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Title: Is the Trump Revolution Over?
Source:
RedTea News
URL Source: http://redtea.com/america-now/is-the-trump-revolution-over/
Published: Jan 29, 2018
Author: Paul-Martin Foss
Post Date: 2018-01-29 02:13:30 by Hondo68
Keywords: Personnel Is Policy, Replaced With Establishment, Foreign Policy Is Canary
Views: 999
Comments: 10
A year after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, analysts and commentators are assessing both his performance in the first year of his presidency as well as the outlook for the remainder of his first term. Entering office as a surprise winner and a political neophyte, many people didn’t know just what to expect from Trump. Would he do what he pledged to do as a candidate, or was his campaign rhetoric just a lot of hot air to bamboozle enough people into voting for him? One of Trump’s most popular promises was to “drain the swamp” and, while the President has tried to make some strides in that respect over the past year, there are concerning signs that any swamp draining may be coming to an end. Personnel Is Policy One of the primary rules in politics is “personnel is policy.” What a politician says he’ll do is less important than who he hires to implement his policies. In many cases, the people he hires may not agree with his policies and may work to surreptitiously (or not so surreptitiously) undermine and co-opt him. We certainly see this on Capitol Hill all the time, where class after class of freshman Congressmen enters Congress pledging to fix the way Congress works. Yet time after time they get corrupted by the system in Washington. Why is that? It’s because of the people they hire. Coming into office often with no experience of how things operate in DC, they rely on their respective party apparatuses to staff their offices. They’ll hire Hill veterans as their chiefs of staff and legislative directors, staffers who are more concerned with the future of their careers and who consequently do everything they can not to upset party leadership so that they can maintain their ability to work on the Hill and work the government/lobbying revolving door. We’re seeing much the same thing happening in the White House today too, as Trump continues to hire establishment Republicans who wouldn’t be out of place in a Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, or John McCain White House. A prime example of that was Reince Priebus, President Trump’s first White House chief of staff. Trump’s initial appointment of Priebus as chief of staff was a confusing one, as Priebus’ establishment credentials all but guaranteed that he would try to bring as many establishment operatives to the White House as possible. By all accounts there was a civil war of sorts within the White House regarding appointments both within the White House and at cabinet agencies, as the pro-Trump insurgent wing fought things out with the establishment and its cadre of opportunistic former never-Trumpers. While rumors of Priebus’ ouster were at first thought to be a promising sign that the insurgents were winning, Trump’s appointment of Secretary of Homeland Security and former Marine Corps general John Kelly as Priebus’ successor dashed any hopes of that occurring. Kelly immediately cracked down on access to the President, appointing himself as the gatekeeper through whom all information to and from the President was to flow. In less than a month Kelly had forced Steve Bannon out of the White House, and he slowly began to purge the White House of Trump loyalists. Anyone who wasn’t going to go along with Kelly’s organizational plans wasn’t going to last long. One of the more recent loyalist departures was that of Omarosa Manigault, the former The Apprentice contestant who served as Director of Communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison and who reportedly enjoyed direct access to President Trump. By all accounts Omarosa bristled at Kelly’s attempts to control staffers’ access to the President, and attempted to continue contacting the President directly. Kelly obviously couldn’t handle what he viewed as insubordination and, after a series of scathingly negative articles in the media about Omarosa’s personality and job performance, she was forced out too. Trump Supporters Replaced With Establishment Figures It isn’t just the White House that has seen departures either. Cabinet agencies have witnessed similar incidents, such as Tom Price’s resignation as Secretary of Health and Human Services. In Price’s case, as with Omarosa and others, his departure fell into a familiar pattern. The official is targeted for removal, either by disgruntled insiders or outside political opponents, a series of negative articles in the vehemently anti-Trump media ensues, the media continue to fan the flames as long as they can, and eventually the target either resigns or is forced to quit. In many cases the replacements after these resignations are retreads from previous administrations, or candidates favored by the establishment. For instance, the nominee to succeed Price at HHS, Alex Azar, served as General Counsel and Deputy Secretary at HHS during the George W. Bush Administration before becoming the top lobbyist for pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly and later President of the company’s US operations. Kelly’s replacement as Secretary of Homeland Security was his chief of staff while at DHS, Kirstjen Nielsen, another veteran of the George W. Bush Administration. Trump’s replacement for Michael