By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Thomas Jefferson delivered an evocative description of the predicament the infant United States faced regarding slavery.

“We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go,” Jefferson wrote.

The train wreck that is the relief package Congress just negotiated demonstrates the Republican Party has much the same problem with President Donald Trump.

That package was a long time coming. Democrats began demanding one before spring turned to summer. Republicans in the Senate, encouraged by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, balked at providing more than the first round offered to suffering Americans not long after the pandemic first hit.

McConnell’s reasons for resisting were varied, but chief among them were political calculations. Republicans in the Senate weren’t optimistic that President Trump was going to win re-election. They also feared they were going to lose the Senate.

The path back to power in those circumstances, they reasoned, involved hamstringing the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden. To do that, the GOP planned to reawaken its dormant concerns about deficit spending and blast Biden for attempting to solve the economic and public health problems Trump left behind.

But then Republicans found themselves with a good chance to hold onto the Senate. If they could win two run-off elections in Georgia, McConnell would remain majority leader and the GOP would be able to block much of Biden’s agenda. If Democrats won those races, the Senate would be tied, 50-50, and incoming Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, would cast tiebreaking votes.

That would make Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, the majority leader and give Democrats a much better chance of moving an agenda.

And, as it turns out, saying that Republicans weren’t interested in helping people in danger of losing their homes because of the economic upheaval brought on by the pandemic wasn’t helping the two GOP Senate candidates in Georgia.

Suddenly, coming up with an aid package for ordinary Americans seemed appealing to McConnell and a fair number of the members of his party again.

They worked with Democrats in the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives to come up with a compromise that pleased no one. It offered a Swiss cheese solution of $600 each to many Americans but excluded many others, often for reasons that seemed capricious.

Enter Trump.

For much of the negotiation process, the president was AWOL, focused on trying to turn his fantasy that he won the election into a reality by launching one amateurish legal challenge or coup attempt after another.

Without success.

Along the way, he lashed out at any Republican who had the temerity to acknowledge the principles not just of self-government but also basic math – 81 million popular votes are greater than 74 million and 306 electoral votes represent a majority – as a turncoat.

He vented his spleen particularly on McConnell, who recognized Biden as the president-elect after delaying doing so for weeks. Trump accused the majority leader of betraying him and all but vowed retribution.

The president found a great way to wreak vengeance on McConnell and other independent-minded Republicans.

When Trump finally paid attention to the stimulus package, he attacked it. He said $600 wasn’t enough, called for $2,000 per American and vowed to veto anything less.

Democrats such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-New York, immediately leapt to agree with Trump. They vowed to help him secure the $2,000 figure.

That left McConnell and his fellow Republicans in an awkward position. They really didn’t want to approve the $600 – much less anything more – and did so only because political considerations demanded they do so.

Now, their own president has taken their legs out from under them and forced them to swallow hard and come up with more money or give a Bronx cheer to hardworking Americans just as those Americans head to the polls in an all-important Senate election.

That’s not where Republicans want to be.

But that’s where they are.

Because they have Trump by the ear.

FOOTNOTE:  John Krull is director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.

The City-County Observer posted to this article without opinion, bias, or editing.