Trump ideology post-Trump

[catographer]

How much of Trump's flavor of Republicanism and his ideas that are different than GOP orthodoxy going to stick around in the party once he's gone? Will the post-Trump GOP be more like the pre-Trump GOP, or incorporate a lot of his philosophy?

[Hindsight was 2020]

At the rate he is going Trump is going to be the rights Jimmy Carter in regards to how the party treats him except unlike Carter who was a nice guy in over his head Trump is a douche who is in over his head

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

A lot of the America First rhetoric has been implanted into the mindset of the base. We won't be going back to Bush era neoconservatism. Hopefully we'll abandon the Paul Ryan-esque economic nihilism.

[Hindsight was 2020]

A lot of the America First rhetoric has been implanted into the mindset of the base. We won't be going back to Bush era neoconservatism. Hopefully we'll abandon the Paul Ryan-esque economic nihilism.

But Trump has embraced Paul's vision seriously I don't get how people like you rip on Paul Ryan while giving Trump a pass on trying to get it passed like the AHCA Fox tries to blame it all on Paul but Trump swore by it

[Technocracy Timmy]

Hopefully we'll abandon the Paul Ryan-esque economic nihilism.

They'll have to lose consecutive elections (and lose them badly) to abandon that part of their platform.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Hopefully we'll abandon the Paul Ryan-esque economic nihilism.

They'll have to lose consecutive elections (and lose them badly) to abandon that part of their platform.

Worth it. Even worth seeing President Trump defeated, if necessary. We can be a free market party while supporting the working families that keep the free market afloat at the same time.

[Sumner 1868]

Economic nihilism has been the only real platform of the GOP has existed since Goldwater at least.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Economic nihilism has been the only real platform of the GOP has existed since Goldwater at least.

Nixon never ran a campaign on dismantling the New Deal. And he didn't govern with the intent of ever taking out the New Deal.

In fact he pushed hard for a lot of new regulations. Hardly an economic nhilist in even a similar mold as Goldwater ever was.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

How much of Trump's flavor of Republicanism and his ideas that are different than GOP orthodoxy going to stick around in the party once he's gone? Will the post-Trump GOP be more like the pre-Trump GOP, or incorporate a lot of his philosophy?

There is no Trump philosophy. It's all about inflating his own ego and nothing else.

The blatant hypocrisy of religious and social conservatives, the non-stop lying, the open criminality, and the callous disregard for human rights and the Constitution will all stick around, because they were already there. At least, they'll stick around until the Republican party is stomped down into the deplorable muck of history, where it belongs. Whether that will take ten years or a hundred, I'm not certain. There are a lot of deplorable people (using that term loosely) in America.

[The_Doctor]

There is no Trump ideology. There is most definitely the Reaganite ideology.

Think of it hypothetically; assume President Jeb Bush right now. McConnell made the point Trump is basically indistinguishable from Jeb Bush in governance, and that's very telling. (Actually Jeb would be slightly more successful).

Trump is a feeling. Look at his most ardent defenders and look at what they care about. They care about the cultural Rorschach, not the economic side. They're broadly populist, but they don't have a true North Star. Trump doesn't have one either, other than his feelings about fair trade and immigration. Has Trump ever defined his populist ethos in anything more than broad based ideas when it comes to delivering a square deal? He's never expressed and defined his feelings in a broad New Deal or Reagan Revolution way of life; it's a simple straight up cultural ethos and sentiment.

Understand the wings of the Republican Party are broadly defined by the 1980 realignment. Reagan stamped the neoliberal evangelical imprint on the GOP and it's been that way ever since. There's been talk about being more populist, less socially hard core but it never really pans out. The GOP will be until the realignment the most neoliberal and socially conservative party that circumstances allow. The business and socially evangelical wings are still there and their 1980 pact holds (while picking up suburban white voters).

Take a look at the Dodd-Frank repeal vote; the House GOP seriously debated internally a measure to keep or gut the Durbin rule. If Trump's populist ethos was as real as we imagined, the GOP would have never had a debate. Ditto Net neutrality. Ditto the budget. AHCA is another example of the GOP's core neoliberal North Star. Take a look at the GOP leadership, the GOP staffers, the GOP policy makers. None of them are true populists; most/all of them are shades of Reaganite neoliberals.

To put it more bluntly, anyone mistaking Mick Mulvaney for a populist? Tom Price? Reince Priebus? Steve Mnuchin? None of the all-stars are true populists; they're however true Reaganites. (The ones that aren't Democrats, anyway).  

So what comes after Trump-Penceism?

