AB said:
What's needed is for President Trump to learn how to leverage however much clout he has in order to drag Congress to helping bring some of those campaign promises to fruition.
I think that is the opposite of how this will pan out. I believe we are likely to see a congressional agenda that DJT speaks about as his "yugest most incredibly unbelievable" victories. (Although his CRA regulatory repeals are important and credit goes to exec branch people for getting that done). This means that keeping the pressure up in Congress is necessary.
I applaud your frequent emails to Paul Ryan.
I am less enthusiastic about casting those who are routinely on the same side of a political issue as "nominal" allies. Ryan is a politician who looks for compromises and has voted in support of gun owners' rights a number of times. Looking for ways to describe him as the problem isn't a path to a congressional majority on 2d Am. issues.
In looking for purity in the political process, you may also find defeat.
AB said:
They (the Rs) were elected basically to follow through on Trump's campaign platform, and if they don't start to deliver SOON they face the very real possibility of losing their majority in the mid-term elections.
All those Rs were espousing their own positions based on a platform that had been set prior to DJT's nomination. Lots of Rs have substantial and frankly spoken reservations about DJT and elements of his policy. To a degree that may be historically unusual, a lot of congress may have been elected for reasons distinct from parliamentary style support of DJT.
I am not suggesting that there is
no overlap in the agenda of DJT and the agenda of Congress, but that DJT's political success is at least as dependent on wooing congress as congressional fates depending on capturing him.
That separate identity isn't trivial. As much as DJT is to be lauded for naming Gorsuch, it was important for Gorsuch and repub senators to repudiate DJT's hamhanded critiques of the judiciary.