"* TRUMP’S ‘POPULIST’ AGENDA IS NOT ACTUALLY POPULIST: The Post notes the big picture: Economic growth is more stagnant than Trump predicted; the Trump budget and health plan mirror Paul Ryan’s vision of shredding the safety net; and Trump’s trade agenda is stalled:
Trump’s combination of setbacks and delays on key policy initiatives highlight how the president is struggling to advance a populist vision of governing in a Republican Party that historically has not been receptive to such an approach. With his budget and health care, Trump is falling in line with some of his party’s most conservative voices, even if the policies threaten to harm many of the working-class voters who elected him.Basically all that’s left of Trump’s “populist nationalism” is the stepped-up deportations, the travel ban (which is partially in effect) and the hostility to international cooperation on climate change."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/07/14/this-nbc-news-scoop-is-another-big-blow-to-the-trump-camps-russia-spin/?tid=pm_opinions_pop&utm_term=.5e5446d4edd6
When are his bromance, hero worship, toadying and sychophantic supporters in the working class going to get the picture? Most eventually will, and the result for Republicans could be devastating. I hope the epiphany comes in time for the mid-term elections.
Alt-rightism has trumped populism. The scorched earth let them eat cake, attitude of hard-core ideologues reflects the political truism that winners reward their supporters and punish their enemies. Who are the alt-right's, conservative Republican's friends?
Big business, the wealthy, polluting industries, makers of dangerous products, Wall-Street con and rip-off artists, among others. The de-regulation only benefits them and ordinary people and consumers and the environment pay the price. White and Christian supremacists also like the policies. Deportation, cut Planned Parenthood funding for poor women's health care, etc. feed this tribalism.
Class also interacts. The poor and working class are disproportionately black and Hispanic. When they vote, the vote Democrat. The Medicare and health care cutbacks will hit them disproportionately. Also hurt will be working-class whites who supported trump.
Public education will take hits on both the federal and state level. In Texas, funding for public education has decreased and unfunded mandates have increased. The Repubs want tax relief. The current Republican school bills in TX are shell games that will only further gut public education. Many urban schools are disaster areas. Most, if not all, are dominated by black and Hispanic students of low income. More punishing your enemies by punishing their kids and crippling the future of many. The Repubs don't care. Their kids go to private schools, pricey charter schools and white-dominated suburban schools.
Have these lawmakers lost all sense of decency and humanitarian values?
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