Flynn as National Security Adviser was LTG H.R. McMaster, an Army general whose 1997 book, Dereliction of Duty, was critical of Vietnam-era military leaders for not questioning and criticizing the strategy they received from civilian leaders. McMaster’s deputy national security adviser was Dina Powell, a former managing director and partner at Goldman Sachs, and his pick to replace her is Nadia Schadlow, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. The policies these appointees pursue, too, are nothing more than a continuation of some of the worst violations of our freedoms, such as pushing for reauthorization of Section 702 of FISA and forcing states to comply with the REAL ID Act. These appointees and their policies wouldn’t be out of place under any other establishment administration, so how exactly does Trump expect to drain the swamp by appointing these people and why is he doing it? Foreign Policy Is the Canary in the Coal Mine President Trump is increasingly hemmed in by the people he has chosen to staff his administration. Kelly is doing his best to control the flow of information to the President so that he can control what ideas Trump can choose from. Kelly’s relationship with Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, a former Marine Corps general, and National Security Adviser McMaster is said to be a close one, meaning that Trump’s foreign policy will essentially be controlled by generals who have fully embraced the mindset and world view of the military-industrial establishment. Given the trust Trump has placed in “his generals,” it is unlikely that we’ll see a sensible foreign policy coming from the White House any time soon. Trump’s ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has taken a far more hawkish line than candidate Trump ever did, and has been doing that since day one with no repercussions. Trump’s Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, recently announced a “new” US policy towards Syria that is committed to the overthrow of Syrian President Assad, a policy whose outcome would have a severe destabilizing effect on the Middle East and whose execution would continue the risk of provoking a war with Russia. The US Senate has increasingly become emboldened in standing up to President Trump too, questioning some of his anti-establishment appointments or, in the case of former Congressman Scott Garrett, Trump’s nominee to head up and reform the Export-Import Bank, rejecting them outright. Establishment figures finally sense that the populist wave that swept Trump into office is subsiding, and they are beginning to feel their oats. Many in Trump’s electoral base are unaware of the political machinations that are going on to isolate and co-opt the President. They see passage of a tax reform bill, withdrawal from TPP, and continued movement towards building a border wall as signs that Trump is still “winning.” But recent comments from Kelly, who called Trump’s previous stances on immigration and the border wall “not fully informed” make it clear that the cabal encircling the President has its own ideas and will continue working to bring them to fruition. They’ll chip away at Trump and his policy ideas piece by piece until they are able to substitute their own ideas for his. The establishment’s ideal is to surround the President with policy experts who present him with a limited range of policy options which have the establishment’s stamp of approval, excluding any non-interventionist or outside-the-box thinking. They hope to then get the President to claim their ideas for his own when doing his victory laps, making him think that he was responsible for what are actually the same doomed-to-fail policies that have circulated throughout DC for decades. When things inevitably go belly up, it will be Trump taking the blame in the media while the establishment figures advising him slink back to their think tanks, law firms, or lobbying firms to await the next President they can hijack. The establishment isn’t averse to using the media to nudge Trump towards their side either, as Kelly’s latest interview indicates. Although there have been some reports that Trump is getting fed up with Kelly, he recently took to Twitter to support his chief, capitulating to the establishment to ensure the appearance of a unified front within the White House. One thing is for sure, there won’t be any changes in the direction of White House policy until Kelly leaves or is fired. But even then, Trump may be so hopelessly encircled by now that he’ll end up picking another establishment chief of staff, perhaps even at the recommendation of those closest to him. Parallels Between Trump and Reagan Trump’s current situation brings back memories of President Reagan’s first term, when chief of staff James Baker, a former Democrat and Bush family friend, was able to put his allies in key positions, ensuring that he was largely successful in keeping President Reagan from enacting any real conservative policies or appointing conservatives to key positions such as the Supreme Court. Another poor personnel pick, Treasury Secretary (and later White House chief of staff) Don Regan, chaired the US Gold Commission and was instrumental in neutering the nascent movement to return the US dollar to a commodity standard, thus completely sidelining a policy that was important to Reagan. What the Reagan Revolution could have accomplished was nipped in the bud, replaced by what we have now come to know as neoconservatism – a focus on hawkish and interventionist