we can't fall into the trap of acting as if donnie is an anomoly. he's not.
there's virtually nothing novel about donnie's policies and rhetoric other than the fact that he's more obvious.
republicans have long been racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc. donnie's anti-choice, anti-obamacare, pro-tax cuts for the rich, pro-big business, etc., just as republicans have been for ages.
the protectionism is pretty much the only point where he diverges from republican orthodoxy, but republicans have never been above taking an opportunistic stance.
even the "alternative facts" thing -- remember karl rove? the shrub administration pulled the same crap, just not to the same extent. and of course, foxnews has been all about "alternative facts" since inception.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Karl_Rove
- The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."
-- Suskind, Ron (2004-10-17). Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush. The New York Times Magazine.
--- Danner, Mark (2007). "Words in a Time of War: On Rhetoric, Truth and Power". in András Szántó. What Orwell Didn't Know: Propaganda and the New Face of American Politics (First edition ed.). Philadelphia, PA: PublicAffairs Reports. pp. 17. "... the unnamed official speaking to Suskind is widely known to be none other than the self-same architect of the aircraft-carrier moment, Karl Rove ..."
- All politicians operate within an Orwellian nimbus where words don't mean what they normally mean, but Rovism posits that there is no objective, verifiable reality at all. Reality is what you say it is, ...
-- Neal Gabler, Los Angeles Times; October 25, 2004 [4]
if we cannot create an environment where republicans can dump donnie and proceed merrily without paying a heavy, heavy price.
he's their disaster, and we have to constantly tie him to them.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Not "I wish I had listened to terrorism experts and tried to prevent 9/11" or "I wish I hadn't killed half a million people while invading the wrong country", but "I wish I could have privatized Social Security". 