The honest truth, the GOP is coming to a moment of reckoning about the Reaganite neoliberalism - social evangelicism. Of all the warning shots across the bow of the GOP, the Trumpite revolution is a warning sign that neoliberal orthodoxy is failing but the GOP simply does not have the manpower or infrastructure or ideological firepower to shift.  

The Party needs to embrace a new True North and come to terms that it cannot simply be a white populist party or a white Reaganite party. Unfortunately, political parties in our eras simply don't change until they are blown out of the water so badly that entire wings are clipped and chopped off.

The Democrats blew past tons of warning signs in the 1960s all the way to Election Eve 1980. The GOP is now barreling past the same warning signs.

[The_Doctor]

Quick hit about the Trumpite ideology being viable: how many Republicans are talking about income inequality, student loan debt, and taking down the big companies and their profits, or making affordable healthcare? Or how many have committed to Medicare and Social Security in their current or even expanded form?

None, that's how many. There's your signal that the GOP remains a staunchly neoliberal party and Trump is not an ideology. He thinks he's Jackson (who actually furthered Jefferson's ideology) but there is nothing new.

[Hindsight was 2020]

I couldn't not agree more with TD the only thing saving the GOP is I don't see the FDR/Reagan realignment figure. Noted that is a huge difference then having someone who can beat Trump. Seriously if Jerry Brown was 30 years younger we'd be set for a 1980 slaughter

[The_Doctor]

I couldn't not agree more with TD the only thing saving the GOP is I don't see the FDR/Reagan realignment figure. Noted that is a huge difference then having someone who can beat Trump. Seriously if Jerry Brown was 30 years younger we'd be set for a 1980 slaughter

I can think of at least three.

[The_Doctor]

More broadly speaking, there is clearly a widespread failure of trust in institutions, including the media, government, but there's not much support for Trumpite ideology to replace that lost faith in the media. We're in an era where reporters are being beaten up and the GOP candidate wins anyway but we're also in an era where that behavior is still widely rejected by a large portion of the electorate, thus denying Trumpites the ability to cement their power. see Trump losing the popular vote, having historically high negative ratings and a solid opposition. Also see the GOP having a severe dropoff in their 2017 specials v. 2016 election totals.

The real impact of post-Trumpite ideology is probably that the Democrats become more populist and hard edged in their economic liberalism.

[Hindsight was 2020]

I couldn't not agree more with TD the only thing saving the GOP is I don't see the FDR/Reagan realignment figure. Noted that is a huge difference then having someone who can beat Trump. Seriously if Jerry Brown was 30 years younger we'd be set for a 1980 slaughter

I can think of at least three.

I'd love to hear them

[The_Doctor]

I couldn't not agree more with TD the only thing saving the GOP is I don't see the FDR/Reagan realignment figure. Noted that is a huge difference then having someone who can beat Trump. Seriously if Jerry Brown was 30 years younger we'd be set for a 1980 slaughter

I can think of at least three.

I'd love to hear them

I actually might write a 2020 mini timeline so I won't say the names offhand, but there are Democrats there that can serve as a realigning Presidents and have past history as Senators and governors. None of them are in office right now but the current president has never served in office and the last one served only 4 years in federal office.

[Technocracy Timmy]

The size and scope of the baby boomer generation leads me to think that Reaganism won't die until 2028 if the Democrats win the White House in 2020. GOP obstructionism will get them a Presidential term in 2024.

Boomers had two things that enabled them to rebel easily against their parents generation: size and longevity. People didn't live as long in 1980 as they do now and boomers were a huge generation. Millennials on the other hand are basically the same size as boomers (so they don't have strength in numbers the way boomers did in their youth) and they're up against older generations who live longer.

[TJ in Oregon]

It depends whether the Republicans are willing to accept the reality that public confidence in free market capitalism has failed or not. If they accept it, find a less erratic version of what Trump ran on, and try to enact policies that benefit the people who actually vote for them, then they will be able to transition relatively smoothly into a post-liberal world. If not, and they try one more time to reinvigorate the ghost of Reagan and gut healthcare, they will collapse.

People like the idea of small government up until it comes time to cut a program they benefit from, at which point they are suddenly against austerity. Just ask conservative seniors about social security. We've reached the point where crowning him King Donald I would probably be more popular than implementing a libertarian agenda.

[Sumner 1868]

Economic nihilism has been the only real platform of the GOP has existed since Goldwater at least.

Nixon never ran a campaign on dismantling the New Deal. And he didn't govern with the intent of ever taking out the New Deal.