foreign policy, making peace with the welfare state, and economic views that pay lip service to free markets while continuing a policy of big government and crony capitalism. Large budget deficits and a series of proxy wars all over the world were the Reagan legacy, and set the pattern for the actions of future Presidents. Had it not been for the Soviet Union’s collapse and the post hoc ergo propter hoc assignation of the collapse to the Reagan Administration’s military spending, Reagan’s stature would not be nearly what it is today. Unfortunately the timing of that collapse, even though it was economically inevitable, provided neoconservative foreign policy with a shot in the arm that it has continued to ride for the past quarter of a century in an attempt to maintain its veneer of legitimacy. We’re facing a similar, Reagan-like situation with President Trump now, as the voters who put him into office intending to give Washington the middle finger have found their man stymied at every turn. If Trump supporters fail to understand what is going on and reflexively support everything coming out of the White House because they view it as originating from President Trump, then their ability to actually effect a change in Washington’s policies will be virtually nil. The policy establishment surrounding the President knows what it wants and has a strategy to achieve it. They believe that dangling red meat issues like the border wall in front of Trump supporters, or occasionally rattling sabers against North Korea or Iran, giving those in the base just a taste of what they want, is enough to keep them placated while the establishment pursues its own ambitions. Trump supporters are still in the honeymoon phase right now, so that strategy may work, at least for the present. If Trump supporters don’t wake up and recognize what is transpiring very soon, by the time they realize that they’ve been hoodwinked and that Trump has become the establishment’s Manchurian President it will be too late. Any possibility for good that could have come out of the Trump White House will have been squandered and it may take another generation or more before a similar opportunity presents itself. Poster Comment: Chock full of Bushbots and Obamaroids. If Trump supporters don’t wake up and recognize what is transpiring very soon, by the time they realize that they’ve been hoodwinked and that Trump has become the establishment’s Manchurian President it will be too late." 
"If Trump supporters fail to understand what is going on and reflexively support everything coming out of the White House because they view it as originating from President Trump, then their ability to actually effect a change in Washington’s policies will be virtually nil.
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
#3. To: hondo68 (#0)
The Trump Presidency: A Success Story. Trump has the opportunity to solidify his position as the most successful president ever in his first year. /..../
Donald Trump Is the Most Successful First-Year President of All Time ... He's definitely succeeded at being the gayest president. Enjoy your Log Jamin Republican prez while it lasts. Being gayer than Abe Lincoln, George W. Bush, and Barrack Obama will NOT Make America Great Again, Twink!
The events of the last 12 months will have ramifications that could last for the next 12 years. And so, what better way to highlight the monumental terribleness of 2017 than to imagine the year it could have been, had a different candidate won the election, or had Donald Trump’s image as an LGBT- friendly Republican not been sloughed off like snakeskin the moment he stepped foot in the Oval Office. It seems like an eternity ago but it was only in January that the White House said that President Trump is “respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights.” If that were true, LGBT Americans would have had not just a very different 2017, but a different 2030 as well. This fantasy 2017 begins in February when, instead of rescinding Department of Education and Department of Justice guidance protecting transgender students’ restroom rights, that guidance is left solidly in place. That decision doesn’t just help the reported 59 percent of transgender students who have been denied access to a restroom matching their gender, it has potential ripple effects for generations: As my Daily Beast colleague Jay Michaelson noted, the Supreme Court remanded the case of transgender teenager Gavin Grimm in part because the federal government had rescinded the guidance. Let’s say that the guidance remains in place and so the justices take up the case, ruling in favor of Grimm, who had been denied access to the boys’ restroom at his Virginia high school. Then, instead of the transgender restroom issue swirling around at the circuit court level for years to come, there would be federal-level clarity. Transgender youth would be able to stop cutting their food and water intake to avoid uncomfortable restroom experiences—as many currently report doing—and their mental health would undoubtedly improve, as peer-reviewed literature suggests. Things only get better in March when we learn that the 2020 Census will indeed ask questions about sexual orientation and gender identity—instead of apparently scrapping a proposal to do so. Then, instead of having to rely on an elaborate statistical guessing game to estimate the size of the LGBT population, we would have harder numbers in three years. As The Daily Beast has repeatedly pointed out, that number is not trivial: Census and