I want to continue the discussion that Josh began with his recent post on Trump’s demotion of Stephen Bannon from the “Principals Group.” The question to ask is whether after a month of unmitigated political disaster, Donald Trump has finally learned something. There are hints, but only bare hints, in this and other moves that he may have.
I never took the view, common among coastal liberals, that Trump was stupid. On the contrary, his atrocious campaign (“Crooked Hillary,” “Lyin’ Ted,” “Low Energy Jeb”) showed that he was very smart. But that also made me think that he would understand that campaigning and governing were very different and that he couldn’t govern as a flame-throwing populist and provocateur. I was wrong.
Trump, reflecting the Bannon-Breitbart style, carried his populism into the White House, as clearly reflected in his inaugural address. He also fired away before taking careful aim – on China and Taiwan, on the Muslim travel ban. And in repealing and replacing Obamacare, he put winning – that is demonstrating he could get things done – above producing legislation that reflected his own commitments to his “silent majority” to create a bill that was better than Obamacare – cheaper and more universal. Instead, he gave into what the late Jude Wanniski used to call the “throw the widows out in the snow” faction of Republicans.
My own take was that Trump the president was a blend of the conservative convictions he shared with business Republicans on taxes and regulation with the nativism of the Tea Party right and that rather than taking a strange and peculiar road of mixing liberal and conservative and Republican and Democrat, he was ending up a less calculating, intelligent and stable version of Ted Cruz – and I can’t think of anything much worse. Well, maybe change is in the air.
I’d list the following: 1) As Josh notes, the demotion of Bannon, and add to that stories that Bannon has been wanting to resign altogether out of frustration that he is not getting his way; 2) After the failure of Obamacare repeal and replace, turning his fire on the Freedom Caucus and threatening to work in the future with Democrats; 3) His National Economic Council head Gary Cohn telling bankers he favors a version of Glass-Steagall, which puts him with Bernie Sanders not Chuck Schumer; 4) Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who along with Cohn are the “Democrats” in the administration, assuming much larger and more public positions in the White House; 5) Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, who in my opinion was Trump’s best cabinet pick by far, assuming control over trade policy; 6) Trump revaluating his stand on Syria and Israel-Palestine; 7) His meeting with labor leaders on infrastructure.
Now all of these signs of change could prove evanescent. Trump is nothing if not volatile, and he could be back in Rockland (see last section of “Howl”) next week. But it’s worth recalling that Trump was a moderate Democrat – an Ed Koch Democrat or an Al D’Amato Republican – and these are the kind of moves one would expect from that kind of politician and not from a bilious unstable version of Ted Cruz. And to add one final note: if Trump is heading toward the political center, it may not work. It worked somewhat for Richard Nixon during his first term, especially on domestic policy, but at the time the parties were far less polarized than they are now. For every Democrat whom Trump might win over, he would be likely to lose two Republicans. I simply can’t imagine his getting to sign a better version of Obamacare – and Lord Knows, we need one. (Hint: It’s called Medicare for All.) But there is still reason to be very very very slightly optimistic. During Trump’s first two months, the country, and not just the White House and Republican Party, was heading toward a political train wreck.
