Win. Win big. Run up the score.

Donald Trump is teaching Americans about how to wield presidential power.

You do everything you can get away with.

I read the news from Virginia with both joy and sadness. Reasonable congressional districts are a good thing for democracy.  Heavily gerrymandered ones are not.

Democrats fought fire with fire. That is how one puts limits on Trump: by being like Trump.

Trump pushes the boundaries of presidential power. He doesn't govern with "reasonableness"; he does what he can get away with, daring people to stop him. He claims obvious pretexts to ignore congressional power and makes pretextual arguments to the courts. The engines of constitutional opposition are slow. Laws don't stop a president. He is immune. Presidential power is political, the Supreme Court says. Presidents are stopped when they face impeachment and conviction, the countervailing political power. Raw power is stopped by raw power. Congress has power when two-thirds of the Senate says so.

Trump invaded and installed a new government in Venezuela because he could. He bombed Iran because he could, but is currently stopped because Iran turns out to have a formidable countervailing power, the ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. 

Trump enforces party discipline. Republicans say yes, or he will destroy them. Liz Cheney stood on principle. So, too, at the very the end, did Mike Pence. Trump calls them traitors. I watched Pence's attempted comeback campaign in 2024 in New Hampshire. He was a pariah. Republican voters are OK with Trump. He wins dirty, but he wins.

Democrats in my congressional district are disgusted with U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, a Republican. He consents to Trump hiding the Epstein files; he voted for the Big Beautiful Bill that removes insurance subsidies that makes it possible for Bentz's constituents to get affordable health insurance; and Bentz fails to defend the vote-by-mail system in Oregon that elected Bentz himself. Bentz is a toady; he must be one to survive. If Trump were to give his "complete and total endorsement" to a primary opponent, Bentz would lose. Bentz does as instructed.

The vote on Tuesday to change the Virginia Constitution to allow mid-cycle redistricting is an artifact of the Trump use of power. He demanded that Texas do mid-cycle redistricting to game the system and draw congressional districts to maximize partisan advantage. It isn't about good government. It is about power. He could and Texas could. So they did.  

Gresham's Law is in effect. Bad districting drives out good districting. Blue states that had nonpartisan commissions to draw maps are responding like-for-like. Our country is better off if there are a large number of highly-competitive districts. That maximizes good government, not partisan power. Good government is a mindset for "losers." Trump plays to win big and if there is no impeachment and conviction then America plays by Trump's rules. 

It may be that the oscillations of public disgust with politicians will mean that Trump will be replaced by a candidate who represents a different vibe. Nixon's 1972-74 Watergate crimes set the stage for ultra-clean Jimmy Carter. Republicans may not be ready for that. I saw little appetite among Republican voters for Mike Pence or even Nikki Haley in 2024.

Democrats face a fork in the road. They may demand a leader who will counter Trumpism blow-for-blow in a campaign, and then by governing Trump-style, with an expanded Supreme Court, Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico as states, and the IRS and Justice Department suing and regulating Fox News out of business. The public has seen presidential power exercised at the boundaries of what is possible, and the public tolerates it. Democratic primary voters may demand it.

My own view is that a better outcome would be a period of national remorse. Perhaps GOP lawmakers will start saying that they never supported Trump, not really, and they always knew Trump was dangerous. Democrats, too, may want a change of tone, not a reversal of polarity. A Josh Shapiro or Pete Buttigieg may want to take the good-government Boy-Scout lane in a Democratic primary. There may be room for a reform movement founded on disgust with Trump's open grift, his crypto deals, his children's businesses selling drones to government contractors, the gifts, the pardons for pals, the Trump name on buildings, coins, currency, and arches.  A reform candidate would need to exemplify restraint and public virtue. The worse Trump is, the more likely that outcome.

Trump has no instinct for self-restraint. He says he will win and win and win and win until Americans are tired of so much "winning." He may be right, and that at some point we tire of his version of winning and of him.

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