Maggie, the dog, (remember Maggie?) chases squirrels.

When she catches sight of one, she stares at it. With the exception of an occasional quiver of her muzzle, or a twitch of her stubby little tail, she stands as immobile as a statue. Then she begins to stalk the little rodent that, typically, is gnawing nonchalantly on a product of one of our walnut trees. She hunkers down and creeps, creeps ever closer to her prize …

Then the squirrel scampers off to the nearest tree and out of harm’s way, leaving Maggie jumping up and down at the foot of that tree in frustration, and barking her fool head off.

The squirrels seem to think it’s great fun. Maggie not so much.

Maggie and her squirrels remind me of the predicament in which President-elect Trump currently finds himself, with the major exception that, in winning a healthy majority in the Electoral College, he caught his squirrel.

What the heck do you do with it now?

In the course of the campaign, he made many promises, and now is the time to deliver. What kind of hand has he been dealt by the electorate to transform promise into policy?

One promise that resonated with both Trump World and the wider political world outside was that he would “drain the swamp” of the hated, but nonetheless elected, Washington beltway elites.

How did that work out?

There were 435 seats in the House, and 34 in the Senate, up for election in 2016. The results? A net change of six seats (from Republican to Democrat) in the House and a net change of two seats (from Republican to Democrat in the Senate.

Translation? Most of the swamp dwellers are still in residence. They aren’t going anywhere voluntarily. A good number are not particularly enamored of President-elect Trump – that’s the “Republican elite.” Their Democrat counterparts are even less enthralled, and in a Senate where 60 votes are required to pass most legislation, the Democrats, while in the minority (51-48), have enough votes to block whatever legislation (or appointment) comes down the pike. How does he propose to deal with operatives on both sides of the aisle who can cut a political throat before the victim even feels the knife? This isn’t real estate any more, Dorothy.

Another inference was that he would be assisted in draining the swamp by bringing in outsiders untainted by the deadly Potomac virus. While it is still early days, as this is written, the first two announced appointments are of a three-term Republican national chairman, an ultimate insider, and the former head of a media  enterprise generally considered as being out there somewhere in alt-right cloud-cuckoo-land. Many observers express the opinion that a move into a swamp would actually be a step up the accommodation ladder for this individual. All in all, an interesting beginning.

Hovering in the background like a specter in the shadows are the issues. They weren’t discussed much during the campaign because e-mails, tail-covering FBI directors, and parsing locker room “boy talk” made for much more entertaining stories to fill the 24-7 news cycle.

Hillary had humpty dozen carefully crafted and vetted position papers – which nobody read. The president-elect had far fewer – and nobody cared. Now, however, the piper is demanding his due.

As already noted elsewhere, a tweet does not a policy make. The danger for this president-elect is that as his policies are fleshed out, they may not be radical enough for the ideologues on the Republican right for whom “principle” trumps compromise (couldn’t resist the pun!) every time. In fact, it could well be that his nastiest opposition will come from Republicans, and not Democrats.

Not to be an alarmist, but over the last eight years this Congress has demonstrated itself to be much more adept at investigating rather than legislating. Cross his Republican friends and their agenda – which may not be his agenda – too often, and who knows what could happen? But if the president-elect sees his faithful friend Mike Pence casting covetous eyes around the Oval Office, or surreptitiously measuring the drapes, he should be afraid. Very afraid. The vice president-elect is much more his “friends’” cup of tea.

America wants President-elect Trump to succeed. Although he did not win the popular vote (by more than a million votes, as this is being written), the rules of the game and the Electoral College have bound the fate of all of us, from Trumpeteers to Never Trumps, and everyone in between, to him. To be honest, I don’t envy him. I have no answers for him, but that’s not my job. It’s his.

He is the one who felt compelled to go chasing squirrels.