In fact he pushed hard for a lot of new regulations. Hardly an economic nhilist in even a similar mold as Goldwater ever was.

But it was also Nixon that enacted the earliest deregulation measures, eliminated industrial subsidies (thus getting the outsourcing ball rolling), and generally watered-down whatever social expansions he did agree to enact. Besides, Nixon was a bit on the left of the GOP as a whole in the 1970s, but conservatives barely noticed because they were too busy obsessively hating the New Left.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I respectfully disagree with TD. Trumpism is a feeling, yes. But it is the natural byproduct of Reaganism, which is entirely based in rhetoric and emotion.

Notice how the GOP always has a boogeyman. Stalin in the 1940s. Mao in the 1950s. The Viet Cong in 1960s and 1970s. Castro. The Iranians. The Libyans. The Soviets. The Iraqis. The Taliban. Al Qaida. Iran. Hugo Chavez. The Islamic State. North Korea. The list goes on and on. This all predates Trump; it is politicized, and used an electoral battering ram. How is this not emotion?

Only recently has the Democratic Party embraced this strategy, with the Russia fear-mongering. From the time of Andrew Jackson, the Democrats have looked inward towards the common man, rather than externally at perceived enemies.

The Republican Party for forty years has used the religious right to mobilize rural and suburban voters, appealing to them on "traditional values" and "faith and freedom" rhetoric. They have used divisive tactics, have turned back the clock on LGBT rights, and for years now have been pushing anti-Muslim elements into the national discourse. Donald Trump is not the first Republican to call for the surveillance of mosques. He is not the first President to call for broad surveillance period. He is not the first Republican to declare war on sanctuary cities.

Let's face it, Trump is the logical conclusion of Reaganism. He's the pendulum swing, which is going to start rolling us back to that same old used to be.

[krazen1211]

Just wait for Tom Cotton.

[Hindsight was 2020]

I disagree with WNGHITG Reaganism did have a belief system chip away at Reagan's 50 haircut an movie star charisma an you have a grey haired thick glasses senator from Arizona ranting on gov't interference in economics

[The_Doctor]

Well - actually Sanchez has me here. And do we really disagree?

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I was going to respond to the rest of your post but I roughly agree. Trump is definitely the logical conclusion of Reaganism. I just don't agree Trump stands for a meaningful distinct ideology aside from Reaganism, but actually stands for its logical conclusion as you said.

I was trying to make the point Trump was a moment in time, with this quote being relevant:

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The essence of my disagreement, if any, is that Trump is the birth of a new nationalism, or whatever you have.

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I'm not sure what you mean by the "same old used to be" meant - what did you mean by this?

[darklordoftech]

Economic nihilism has been the only real platform of the GOP has existed since Goldwater at least.

Nixon never ran a campaign on dismantling the New Deal. And he didn't govern with the intent of ever taking out the New Deal.

In fact he pushed hard for a lot of new regulations. Hardly an economic nhilist in even a similar mold as Goldwater ever was.

But it was also Nixon that enacted the earliest deregulation measures, eliminated industrial subsidies (thus getting the outsourcing ball rolling), and generally watered-down whatever social expansions he did agree to enact. Besides, Nixon was a bit on the left of the GOP as a whole in the 1970s, but conservatives barely noticed because they were too busy obsessively hating the New Left.

I think Nixon saw Reagan the same way that Hillary saw Bernie: as a naive idealist full of unrealistic ideas and unaware of the fact that sometimes you need to be moderate and go against your ideology in order to get things done. Nixon understood that it would take time to turn Nixon Democrats into Reagan Democrats and going full-on Reagan in 1968/1972 would alienate them from the GOP. The people who voted for Lyndon in 1964 weren't going to vote for Reagan in 1968 or 1972.

[Technocracy Timmy]

Economic nihilism has been the only real platform of the GOP has existed since Goldwater at least.

Nixon never ran a campaign on dismantling the New Deal. And he didn't govern with the intent of ever taking out the New Deal.

In fact he pushed hard for a lot of new regulations. Hardly an economic nhilist in even a similar mold as Goldwater ever was.

But it was also Nixon that enacted the earliest deregulation measures, eliminated industrial subsidies (thus getting the outsourcing ball rolling), and generally watered-down whatever social expansions he did agree to enact. Besides, Nixon was a bit on the left of the GOP as a whole in the 1970s, but conservatives barely noticed because they were too busy obsessively hating the New Left.

He instituted the EPA and proposed an individual mandate healthcare system. Goldwater's GOP would call him a socialist today.