WASHINGTON _ President Trump's two latest forays into legislative bipartisanship _ parleying with Democrats on raising the federal debt limit and on relief for undocumented immigrants who came to this country as children _ display his penchant for talking out of both sides of his mouth.
Out of one side he promised conservatives he would slash the deficit and to deny "amnesty" for the undocumented. Out of the other side, more recently, he has backtracked out of a naked desire for a "deal" that will satisfy his need always to be a winner.
In neither matter does Trump's position reflect any ideological consistency with Republican orthodoxy. Agreeing to a three-month extension of the budget ceiling is counter to the party's commitment to deficit reduction. Similarly, his readiness to enshrine in law the essentials of President Obama's DACA program, which permitted certain undocumented immigrants who arrived as minors (the so-called "Dreamers") to legally remain, challenges the GOP's strong anti-immigration dogma.
Taken together, these Trump stands make a mockery of his pretense to be a Republican, the party label he borrowed out of political convenience in his astonishing dash to the Oval Office. For years he professed to be a Democrat in liberal New York.
The immediate and inevitable result of this ideological betrayal has been outrage from conservative Republicans _ notably, the House Freedom Caucus and its propagandist, the Breitbart News website, headed by Steve Bannon.
Dire predictions are emerging of a deep split in the Party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan and the Bushes. Outsider Trump is taking it on an unprincipled course gauged more to satisfy his insatiable need for apparent political success than to achieve any identifiable public good.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan are openly ridiculed by this politically unanchored president. The reason: They failed to deliver the two prime Trump 2016 campaign promises to repeal Obamacare and build that border wall that Mexico was going to pay for.
McConnell and Ryan, meanwhile, basically turn the other cheek to Trump's abuse as he professes new affection for their Democratic counterparts, minority leaders Schumer and Pelosi _ or, as they are known as White House dinner guests, "Chuck and Nancy."
Many hapless conservative Republicans in Congress thus find themselves in an unholy alliance with this undependable president of their own party in internecine combat against McConnell and particularly Ryan, who allows himself intermittent flashes of semi-independence.
However, this quasi-rift over Trump's ideological apostasy has not yet appeared to spread to his faithful across the country. While his polling approval numbers have slipped slightly to the range of 35 percent, there is little evidence yet of concern in Trumpland over his detour toward cooperation with Democrats.
Trump's latest tweets assure his flock he will have that wall built on the Mexican nickel one way or another, and that U.S. citizenship won't be part of any accord at the end of the Dreamers' rainbow. That commitment, Trump-style, may be sufficient to keep his most rabid followers on board for now.
But his slapdash efforts to achieve some semblance of a functioning government through legislative bipartisanship, despite little conviction of mutual trust, does not augur well for the months ahead.
Already, battle lines are being drawn for a showdown over the control of Congress in the midterm elections next year. Support of the Trump presidency in and out of his own party will be a key factor in the outcome. By then, will his lack of loyalty to the GOP put a serious dent in the almost fanatical allegiance of his still angry and vengeful fraction of the electorate?
Seldom has the personal demeanor of a president _ in Trump's case, his lack of credibility, vulgarity, political ineptness and disrespect for the American system of checks and balances _ become the centerpiece of public debate about his fitness to continue in office.
Especially so early in his White House tenure, Donald Trump has made himself the dominant subject of the nation's troubled discourse, which no doubt is fine for him, if not for the rest of us.
