signed by 23 other senators, including two Republicans, while others, like Murkowski and Amodei, issued separate statements endorsing the endowments.

We are heartened by the level of bipartisan support that members of Congress have shown for the NEH in recent years and in recent weeks, Kidd told HuffPost.

After the embarrassing withdrawal of the Trump-backed legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act last month, which foundered due to a lack of Republican support, its clear that even with his party controlling both the House and the Senate, Trump may struggle to achieve much of his agenda.

Signs from G.O.P. legislators continue to suggest that shuttering the NEA and NEH will remain an unlikely victory.

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11 Republican Lawmakers Sign Letter In Support Of Arts Funding - Huffington Post