[Genuine Realist]

The most basic principle of negotiation is to never back off a position when you say you won't move from it. This is different from making a demand or proposing an offer.  Saying "I won't do this" and then doing exactly that, so weakens your position that you are destined to lose the negotiation. Hard fought negotiations with two competent sides don't ever allow one party to win as much as both sides to agree to something they can accept.

Not only has the POTUS blown up any leverage he might have had in negotiations by showing how easily he can be rolled, he also has interrupted negotiations taking place in Congress between the House, Senate, and White House. Worse, everyone knows he doesn't give AF about the country or people around him, so any "changing his mind" is now seen as a transparently obvious pandering to win votes for himself, not help Americans.

Now, Nancy Pelosi can say she won't sign off on this or that because it doesn't do enough that she wants and The President's plan is a giveaway to the rich - even if not really the case - because everyone knows that's what happened with previous relief bills, and nobody believe the POTUS anymore.  She smartly played the "drugs are messing with his head card" and the NYT backed that up in reporting the very same day, with WH sources saying the drugs are impairing his judgement.

Then you have McConnell saying they don't have the votes (from Republicans) to pass anything.  Now the POTUS is putting them in a bind too, by totally undercutting their negotiating position.  They must decide on standing up against a near lame duck POTUS or giving up the negotiating position they took up until the POTUS "reversal" that also empowers Pelosi.

IOW, all the POTUS did was strengthen the House's negotiating hand and allow Dems to roll the Republicans when they have 2/3 of the legislative components needed to pass anything. They did this by not being unified, with a totally undisciplined, compulsive, thoughtless POTUS.

If I were Pelosi, I'd find a way to put off the SCOTUS nomination in my negotiation, as a condition to pass anything. This is what the country wants, by a 74-26 margin, and she does lead the People's House.

---

Looking at the Presidency as the core of governmental frustration, be it Bush, Obama, or Trump, is just wrong, wrong, wrong. The real Constitutional crisis is the utter inability of Congress to act as a deliberative body. If you say the Democrats or Republicans are the responsibles, you're part of the problem. It's both, e.g, if you're inveighing against McConnell for blocking the Garland nomination in 2016, you might consider the obstructions the Democrats put up to Bush nominees between 2005 to 2008, filibustering five of them in a row, who had votes enough to confirm, but not for cloture. It's a mess.

Here’s my amendment idea:
1) Make the president elected by popular vote
2) Require only majority+5 to break a Senate filibuster
3) Every even year, a federal election to elect 10 federal senators not from any state (so, 130 senators)

This would give newly elected presidents a lot more power to enact their agendas if there is broad support. My guess is that Trump would’ve gotten funding for his wall, but Bush would not have been able to privatize Social Security. A federal ban on assault weapons and a carbon tax would have probably passed by now.

This is a very good idea. Your original concept, or taken from somewhere else?

A terrible idea, leading to mob rule. The precise reason why the American Revolution succeeded, and the French Revolution failed, are the hedges against unfettered popular action. If you are looking for a symptom of TDS, the thought that his election requires a re-working of institutions that have functioned superbly over 200 years is dead on the mark.

One of the most interesting statistics of the 2016 election is the number of counties won by the GOP. There are 3141 counties in the US - Trump won 2700 of them, roughly 80%. The plurality in favor of HRC arose solely from brobdingnagian majorities in the richest and most populous States in the Union, California and New York, and a few similar cities around the ation. The balance of the US is not sympathetic to the Democrats.

So Manhattan and Hollywood, dominating the media and economy, also get unfettered sway of the government? No way. The Founding Fathers discussed the idea in 1787, and rejected it. With good reason.

[Genuine Realist]

The most basic principle of negotiation is to never back off a position when you say you won't move from it. This is different from making a demand or proposing an offer.  Saying "I won't do this" and then doing exactly that, so weakens your position that you are destined to lose the negotiation. Hard fought negotiations with two competent sides don't ever allow one party to win as much as both sides to agree to something they can accept.

Not only has the POTUS blown up any leverage he might have had in negotiations by showing how easily he can be rolled, he also has interrupted negotiations taking place in Congress between the House, Senate, and White House. Worse, everyone knows he doesn't give AF about the country or people around him, so any "changing his mind" is now seen as a transparently obvious pandering to win votes for himself, not help Americans.

Now, Nancy Pelosi can say she won't sign off on this or that because it doesn't do enough that she wants and The President's plan is a giveaway to the rich - even if not really the case - because everyone knows that's what happened with previous relief bills, and nobody believe the POTUS anymore.  She smartly played the "drugs are messing with his head card" and the NYT backed that up in reporting the very same day, with WH sources saying the drugs are impairing his judgement.

Then you have McConnell saying they don't have the votes (from Republicans) to pass anything.  Now the POTUS is putting them in a bind too, by totally undercutting their negotiating position.  They must decide on standing up against a near lame duck POTUS or giving up the negotiating position they took up until the POTUS "reversal" that also empowers Pelosi.

IOW, all the POTUS did was strengthen the House's negotiating hand and allow Dems to roll the Republicans when they have 2/3 of the legislative components needed to pass anything. They did this by not being unified, with a totally undisciplined, compulsive, thoughtless POTUS.

If I were Pelosi, I'd find a way to put off the SCOTUS nomination in my negotiation, as a condition to pass anything. This is what the country wants, by a 74-26 margin, and she does lead the People's House.

---

Looking at the Presidency as the core of governmental frustration, be it Bush, Obama, or Trump, is just wrong, wrong, wrong. The real Constitutional crisis is the utter inability of Congress to act as a deliberative body. If you say the Democrats or Republicans are the responsibles, you're part of the problem. It's both, e.g, if you're inveighing against McConnell for blocking the Garland nomination in 2016, you might consider the obstructions the Democrats put up to Bush nominees between 2005 to 2008, filibustering five of them in a row, who had votes enough to confirm, but not for cloture. It's a mess.

Here’s my amendment idea:
1) Make the president elected by popular vote
2) Require only majority+5 to break a Senate filibuster
3) Every even year, a federal election to elect 10 federal senators not from any state (so, 130 senators)

This would give newly elected presidents a lot more power to enact their agendas if there is broad support. My guess is that Trump would’ve gotten funding for his wall, but Bush would not have been able to privatize Social Security. A federal ban on assault weapons and a carbon tax would have probably passed by now.

This is a very good idea. Your original concept, or taken from somewhere else?

A terrible idea, leading to mob rule. The precise reason why the American Revolution succeeded, and the French Revolution failed, are the hedges against unfettered popular action. If you are looking for a symptom of TDS, the thought that his election requires a re-working of institutions that have functioned superbly over 200 years is dead on the mark.

One of the most interesting statistics of the 2016 election is the number of counties won by the GOP. There are 3141 counties in the US - Trump won 2700 of them, roughly 80%. The plurality in favor of HRC arose solely from brobdingnagian majorities in the richest and most populous States in the Union, California and New York, and a few similar cities around the ation. The balance of the US is not sympathetic to the Democrats.

So Manhattan and Hollywood, dominating the media and economy, also get unfettered sway of the government? No way. The Founding Fathers discussed the idea in 1787, and rejected it. With good reason.