Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine: Donald Trump Is Just George W. Bush But Racist
Donald Trump Is Just George W. Bush But Racist
By Jonathan Chait
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/donald-trump-is-just-george-w-bush-but-racist.html
Donald Trump ran an ethnonationalist cult-of-personality presidential campaign, in which his status as a (real) nonpolitician and (imaginary) business genius would allow him to transcend and solve every policy problem. He has retained the ethnonationalist themes, while abandoning, one by one, almost every other populist element differentiating him from the generic Republican brand.
The neutering of the nonracial elements of Trump’s populism has been a continuous process. “After listening for ten minutes, I realized it’s not so easy,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal this week. He was specifically referring to North Korea, which he had believed China could handle quickly and easily — but, after a short historical education, realized is a knotty issue replete with trade-offs. Yet that line could easily be applied to every issue Trump has been educated about.
As he has come into contact with a concrete agenda, every heterodox promise has given way to conventional GOP positions. Trump’s pledge not to cut Medicaid while replacing Obamacare with a terrific plan that would include “insurance for everybody,” with better coverage than they have now, turned into endorsement of a conventional Republican plan that would cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid and throw tens of millions of people off their insurance. He has oriented his domestic policy around traditional Republican priorities: deregulation, especially of the financial sector and fossil fuels, and regressive tax cuts. Report after report finds chief executive officers streaming into the White House and essentially dictating policy.
The economic-nationalist elements of Trump’s agenda have all either quietly disappeared or been reversed outright. He has ignored his loud promise to renegotiate NAFTA. He has admitted that China, another longtime bête noir, is not, in fact, a currency manipulator. He came out in favor of the Export-Import Bank, after Boeing’s CEO educated him on it (“Instinctively, you would say, ‘Isn’t that a ridiculous thing?’” he told The Wall Street Journal. “It turns out that … lots of small companies are really helped!”) and turned his ballyhooed lobbyist ban into Swiss cheese. On economic policy, Trump has become a conventional party man whose ideas reflect the agenda of the lobbyists and wealthy individuals who have his ear.
By Jonathan Chait
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/04/donald-trump-is-just-george-w-bush-but-racist.html
Donald Trump ran an ethnonationalist cult-of-personality presidential campaign, in which his status as a (real) nonpolitician and (imaginary) business genius would allow him to transcend and solve every policy problem. He has retained the ethnonationalist themes, while abandoning, one by one, almost every other populist element differentiating him from the generic Republican brand.
The neutering of the nonracial elements of Trump’s populism has been a continuous process. “After listening for ten minutes, I realized it’s not so easy,” Trump told The Wall Street Journal this week. He was specifically referring to North Korea, which he had believed China could handle quickly and easily — but, after a short historical education, realized is a knotty issue replete with trade-offs. Yet that line could easily be applied to every issue Trump has been educated about.
As he has come into contact with a concrete agenda, every heterodox promise has given way to conventional GOP positions. Trump’s pledge not to cut Medicaid while replacing Obamacare with a terrific plan that would include “insurance for everybody,” with better coverage than they have now, turned into endorsement of a conventional Republican plan that would cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicaid and throw tens of millions of people off their insurance. He has oriented his domestic policy around traditional Republican priorities: deregulation, especially of the financial sector and fossil fuels, and regressive tax cuts. Report after report finds chief executive officers streaming into the White House and essentially dictating policy.
The economic-nationalist elements of Trump’s agenda have all either quietly disappeared or been reversed outright. He has ignored his loud promise to renegotiate NAFTA. He has admitted that China, another longtime bête noir, is not, in fact, a currency manipulator. He came out in favor of the Export-Import Bank, after Boeing’s CEO educated him on it (“Instinctively, you would say, ‘Isn’t that a ridiculous thing?’” he told The Wall Street Journal. “It turns out that … lots of small companies are really helped!”) and turned his ballyhooed lobbyist ban into Swiss cheese. On economic policy, Trump has become a conventional party man whose ideas reflect the agenda of the lobbyists and wealthy individuals who have his ear.
3 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
