White House Watch: Trump and the Shutdown

Conservative Victories Must Come Prepackaged. The successful nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court wasn’t the Trump administration’s only victory in its first year, but it was its most significant conservative policy achievement. There was a perfect confluence of factors: broad agreement throughout the party about the need for a justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia; a highly motivated and organized group of activists, led ably by the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo; and an engaged administration (from White House counsel Don McGahn to Attorney General Jeff Sessions). All that was required from Trump was his approval—which he gave, thanks to assurances by those around him that nominating Gorsuch would be well received by the party faithful.
There’s a straightforward path to more wins like it in this presidency: Conservatives must unite on an issue, lay the necessary groundwork, and present the president with a no-lose option. This was true with deregulation, a longtime conservative goal that has chiefly required Trump to sign the executive orders placed in front of him. The same goes for the decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.