No. of Recommendations: 3
I would argue that what they're doing is scaring the bajeezus out of the moderates and independents, as well as the Dems. Which should result in a lot more of them showing up at the polls to defeat Trump (just like last time).
Maybe - but I suspect it might be backfiring.
Trump's appeal to moderates and independents (the ones who elected him the time before last time) is based on claims of strength and competence. He was the businessman who could cut through it all. Few voters really like the idea that the federal government is like a battleship that can't be turned on a dime....that if they elect a guy (Republican or Democrat), he can't get his policies enacted because staff is recalcitrant or it takes 400 days to get through review and comment or through the simple fact that an organization as large as the federal government just can't be tamed by a single leader. Most normies don't think that's a plus.
So when Democrats go out there and portray Trump as hypercompetent, it plays to the image he's campaigning on. Unlike any prior President, he's going to be able to bend the federal government to his wishes. He's going to be able to get every level of every agency to do exactly what he wants. He's going to be able to give a thousand executive orders and have them carried out. He's going to be able to set policy without some career lawyer or bureaucrat telling him that it can't be done, or violates the statute, or is inconsistent with agency practice. He'll be the first President in history who the Colossus will bow to.
Even though there's nothing about Trump that suggests this is likely to be the case. He was really bad at the nuts and bolts of Presidenting, uninterested in how power actually works in the federal government. He was self-defeating and impatient, unwilling to listen to people trying to teach him what steps were required for actions to hold up in court, unwilling to work with appointees who knew how things worked. He is unwilling to put effort into things he's disinterested in, and is terrible at negotiating with people whose help he needs but don't have to say yes. And he's timid and risk-averse when anything important of his own is on the line.
He's not skilled at governing, and he's not going to hire anyone skilled at governing. He's going to get bogged down in the courts, because he's not going to listen to any of the people who could keep him from getting bogged down in the courts. And he's going to get stonewalled by Congress, because he's incapable of working with people that don't have to do what he says.
"He's going to ignore informal norms and guiderails in order to successfully achieve Republican objectives" is not a negative to a lot of moderates and independents.
