My latest column at The Week is a follow-up to yesterday’s post:

The first fracas of 2017 provides a useful template for how politics is likely to proceed in the Trump era.

On Monday night, in a vote taken behind closed doors, the House Republican Conference decided to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics, eliminating many of its powers and putting its successor entity under the control of the House Ethics Committee (which is staffed entirely by members of Congress). The uproar was fierce and immediate, not only from the Democrats (who created the body in 2008 in response to the escalating ethical problems of the Hastert/DeLay era), but from reform-minded conservatives and independents as well.

But the most important pushback came from the president-elect, who tweeted on Tuesday:

With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

……..may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

Lo and behold, Congress got the message, and by mid-day Congress had scrapped its plans — at least for now.

But what exactly was the message?

Well, consider how the drama has affected the various players.

Donald Trump looks like a champion of clean government (though the OCE would have had no power to investigate his Executive branch) and the interests of the people, while still suggesting that he understands the motivations of those who voted to undermine the office. If the House GOP had any intention to hold Trump to account for corruption, they just made it that much harder for themselves.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, an average Republican Congressman from a safe Virginia seat, is going to have his name in the papers for a while as the poster boy for lax ethics enforcement. But his colleagues — many of whom understandably have little love for the office he aimed to cripple — will remember him as the fellow who stood up for their interests. He’ll make friends, not lose them, as a consequence of his actions. The members who voted with him, meanwhile, won’t ever be known unless they want to be.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, on the other hand, officially opposed the measure, but was overruled by his own caucus. Then, when the measure passed, he defended the proposed changes that he had opposed in conference. And finally, after Trump’s twitter attack, he saw his caucus fold in the face of popular opposition from both the left and the right. He is exposed as somebody unable to convince his people to follow his political advice, while Trump looks fearsome — not least because he is capable of coopting Democratic criticisms without being deemed treasonous.

Ryan’s caucus members know, in other words, where the power really lies, and it isn’t in the speaker’s office. And Ryan knows that as well.