I don’t mean in name, of course. But really, it sounds like a lot of what he actually wants to do is getting more inconsistent with the Republican core values. So, if he steers significantly left (a possibility I suspect) how do the Republicans in congress react? And for bonus fun, what if he steers well left, becomes popular with the people, but unpopular with the party? Do they challenge him in the primary in 2020?
If he manages that last bit, he could end up like Bloomberg in New York - run for re-election as an independent (being incumbent and popular would offset the usual disadvantages of being third-party).
Nonetheless, I don’t see it happening. Unlike Bloomberg, too much of this country has been put off by his outrageous behavior and inflammatory statements for him to have that kind of crossover popularity.
His cabinet appointments don’t look very Democratic to me.
Dixiecrat, maybe.
The rank and file of the party will claim that any of these positions were always part of the Republican platform. We have always been at war with Eastasia
Hmmm. Just reading about those guys in 1948.
It’s not up to the Party to decide. It’s up to individual presidential wannabes to decide that. I’m expecting Trump to get a primary challenge regardless.
That’s a nice fantasy, but Trump is staffing his administration with neo-nazis and extreme conservatives. He’s planning to become GWBush and Mussolini’s love child, not FDR or LBJ.
To not fight the hypothetical for a moment, Trump acting Democrat would be worse. He’d end up doing lots of laudable things, like improving spending, leaving Roe v Wade alone, accepting equal marriage and so on…which would make him more palatable in the long run, and the result would be people saying ‘Hey, that Trump, he’s not that bad, even with his white supremacist friends. Let’s give him another term.’
If Trump proved something is that he really could shoot a guy in the middle of 5th avenue and not lose any votes. It’s not like his campaign wasn’t run as “democrat but only for whites” from the start.
Just to be clear, I don’t really expect it. But, he’s softening his position on immigration, the wall, lock her up, climate change, and the ACA. At some point, you would think the Republicans in establishment positions (as opposed to the voters) like Congress and the RNC would start to get pissed… And I wonder how they would react if he went really left. Normally the incoming president is someone with an established political history.
Now, what I think Trump will actually do is spout off a lot and leave the actual work to his appointees. He will treat signing / vetoing legislation as strictly transactional. As a result I think the Republicans will generally get what they want. Oh, and he will enrich the Trump family. I predict the Trump family will all be near the top of the Forbes list by the time 4 years is up.
But none of that is any fun. It is much more fun to imagine the chaos of Republicans dealing with an interloper driving them crazy, unable to admit they were suckered.
Tell us exactly what kind of work you expect Ben Carson (expected to be appointed HUD Secretary) to do?
Food storage.
This is indeed the biggest danger. It is often sited that on specific issues the American public is FAR more liberal than they actually vote. The reason the republicans have as much control as they do is not because they have convinced the masses that their policies are preferable, but because of other things like an aversion to some nebulous concept of big government (even when they are FINE with plenty of government programs) or wasting money on minorities or letting in too many immigrants. Republican support is tamped down because they do not ALSO have an economic populist message.
If Trump truly pushed for many domestic liberal policies, it would unchain him from the dead hooker of republican ideas where we’d get the worst aspects that many of us liberals do not like pushed through in areas like foreign policy and anti immigrant sentiment.
The Republicans in Congress would quickly impeach him for any one of the many glaring conflicts of interest he has already stated he’s committed to while President, and install Pence in his place. Most of the Republican old guard has a barely-concealed loathing for Trump as it is – the moment he ceases to be a useful idiot to them, they will turn on him with no small amount of glee.
Trump turning into a Democrat could happen, but Republican voters will primarily judge him on what he actually delivers rather than his heresies. And voters overall will probably judge him mainly on jobs and economic growth. When times are good, a President can have all kinds of scandals and the public will overlook it.
Actually, I think they’d probably be pretty relieved. Trump is solidly established as ignorant, unprincipled, inconsistent, dishonest and narcissistic. I don’t doubt that many establishment Republicans would far rather identify him as an ignorant, unprincipled, inconsistent, dishonest, narcissistic Democrat than as an ignorant, unprincipled, inconsistent, dishonest, narcissistic Republican.
Then they could denounce all his con artistry and flip-flopping as despicable Democrat liberal ploys and get to work on that primary challenge that John Mace mentioned, to regain the people’s trust with a reliable True Conservative ™.
Actually, I think he is a fiscal conservative, but much more of a social liberal at heart than the platform he ran on, he just said stuff to get elected.
I don’t think he wants a second term. I think becoming president was a special kind of notch in his belt, and he doesn’t need two of them. He may not even choose to run in 2020, and if Pence is as unpopular as a VP as he was as governor, he won’t have a shot. In fact, his becoming VP is probably the reason Indiana still has a Republican governor. The Democrat probably would have beat Pence.
Given that, Trump can do anything he wants. He doesn’t have to keep promises or please people with an eye toward 2020.
I think you would find House Republicans more moderate than their party’s Senators and would welcome Trump moving to the left. Remember “Congress” doesn’t impeach - the House does and the Senate holds the trial.
Trump is a wheeler-dealer with a lot of experience at making multiple deals.
He just got the public (well, a large minority of the public), to sign on the dotted line-without having to sign anything himself. A wet dream of a deal for sure!
Trump is very experienced with making a deal with one set of investors, throwing them under the bus, and finding a new set of marks for the next deal. That is how he has operated for 40 years and it is all he knows.
So now, because it is in his nature, he is thinking of the next deal. Whether he runs in 4 years neither he nor anyone else can know. But he doesn’t need his current set of investors, they have signed on the dotted line and he owes them nothing. He needs the next set of investors.
That is my preferred belief. A simpler one is from a commentator, I believe in the Guardian, who as a reporter has traveled with Trump for the last year. The reporter noted that the only two times he ever saw Trump nonplussed or unsure of himself were when Trump had to venture out in New York. Trump has lived and breathed New York all his life. He has always strived to be accepted in his community and never quite made it. It is the one thing his money (relatively modest in that town), his showmanship and his deals can’t get him and the one thing he craves the most. It may be that he is simply appealing to his neighbors trying to curry their acceptance. It won’t work (I believe he lost 9 to 1 in his home borough), but he has to try because that is what is most important to him.