10-30-2017, 08:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-30-2017, 08:45 PM by Eric the Green.)
The problem with this analysis is that Trump has pursued most clearly an ECONOMIC-conservative agenda, consisting mainly of deregulation of industry, which is targeted at working people, consumers, the poor, and most of all at the environment. Trump's agenda consists mainly of denying access to affordable health care, supplying tax cuts to his wealthy friends and donors, allowing the media to concentrate and become a propaganda arm of the Republican Party, denying greater access by the common people to the internet, opening up our rivers and air to pollution, cutting the size of and access to our national monuments and parks, destroying public education, making it easier for police to misbehave, and so on.
The idea that "populists" are socially conservative liberals seems nonsense to me. Populism dates from the 1890s and the campaigns of James B Weaver and William Jennings Bryan. While Bryan was a fundamentalist, his public activity in regard to the law on this issue was limited to his prosecution, after his political career was over, of a biology teacher, soon after which he died.
Today's social conservatives are also economic conservatives, by and large. Although some socially conservative-economically liberal people voted for Trump as well as for Obama or Sanders, they were deceived by Trump into voting for him by promises such as that he would save Medicare and improve Obamacare, which he not done, and creating jobs by building infrastructure, while instead his real plan to create jobs amounts to nothing more than conservative Reaganomics on steroids. So a small portion of these voters may switch back to the Democrats. But these Obama-Trump voters are a small portion of Trump supporters, which still amount to as much as 38% of voters and over 80% of Republicans.
The fact is, that according the the polls I've seen, most Trump voters are just more conservative on all issues than Republicans as a whole. The Trump wing, in other words, despite some exceptions in some Rust Belt states, is simply the right wing of the Republican Party, which also happens to include the racists and nativists which Trump has brought out of the closet. But economic conservatism was always racist anyway. The only difference between Trump and Nixon/Reagan/Bush, is that Trump has replaced a dog whistle with a trumpet. Trump and his voters are not creating another wing of political opinion; he is just bringing out the true colors of the right wing, and most of the right wing likes it that way. And those on this wing who don't like the Trump colors have nowhere else to go, because they are still fanatic and rigid economic conservatives. Sorry, Senator Flake.
The idea that "populists" are socially conservative liberals seems nonsense to me. Populism dates from the 1890s and the campaigns of James B Weaver and William Jennings Bryan. While Bryan was a fundamentalist, his public activity in regard to the law on this issue was limited to his prosecution, after his political career was over, of a biology teacher, soon after which he died.
Today's social conservatives are also economic conservatives, by and large. Although some socially conservative-economically liberal people voted for Trump as well as for Obama or Sanders, they were deceived by Trump into voting for him by promises such as that he would save Medicare and improve Obamacare, which he not done, and creating jobs by building infrastructure, while instead his real plan to create jobs amounts to nothing more than conservative Reaganomics on steroids. So a small portion of these voters may switch back to the Democrats. But these Obama-Trump voters are a small portion of Trump supporters, which still amount to as much as 38% of voters and over 80% of Republicans.
The fact is, that according the the polls I've seen, most Trump voters are just more conservative on all issues than Republicans as a whole. The Trump wing, in other words, despite some exceptions in some Rust Belt states, is simply the right wing of the Republican Party, which also happens to include the racists and nativists which Trump has brought out of the closet. But economic conservatism was always racist anyway. The only difference between Trump and Nixon/Reagan/Bush, is that Trump has replaced a dog whistle with a trumpet. Trump and his voters are not creating another wing of political opinion; he is just bringing out the true colors of the right wing, and most of the right wing likes it that way. And those on this wing who don't like the Trump colors have nowhere else to go, because they are still fanatic and rigid economic conservatives. Sorry, Senator Flake.