This is entirely counter to my natural inclination, which is that transitions of power should be orderly, and Presidents should get room to succeed. I admire both Presidents Bush for their work to make sure their successors could hit the ground running. I admire that LBJ embraced Richard Nixon after a hard fought election. This is who we always have been. Pushing the other way has been awkward and unnatural for me. It's advocating for a brand of politics I constantly scold my party for. It's drawn notice from friends too, many of whom I can dismiss as Trump supporters, but not all of them. Many a Democrat is willing to move on from the 2016 election, or to bash our party.
I stand by my initial thought though- Donald Trump must be opposed almost universally. Donald Trump ran his campaign appealing to bigotries and fears. He spoke of Mexico "not sending us their best," when calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers. He wants to build a border fence. He called first for a ban on Muslim immigration, then revised it to only mean certain nations. He constantly referred to "the Blacks," and "inner cities" when speaking about his plan for a "law and order" Presidency that takes us back towards the Nixon years, all the while embracing policies like "stop and frisk." He fat shamed women, called for the abolition of major parts of our safety net, and attacked the disabled, among other groups. There's literally almost nothing to unite with him for under the campaign he ran. If he is embracing bigotry and Vladimir Putin's Kremlin, then the only choice for a Democrat is to stand against President Trump on day one.
I did put the word "if" into that last sentence for a good reason. I take Donald Trump at his word, there's no reason not to. The man has done what he said he would do, so far. It is possible that he is not going to try and do anything he said during the campaign though. It is possible that Donald Trump totally hoodwinked his base of blue-collar, low educated voters. It is true that Trump could be anything from a Hitler-esque fascist, as his rhetoric leaves open the possibility of, but the other end of his potential range is that he's essentially a pre-JFK Democrat, embracing economic populism and some level of racial resentment and negative social-justice policy. In other words, Trump could be everything from a Nazi to Woodrow Wilson or Harry Truman. I think the most likely outcome is something of a pre-Obama Republican, essentially embracing big government corporatism. It's likely that he embraced the Birther lunatics and the white nationalists during this campaign simply in order to get elected, and now he's going to govern like any other blue-blood conservative would, wrapping himself in the flag, and a lot of corporate goodwill.
In other words, I'm laying out the only two possible outcomes for a Trump Presidency- one is that he is every ugly caricature that he showed us in the campaign, the other is that he's a damn liar, who preyed on the downtrodden and ignorant, and now will simply revive a past era of either GOP corporatism, or racist Democratic populism. In other words, he's either a dangerous racial warrior or a liar. Take your pick, and let me know which one I'm supposed to be cheering for.
It is also very possible that his followers will be okay with either way. Just denying the Obama/Clinton party the White House for another four years is good enough for many of these people, some of whom opposed them based on simple bigotry, others because they are both "big city elites," and still others yet for no sane reason that we can discern. It is entirely possible that Donald Trump being a total liar will have no impact on his relationship with the Republican base.
All of this brings me back to my initial position though- IF you believed that Trump was a Kremlin stooge who aligned himself with bigotry to reach office, and you're unwilling to embrace that under any circumstances, you should not "give him a chance." His supporters may now implore you to, just because you might be wrong. Trump will not govern as a 2017 progressive, that is for certain. If Trump did lie to his base of votes to reach office, that is a very evil thing to do, and frankly it is in the interest of the Democratic Party politically to make sure that is clear at every point. There's no reason to embrace a lying version of President Trump, particularly when the chances that his policies will help the people the Democrats represent are not particularly high. There's no political or governing advantage to embrace him. You don't achieve anything helping him.
The best possible argument people give me is that "hoping for the best" with President Trump is "for the good of the country." This is simply a fairy tale. Look, if he was honest about his policies, no one in the Democratic Party should embrace him. If he lied about his policies, it's in the interest to expose the hypocrisy. Even the good possibilities for his Presidency are not good possibilities. There's no good reason for Democrats to reach out to this Republican President to make this work- particularly after they obstructed everything President Obama wanted to do, and were rewarded with the White House, courts, Congress, and state governments all over the nation. Why would Democrats go out of their way now to not obstruct, particularly given that the best case scenario is giving him cover for lying to his own base of support? It's not as though Democrats agree with him on more mega-tax cuts, arming everyone and their mother with guns, mass deportation, a border wall, repealing Obamacare, or lowering wages. If they don't agree with him on the policies, the politics suggest opposing him will work, and they think he ran an immoral campaign, what is there to unite under?
This is not to say that I oppose every last thing he's saying, or think it will be a 100% disaster. George W. Bush was not a President I hold in high esteem, but he was exemplary on AIDS funding in Africa, for instance. Donald Trump's talk of infrastructure spending may very well end up being a highlight. If he reverted to his early support of a $10 minimum wage, that would be good too. In those rare cases where the policy and politics line up with working with him, Democrats should consider it. It would be foolish not to.
There's absolutely no reason to unite behind a border wall, repealing Obamacare, a deportation force, corporate tax cuts, or embracing the police state. That is currently where his agenda stands. If he moves from it, great, but it's in our interests to point out that he's a liar. In other words, Democrats should not unite behind this man ahead of his inauguration. I don't see any upside to doing so.
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