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Trump has a flawed formula

Before everyone gets excited about the virtuous nature of the Republicans who are not Donald Trump, let’s examine just who they are. During the campaign these never-Trumpers, like Sens. Ben Sasse, Evan McMullin, William Kristol and John Podhoretz, bravely unmasked Trump as a scoundrel who thrived on foul language and misogyny. He was a very poorly brought-up boy, indeed.

Maybe so, but it left little insight into the politics of said pundits and politicians. Sasse is an advocate of self-reliance, no social safety net and a return to 19th Century virtues. Evan McMullin is a former CIA operative — enough said there. Kristol and Podhoretz are journalists associated with the Neo-Conservative Weekly standard. They are aggressive in foreign policy and would dearly love a return to the days of George W. Bush 2003. Does this appear appetizing?

They are hawks on nearly every issue from the budget deficit to foreign policy. Dickensian economics and shock and awe are their stock in trade. Now Trump has lost any right to criticize them on domestic policy for his budget reflects their goals. Their idea of virtue is to kick those at the bottom of the social ladder and then make war abroad. Pious, arrogant and moralizing, this is the essence of Sasse, McMullin, Kristol and Podhoretz. Their last problem, however, is how to make a hard-liner out of Trump.

If they do succeed, Trump has become the perfect Trojan horse — a man who said anything to get elected. Wonder if they will object to his bad manners if they succeed? Probably not — when they can impose their narrow agenda, Trump will simply be seen as an imperfect vehicle for their version of virtue. Farce and fraud at once unite –the perfect storm.

And they continue their crusade to change Trump, pressuring him on Russia. You must hand it to the crew, they have gotten an ineffective airstrike on Syria, a draconian repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act and a justice department which would make George Wallace swoon. Now they have yet to close any of those deals, but do not bet against them. But Trump will have failed because he believed that he would strike a balance between warring sides. Instead, he played his hand very badly and lost. But simply because Trump was bested, there is no reason for Democrats to rejoice.

Mainly because it was an inside job, Reince Priebius managed him with consummate skill and made him a president Paul Ryan and Ayn Rand acolytes could control. Steve Bannon, whose ideology is hardly populist, unless you believe holding every prejudice known to man is somehow in the people’s interest, was no real threat. Kellyanne Conway was a political mechanic with no fixed ideology but with a knack for focus groups. As for the Kushners, their vaunted “progressive” ideas melted like spring snow. Trumpism was strangled in the cradle.

Trump’s deep belief in himself was his undoing. Instead of picking competent members of the GOP and the Democratic party, he mixed and matched. He placed people in positions that thought he had to be managed like a small child. His domestic advisers were taken from the libertarian, far right and evangelical stables. It was a formula doomed to failure.

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