Will Trump Continue Working with Democrats?
The president’s first 7 months in office have been anything but normal, but his recent decisions in the past two weeks to work with Democratic leaders on reinstating the DACA “Dreamers” act and raising the the debt limit has put into question whether the oval office is making yet another unexpected policy shift. He has openly feuded with Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan in recent weeks, expressing frustration with their inability to repeal Obama’s healthcare law or make other large legislative advances. Perhaps the president is shifting to a strategy where he governs more from the center, or perhaps this is just a temporary phase.
We can think about the current politics in Washington as a social network graph, with Trump, the Democrats, and Republican Leaders in Congress as three separate nodes. While the alliances were clear and stable before, they are now switching and creating instability. Trump has a reasonably good relationship with Democrats and Republicans in Congress now, but the two parties do not get along at all. This instability would suggest that things will change – either Trump will stop working with Republicans, or stop working with Democrats, or Republicans and Democrats will have to start agreeing on some issues.
(Republicans)—- ( – ) —–(Dems)
. \ /
. (+) (+)
. \ /
. (The President)
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/4-theories-to-explain-why-trump-is-suddenly-working-with-democrats/