Part three, the Case for Trump. Congress might work with him.

GOP Strategy: Warnings of a Constitutional Crisis if America Elects Hillary

Elect Hillary and get gridlock.  Elect Trump and we will behave.  If voters are tired of gridlock and disfunction and obstructive investigations then elect a Republican as president.

[Note:  I did not vote for Trump--but about half the nation will do so.  My effort in these posts on "the case for Trump" is to report the campaign messages that explain Trump's appeal.  Commentators focus on the white resentment Archie Bunker appeal and I have, indeed, observed this up close.  But there are other reasons for liking Trump.]

The campaign is revealing both grassroots activity and careful strategy: make the status quo uncomfortable.  It is an easy sell to the Republican base, which considers the economy, our personal safety, and the general state of the country to be far worse today than it was when Obama took office 8 years ago in the midst of the financial crisis.  The perception is impervious to data: things were bad 8 years ago and have gotten worse and we are in a downward spiral.The grassroots energy shows up in the form of crowds applauding assertions that chanting "Lock Her Up!"   Just outside the venues people sell tee shirts and buttons:  Hillary for Prison.  The GOP base doesn't want to accept a quiet defeat if the election happens to go Hillary's way

Nullification.  

The message is out there: Hillary Clinton gets no honeymoon.   A majority of the Republican primary electorate, will consider Hillary Clinton illegitimate--her version of the birtherism campaign that worked well against Obama.  If Obama was foreign born, then Hillary is a criminal and traitor. This primary electorate assures there is no political price to pay if a Republican officeholder in a safe general election seat pursues investigations hounding Hillary or votes to confound her setting up a government or moving legislation. 

Representative Jason Chaffetz is on Hong Kong television as I type this saying he plans two years of investigations on Hillary Clinton "to start with". More investigations will come out of whatever questions are raised by those investigations

Meanwhile, today the Heritage Foundation added their support to an idea tentatively floated by John McCain, added to by Ted Cruz, then Mitch McConnell:  a Republican majority in the Senate will not confirm any Supreme Court nominee made by a President Clinton.  A week ago this proposal was shocking and McCain backed off of it.   Now it is becoming mainstream.   If Clinton is elected a Republican Senate will reverse is current position that Obama in his 4th year of the presidency could not nominate a Justice to fill a vacancy.  The people should decide in the election who they want to fill the position.  Now they are saying
 it iit is a matter of principle: that they simply will leave the seat vacant until a Republican can fill it.  They will deny her the power to fill vacancies-because they can.  And the voters who count--GOP primary voters--are with them.

The pundits will sound alarm.  Elected Demcrats will say it is hypocritical and not implied by the Constitution.  More drama.  More grief.

Talking about this now is more than simply saying that they refuse to let Hillary shape a court if she is elected president. There is a campaign strategy here..  Elect Clinton and there will be a crisis of disfunction. The Senate will obstruct, the House will investigate, the GOP will make sure nothing good gets done.   More controversy.  More more tiresome news.  More misery.

Ten minutes later television in Hong Kong was displaying the Former FBI assistant director.  "If Hillary Clinton is elected, we're going to have a Constitutional tussle, big time."   The solution, he said, is a new president.

This approach all helps Trump lock in the notion that Trump alone can be an agent of change.  Only Trump can be hope-and-change.  Hillary may want to reform things but the Congress won't let her.  The Congress is locked into a policy of obstruction, with the expectation that the public will blame Hillary for not getting anything done.