From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Free Expression with Jerry Baker.

Hello and welcome to free expression from the opinion page of the Wall Street Journal.

I'm Jerry Baker, editor at large of the journal.

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This week, Donald Trump exercises authority of the Republican Party that few American political leaders have ever matched.

As we've seen in everything from his cabinet nominations, to the implementation of his legislative agenda, to his broad control

of the political narrative, he leads a pretty much deferential party that seems to be willing

to go along with just about anything the president says and does. It's pretty rare that

in American political history. Now, here we are eight years later, and things are very different.

We see just a remaining and dwindling band of dissidents within his party, certainly in

Congress and indeed more broadly in his parties. But one of those dissidents is a senator,

Senator Lisa McCowski, the senator from Alaska.

She was one of a few members of the upper house to vote against some of Donald Trump's

cabinet nominees back earlier this year.

She has spoken out against Donald Trump on a number of occasions, as she did in the first term.

And in the last week, she's actually been at it again.

She was just one of three

GOP senators to vote against a package of cuts to spending that had already been approved in a

congressional spending deal. So she is a persistent thorn in the side. Donald Trump has made it

very clear. He doesn't like her. He opposes her, tried to get her defeated as

...