There's little doubt from all the discussion on today's "Meet The Press" that the Republican party is in trouble and still doesn't know what to do with Donald Trump as their standard bearer. Chuck Todd even started the program with "Trump is tearing the party apart." Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan (R-WI) said this week of supporting Donald Trump that 'he's not there yet.'
When asked in his interview if Speaker Ryan should be the chairman of the convention in July even if he didn't support him, Mr. Trump didn't answer the question but it was clearly implied that the answer was no. In the face of Republican establishment figures who are supporting Trump and simply say that he needs to be surrounded by good [read: establishment conservatives] people and he'll come back into the Republican fold, the panel was rightly skeptical because Mr. Trump, indeed, can not be changed or 'coached up,' as Eugene Robinson put it. The tiger will not be tamed.
Sticking with that analogy for a moment, the Republican establishment has been riding that tiger hard since the Tea Party election year of 2010 and now its clawing and biting at it. Raising the minimum wage and increasing taxes on the wealthy are not Republican orthodoxy but they're the positions that Donald Trump espouses according to what he said today. In his interview, he explained that his tax policy is really only a proposal that still has to be negotiated, which is really a more on the level answer than what you'd hear from any ideologue on either side. In said negotiations, Mr. Trump said that he was less concerned about the wealthy and more focused on the middle class, in accordance to what he's been hearing from constituents on the campaign trail.
We're sure that he's also heard the complaint that it's unreasonable to live on $7.25 per hour as a minimum wage, to which Mr. Trump has also changed his position. This and the tax blasphemy have some Republicans calling him a fake conservative for such Democratic positions, namely Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) whom Donald Trump labels a 'light-weight.' For people like Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway and Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ), both on the program today, we understand the conundrum their in, as also with Mr. Ryan. Give up your principles and support the nominee or stick with them and disregard the voice of the electorate.
However, consider that for a moment. The Republican constituency likes Donald Trump because he 'tells it like it is,' and the establishment accuses him of non-conservative values and viewpoints. You see where we're going with this... Donald Trump - not a Republican establishment politician - is giving people his agenda of which some parts coincide with Democratic policy points, it illustrates how the Republican constituency has been voting against its best interest all along, and Mr. Trump is waking them up to that. The awakening is rude, and powerful.
Panel: Kellyanne Conway, Republican strategist; Eugene Robinson, The Washington Post; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News; Matt Bai, Yahoo News
One More Thing...
Yes, short post this week, but if you read this column you get it, and there's only so much we can say that hasn't already been said about the way Donald J. Trump is changing U.S. politics. The Republican party is in trouble and if the establishment puts forward a third party candidate, the trouble will be worse. There simply are enough powerful establishment voices on the same page to effectively rally around another candidate not named Trump.
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