Hypothetical as hell, I know. This has been discussed in a lot of threads but I’d kind of like to focus on it directly.
Trump is a demagogue in the truest sense of the word. I think that the most genuine emotion he has is his need to feel loved. He’s always felt that way because he’s spent his entire professional life inside a rich person’s bubble of sycophants.
You don’t get that bubble when you’re president. At the moment, he’s combating it with #alternativefacts and his attempts to shatter the credibility of the media, but I don’t think that’s going to work.
He might go all in and create a state-run media outlet, or he might just remove access from any media he views as “dishonest” and create defacto state mouthpieces out of Fox News et al.
But he won’t kill American journalistm, at least not in four years. He’s still going to hear about how little he’s liked, and I think that’ll eat at him.
So my (extremely hypothetical) question is this: will Trump’s narcissism make him impossible to control? Will he begin to shift to the center in an attempt to placate the people whose love he so desperately wants? Will he come to believe his own “dishonest media” talk and not worry about polls and protests? Or will he be successfully maneuvered into a place where his staffers simply don’t allow him to hear anything negative?
That’s some serious paranoia you’re peddling there. What makes you think that the Republicans won’t jump at the chance to impeach him? They pulled out all the stops in the primaries, and have majorities in Congress. So he will have to toe their line; if he doesn’t, he’s out.
Trump is a RINO. He used the Republicans, like he uses everyone, to get what he wants, and nothing else. He’s surrounded himself with cabinet members who are yes men and pretty much like him, but also their own foxes in charge of their own hen houses. That’s not how the presidency works, it’s not how the presidency must work, it’s not how government works. Some Republicans have already seen the facade and said so publicly; it remains to be seen how many have seen it as well and stand silent, for now.
Trump is imploding already. The question is how far can he be pushed into imploding faster, and how much damage (irreparable damage) he will do to America before he’s out.
I think you thread title doesn’t exactly match your OP.
There are two questions:
will Trump be pliable to the GOP agenda
will the GOP be pliable to the Trump agenda.
In general I think the answer to the first question is yes. For things that Trump doesn’t particularly care about he’ll default to whatever a Republican Congress puts on his desk.
As for the second we will have to wait and see. Many of the Republicans in Congress fall under the category of the establishment swamp that Trump is trying to drain, and have a lick of sense to realize what is and is not possible or wise, and what is likely to hurt their party int he long run when it blows up in their face. So they might push back against anything truly egregious.
On the other hand there might be some feedback between the two. If Trump is finding that he is having a hard time getting the Congress to follow him off a cliff, he might get offended enough to declare Congress his enemy and start holding their agenda hostage unless he gets his way. We’ll just have to see.
Respectfully, I don’t think the OP is looking at Trump correctly. He doesn’t need to be liked, in my view. Quite the opposite, he revels in conflict. Hence the needless fight-picking, and all of the petty business disputes and litigation.
I also do not think he is or ever has been in a bubble. Think about the different worlds he has thrived in; he has lived among New York real estate, had a successful project in Hollywood entertainment, and now has won over a swathe of hardscrabble middle America. Like him or not, clearly he perceived something about the electorate that few others did. Moreover, he’s on Twitter. He may have more exposure to the views of people outside the gilded cage than any other modern president.
He fights with the media because he enjoys fighting and because he perceives that doing so is not only popular with his base but serves as common ground with more conventional Republicans, who have always pushed similar narratives of media hostility, just not with the same snarling energy.
Republicans in Congress realize very keenly that Trump unexpectedly turned defeat into victory and dragged many of them (particularly in the Senate) to victory with him. They further recognize that he did so against a lot of Republican hostility and that he is thus not dependent on the party and is reasonably willing to work against it if it suits his needs. Consider the House Ethics Office debacle, or Rubio’s climb-down on the Tillerson nomination. More generally, his agenda is similar enough to that of congressional Republicans that they are going to be very willing to accommodate his policies wherever possible. Republican voters understand that they have achieved an unusual moment of political dominance, and I think the Republicans in Congress understand (particularly after the impeachment disaster of the Clinton era) that if they squander this opportunity in destructive infighting, they will pay a heavy price.
Republicans, behind closed doors, are not united on all things so they cannot present a united front to Trump. He could probably decapitate puppies on the White House lawn every morning and they wouldn’t impeach him.
