Friday, March 17, 2017

David Brooks Wonders What Happened To Trump's Populism

Donald Trump's first pass at legislation and his budget proposal transfers money from the working class to the rich according to the NYT leading conservative journalist.  Brooks argues that Bannon was the populist in the Trump organization and that he has been pushed aside.  His propaganda helped to get Trump elected but now it is time to govern and the Republicans in Congress are promoting their traditional agenda.  In the meantime Trump is focused on proving that his small hands don't mean anything.  He is doing what he can to associate himself with manly programs that demonstrate his virility and power.  Apparently, he believes that is what his base wants from him.  Apparently, they don't really want to improve their standard of living like he promised them.  They want a real man in the White House.  Perhaps like the man that the Russians put in power.

We will have to wait and see how Trump's base reacts as many of the federal programs that helped them out financially disappear.  Trump may appease them by getting rid of feminine programs that support the arts and humanity and nerdy programs that promote science and medical research.  They could be as poorly informed as Trump believes, but they may not really like Paul Ryan who seems to be running the show in the House and they may find out that they really don't want to shrink the government as much as Republican libertarians do.  Captain Chaos is going to have his small hands full if he continues on this path.

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