Here’s advice for congressional Democrats as Trump starts his second stint in the White House: "When the enemy is making a false movement, we must take good care not to interrupt him."

In the first 100 days of this second Trump era, those words from Napoleon Bonaparte capture the dangerous possibility for self-destruction built into a narrow GOP House majority.

The sense of impending doom for House Republicans was first evident during the presidential campaign, when candidate Trump made brash promises to solve the problems with quick and big changes if he won the White House.

Campaign rhetoric is quite a distance from actually governing in a narrowly divided Congress, even with a GOP majority in the House and Senate. So it is increasingly evident to anyone with political eyes — including people on the right — that Trump’s congressional majorities, especially the House, are likely to fail.

“Trump is making [efforts to quickly pass legislation] even more complicated by demanding to add a debt-ceiling increase that many House Republicans are loathe to vote for,” the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page noted last week. “Freedom Caucus members on the GOP right are also demanding spending cuts in any reconciliation bill.”

The risky outcome for Republicans is that, in Trump’s first 100 days, “the GOP will have nothing to show voters as its political capital ebbs,” the Journal concluded.

Then comes the backlash. How will Trump voters react when Trump badmouths congressional Republicans, turning them into whipping boys?

And what will Republicans in Congress do if........

© The Hill