Ed Morrissey writes for HotAir.com about the president’s approach to the first year of his second term.
Bill Clinton employed a triangulation strategy to co-opt Republican voters. Donald Trump has spent the first seven months of his presidency employing a cornering strategy. Trump has used his bully pulpit — perhaps in the most literal sense since the Roosevelts — to force Democrats to corner themselves onto the fringe positions on issues that matter most to American voters.
This month, Trump has used executive action on crime to force Democrats to side with criminals. He’s about to force them to double down with his latest move to end cashless bail in Washington DC, and his efforts to use federal funding to leverage the same change across the country.
One order from Trump directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify federal funds that could be suspended or eliminated in states and local jurisdictions with cashless bail policies. He and his administration sees such policies as overly lenient; others view them as central to preventing discrimination in the criminal justice system based on wealth.
Trump instructed specific focus on D.C., where his administration is exerting unprecedented federal control. His order told law enforcement officials to pursue pretrial detention whenever possible and withhold money and federal services if the city continues to allow defendants to be released without posting bail. …
… The “specific focus” will likely succeed, since — despite Protection Racket Media hyperventilation — the federal government has jurisdiction and authority to set such policies. Generally speaking, it’s better to have Congress deal with these issues, but Congress ceded its authority to ‘home rule’ in the district decades ago. Cashless bail is a policy imposed by the city council, not by federal statute, and Trump can supersede such policies in the district. If Congress wants to restore cashless bail, it can act — but even Democrats are starting to figure out that it’s a loser in today’s higher-crime environment in urban areas.
