Populist revolution over for now

[struggle4progress]

Doyle McManus

Not yet 100 days into Donald Trump’s presidency, the populist revolution he seemed to promise is already over — at least for now ...

... In foreign policy, Trump once derided traditional alliances like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said he’d seek an alliance with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and promised to avoid entanglement in Syria’s civil war. In the last 10 days, Trump praised NATO, confronted Russia and ordered a missile strike against Syria in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack.

On trade, Trump promised to declare China a currency manipulator, threatened to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement and suggested he’d abolish the Export-Import Bank; he’s walked away from all three positions.

On economics, Trump promised to cut middle-class taxes and protect Social Security and Medicare. But the first drafts of his tax plan awarded the biggest cuts to top-end earners — and last week, Trump’s budget director said he hopes to persuade the president to back changes to Social Security and Medicare too ...

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-mcmanus-trump-flip-flops-20170416-story.html

[Warpy]

1. There has to be a grownup in there somewhere

who kicked Bannon off the NSC and realized Asshole was dead wrong about things like Chinese currency manipulation (they did it in the past but not for years), NATO, and how to deal with DAESH. It's not just military, either, someone has at least a faint grasp of things like what gutting the ACA would do, how popular he'd be if he cut his own taxes on our backs, and how business would howl if he abandoned NAFTA.

I just wonder who it is.

[romanic]

3. I think Ivanka is pulling the strings.

[Warpy]

4. Dunno about that, I've never seen her be that interested

in current affairs. She's a rich woman who designs shoes for other rich women.

However, she might realize who the grownup is and tell Daddy Dearest to follow his advice rather than listening to Bannon or any of the other dogmatic fools around him. I do think she's helped considerably since she's been there, but I doubt she's the source of the decent advice he's gotten on a few matters.

She seems to know who he is and she doesn't want to see her kids nuked any more than the rest of us want to see our kids nuked.

[meow2u3]

2. tRump's "populist revolution" never happened

It was all a pack of lies designed to trick disaffected people into voting for him, all with the help of the russkies, from the outset.

He made pie-in-the-sky promises he had no intention of ever delivering on them. He conned enough people into "electing" him, but he didn't fool us on DU. We were onto him from Day One, but no one who needed to hear us was listening.

[Warpy]

5. Of course it didn't, he lost the popular election--by a lot

and to lay claim to any sort of populist revolution, he'd have to be able to claim a victory of some sort. An electoral victory is a hollow one and he has no mandate and dwindling support.

The revolution that wasn't.

[J_William_Ryan]

6. What happened is Trump is ignorant and clueless

as to the most basic principles of governance and foreign policy.

Indeed, Trump’s ridiculous version of ‘populism’ proved to be vacuous and untenable – so much so that it had to be abandoned for the same tedious, failed, and wrongheaded policies pursued by the right.

Trump is just another Republican president, and just as wrong on the issues as other Republican presidents.