I think you give him waaay too much credit. He is not some genius who cleverly spotted and exploited a new way in politics that no one else saw. He simply does what he does, goaded by his narcissism, and people liked it for some reason. He did the right thing at the right time to get elected but it was no genius of his that pulled it off.
Yeah, I think I meandered way off from what I had in my head when I started.
Really, I’m curious as to opinions about what parts of the GOP platform are more or less likely to get past Trump’s desk. Or whether there’s no such thing as more or less likely because he’s going to be amenable to their policy suggestions.
It wasn’t his genius that got him elected, true. He got lucky.
But, as Tom Tildrum says, he didn’t get to be a billionaire in NY real estate or into TV or elected President just because he was lucky. Whatever he did worked for him, and he is going to continue to do it.
Will it work from the Oval Office? I doubt it - “astonished” is too mild a word for what I would experience if he becomes even an above-average President, define “above average” however you like. He has zero political experience, so he isn’t going to be a legislative genius like LBJ. He doesn’t have the temperament to be an inspiring figure like JFK, to say the least. He doesn’t even have a vision the way even a C- President like Obama had, so he can work for “affordable health care for all!” the way Obama did.
Trump’s agenda is Make America Great!! by [ul][li]stopping immigration, and [*]bringing jobs back to the disaffected working class.[/ul] Immigration is the only issue he will be able to affect very much. He can’t stop globalization, and he is stupid to try. [/li]
As mentioned, he is a RINO. I suspect his agenda has less overlap with the conservative agenda than does the GOP Congressional agenda. Maybe he will be distracted from implementing anything besides immigration by shooting his mouth off and getting into Twitter slapfights with Meryl Streep, and let Ryan and the Senate get on with the real business of the country. Maybe that might even help - let Trump take the heat, which is what he enjoys, and keep your heads down in Congress and pass legislation.
Trump says now he has made up his mind on who to nominate to the Supreme Court. It will be interesting to see how that plays out, and who he picked. If it is a real conservative, and he or she gets confirmed, Trump will have fulfilled 100% of my realistic-but-best-case scenario that I hoped for upon learning he got elected. And Trump has issued some executive orders to assist in the start of repealing and replacing Obamacare. Nominating a conservative appeals to the conservative in me, and repeal/replace Obamacare appeals to the Republican in me.
Early days - he’s only been President for a week, and WWIII hasn’t broken out. Yet.
He was born with a platinum spoon in his mouth. That was his “luck”.
As for being a billionaire some doubt he really is and Trump will not release his tax returns so there is no way to know. It is suggested he is deeply in debt to Russia because US banks will not give him loans anymore because he defaults so often. We do know he has had a large string of failures. The New York times analyzed 61 of his business ventures and concluded 40% failed. Others had problems. Some 21 were successes.
Of those successes is the show “The Apprentice”. Again, that is not his genius. That is just him being him and people watching it. Why people like him and the Kardashians (who near as I can tell are famous for being famous and not much else) garner such a following mystifies me. I doubt it is genius though that got them those roles and rather just them falling into the role.
Nothing about Trump implies a keen acumen or sharp intellect. I honestly wonder sometimes if he can even read. The word salad he produces when he talks does not indicate a thoughtful or logical thought process going on. Add to that how easily goaded he is and there is nothing to suggest his success is more than rich people staying rich.
So only 60% of his business ventures succeeded, as analyzed by the New York Times. Estimates of startups that fail within five years range from 50-90%. So at worst, he is doing considerably better than average.
Him being him and people watching it is part of his genius.
Right - apart from his success in NY real estate, becoming a billionaire, having a successful TV show, and becoming President, there is nothing to indicate that he has anything on the ball, and he probably can’t even read.
True, but it doesn’t affect the point much. He succeeded as an actor and a politician and a business man. That doesn’t make him a genius. But it shows he has succeeded in three different areas.
The GOP have a dangerous orange jackass by the tail. They’ve known this since the primaries. Desperate to win at any cost, they grabbed on to Trump’s tail and hung on for dear life. Which is what they are still doing while figuring out how to let go and not have him turn on them. With any luck and with enough of a push from media and an effective progressive resistance, Trump will be the GOP Titanic.
They will support him for exactly as long as he’s useful for pushing through their own agenda, and the second they get everything they want and/or Trump becomes unmanageable, turns on them, or they simply get sick of making excuses for him, they’ll toss him out for any excuse (of which there will be plenty, I’m sure) and we’ll get President Pence.