Trump, Pelosi have chosen to fiddle while economy burns

At the Republican National Convention, the coronavirus and the economic pain it has created for millions of Americans doesn’t really exist. On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders are quick to acknowledge its toll – but if they really want to do something about it, they have a strange way of showing it.

The top elected officials in both political parties are engaged in a never-ending television show designed to attract two things: votes in November and campaign donations to fund the road to Election Day.

There is a reason lawmakers typically pass a bare-bones spending measure each September to fund the federal government beyond an election. The need to fire up their respective bases while raising campaign cash in dump truck-sized loads does little to make the already nearly impossible task of striking bipartisan deals easier. It does the opposite, in fact.

Republicans have spoken little this week to the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs due to the coronavirus. Instead, they have spoken to the typical Audience of One: Donald John Trump.

But for all the Republicans’ corona-denial, Democrats deserve ample blame on why Congress and the White House have made little progress on a fifth COVID-19 economic recovery bill. Both sides entered the talks with unrealistic demands. When outrageous and ludicrous butt heads, little typically gets done.

When both sides are more interested in petty name-calling and continuing personal feuds, expect the taxpayer to, as usual, take it on the chin. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was injected into this round of talks, reportedly by Trump after conservatives complained to him that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin gave too little to Democrats in previous Covid relief negotiations.

There’s little evidence he has helped either side get to yes. But, whether Democrats like it or not, Meadows is, as they say, in the room and a big player in striking a deal they claim the American people and the economy desperately need. So it was plenty curious on Thursday morning why Speaker Nancy Pelosi resorted to insulting rather than negotiating.

“This is a conversation only to respect the fact that the president’s representative, not even the lead negotiator — that would be Mnuchin — we consider whatever-his-name-is, what’s the name, Meadows, there as staffing Mr Mnuchin,” she said, offering the Republican side no concessions that might help broker a deal.

My colleague Griffin Connolly recently wrote how Pelosi, unlike Michelle Obama, is willing to go low when Trump and Co. go low first. For the most part, it has been effective.

She has gotten under the skin of a president who often acts like a schoolyard bully. She has used a willingness to engage in rhetorical warfare to meet many of her – and her constituents’ – interests. That’s largely what pursuing, obtaining and employing power is all about.

But with her attack on Meadows, Pelosi is undermining her pursuits of the interests of those constituents, and of any American family or business who could use another helping hand due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The speaker is wrong to go low this time. Just because a tactic worked during the last negotiation or two years ago – or helped you raise tens of millions of dollars for House Democrats in competitive races – doesn’t mean it is the right one this time.

Her tone was wrong with the Meadows insult — it’s too Trumpian, by her own definition. Her negotiating approach is wrong, too: It’s Trumpian in its attempt to humiliate and intimidate.

It probably will impress some big-money Democratic donors and help fill her party’s campaign war chest. Again, so very Trumpian. The speaker has more in common with the president than either wants to admit. But to borrow (and slightly amend) a line from Senator Bernie Sanders: Nancy and The Donald fiddle while the economy burns.