Tuesday, May 31, 2016

McCONNELL IS RIGHT: TRUMP WON'T REALLY CHANGE THE GOP

In a USA Today interview, Mitch McConnell explains why he's unfazed by Donald Trump's supposed betrayal of conservative principles:
... even as the presidential nominee, Trump won't redefine the Republican Party, McConnell says. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, Trump predicted he would transform the GOP into a "worker's party" over the next five to 10 years.

"My view is that Trump will not change the Republican Party," McConnell says, describing it as "America's right-of-center party." "If he brings in new followers, that's great, and well worth the effort, but he will not change the Republican Party."
The GOP is never going to be a "workers' party," even if (white) workers vote for it en masse. The rest of the party -- i.e., the House and Senate members, the governors, the state legislators -- has no interest in doing right by workers. The Kochs and other donors want the exact opposite of what workers want.

And Trump simply doesn't care. Yes, he talks a good game ... some of the time. For instance, when he thinks he can use the suggestion that the minimum wage should go up as chum in the water to attract Sanders voters, he hints at that kind of pro-worker stance; the rest of the time, he says wages are too high, or just right. The logical conclusion to draw from all this? He doesn't have a strong opinion about the minimum wage, so he'll happily follow the lead of Republicans in Congress. And we know they won't do what workers want.

It's going to be like that in a vast swath of areas: Trump will rubber-stamp whatever his party wants because he just doesn't care. He'll sign boilerplate Republican budgets and boilerplate Republican gun bills and boilerplate Republican abortion bills and boilerplate Republican deregulation bills and boilerplate Republican Obamacare repeal-but-not-replace bills. What does he care about? He cares about being America's alpha male; he probably cares about immigration and the wall, about screwing the Chinese, about kissing up to Vladimir Putin, about conveying a sense of muscularity, probably via his promised restoration of legalized torture and aggressive stance against ISIS. On quite a bit of this he's completely in sync with the rest of his party; on some, immigration in particular, he's in opposition to many members of the party, but very much in sync with others.

Trumpism, if it happens, will be standard-issue Reagan/Fox/Koch Republicanism -- which is bad enough -- with ugly Trump elements added. It won't be a big change in direction. It'll be the same-old same-old, but nastier. If McConnell thinks he and the party will be in their comfort zone in a Trump presidency, he's right.

4 comments:

Feud Turgidson said...

Agreed that this Trump candidacy will not change the GOP (and a Trump win would cement the stasis). But a YUGE Trump loss, one where the Ds gain all 3 plums, that'd be a potential party-changer.

Not saying Steve M does or would disagree with this at all, but the reasons the GOP will subsist NO MATTER WHAT the outcome is this November are baked into the cake for next decade: stupid white dudes aren't going down without a lot of stupid white dude noise, destruction and violence.

Unknown said...

"The logical conclusion to draw from all this? He doesn't have a strong opinion about the minimum wage,". Steve my logical conclusion is Trump is a lying scumbag who when he opens his mouth has no idea what will come out. Please dont anyone say he is devious or it is all by design? My ass. The so called "man" is lying pathological sick SOB who is, I believe, out of his mind and in need of some serious psychological work. I have though this was long before Jon Stewart ever came on Daily Show. Trump has been sick for 30 years.

Victor said...

All tRUMP cares about, are the title, the trappings and honors, hearing "Hail to the Chief," and sitting in the Oval Office.

He'll happily let any and every one the GOP recommends to him, to fill in the other 99.5% of the job.

tRUMP won't even do anything to make this into a farce, since that would take too much fucking work!

Hello, America's Caligula!
(W, was Nero).
It won't take much for that horse's ass to nominate an actual horse to a seat on the Senate.
Oy..............
!

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