federal survey data informs public policy and allows government agencies decide what to do with their resources. We would know exponentially more about the LGBT community, in areas ranging from economic well-being to racial diversity to the average date our housing units were built. And after the 2030 Census, we’d be able to track the LGBT community’s progress over time with two comprehensive and reliable data sets—instead of having to wait until 2040 to gather all that information. The wins keep piling up in April when, in our alternate universe, Neil Gorsuch doesn’t get confirmed as a Supreme Court justice and a judge more likely to protect LGBT rights from the anti-LGBT “religious freedom” crowd takes his chair. Then, LGBT Americans have to worry less about landmark civil rights cases reaching the Supreme Court over the course of the next few decades— especially cases that deal with transgender rights and non-discrimination legislation. And the consequences would be more immediate than that, too: The Masterpiece Cakeshop case, which could potentially decide whether some business owners can refuse service to LGBT people based on religious belief, would be an opportunity for same-sex couples to cement marriage equality even more firmly in place, instead of a source of anxiety. (As it stands, SCOTUS watchers are speculating after this month’s oral arguments that the case is headed toward a narrow victory for Christian baker Jack Phillips, who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple, with Gorsuch possibly being “one of the Court’s most reliable votes in favor of Phillips,” as Patrick Hornbeck noted for Religion Dispatches. ) After the spring, LGBT equality wouldn’t go on summer break. Transgender recruits would begin enlisting in the military as scheduled, joining the estimated 4,000 transgender troops who are already serving. Instead of anxiously watching the various legal challenges to a transgender troop ban, those service members would continue to “serve with distinction,” as District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her preliminary injunction against that ban. But remember, in this alternate 2017, that ban doesn’t exist because Trump was “respectful and supportive of LGBTQ rights” instead of waking up one morning and tweeting, without evidence, that transgender inclusion in the military would mean “tremendous medical costs and disruption.” And in this fantasy 2017, young transgender people who are hoping to join the military would be able to look forward to doing so, rather than wait years for the various court cases to resolve. Pride Month would be marked not by dead silence, but by an official statement—or even the White House being lit up in the rainbow colors of the same flag that a smiling Trump once hoisted on the campaign trail (albeit upside down). Election night in the dream version of November 2017 would, hopefully, unfold similarly to its real-world counterpart, with dozens of openly LGBT candidates—including the mayor of Seattle, incoming Virginia Delegate Danica Roem, and several other transgender candidates—winning their contests. But these victories wouldn’t be framed as responses to anti-LGBT actions on a federal level, so much as electoral confirmations of the increasing acceptance in this country. And finally in December, the White House would include mention of LGBT people and people of color in its World AIDS Day statement, because those often intersecting groups are disproportionately likely to be affected by HIV/AIDS. An intact Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS would remain intact—instead of one that lost six members—and be able to work with full effectiveness to combat the devastating rates of new infections that persist for gay and bisexual men especially. Oh, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would submit a budget that repeatedly used the not-at-all-banned word “transgender” in discussing HIV prevention programs for transgender people. In sum, we would be looking back at year when same-sex marriage was seen as a done deal, not the grounds to start the next chapter of a culture war. Federal transgender protections, which were already precarious and often effected through executive action, could potentially have become rock solid in some areas, with the hope of more progress to come. Same-sex marriage rights would be further embedded into this country’s legal fabric. And LGBT people would have continued to feel seen, heard, and valued after eight years of slow but meaningful progress. LGBT advocates warned that the 2016 election would have consequences for the community, long before it was believed that Trump even had a chance of winning. Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said back in January of last year—before the Republican primaries had even started— that “all the progress we have made as a nation on LGBT equality—and all the progress we have yet to make—is at stake in November.” As we enter January 2018, it is painfully clear that these warnings were not exaggerations. This year could have gone very differently, but it didn’t— and LGBT people will pay the price.
Posting a thoughtful, reasonable response to the perverted Hondo 68 is a waste of bandwidth.
#10. To: IbJensen (#9)
You are absolutely correct….I assure you that it will not happen again.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestIs the Trump Revolution Over?
Donald Trump Is the Most Successful First-Year President of All Time ...
#4. To: Gatlin, Log Jamin Repubicans, Most Successfully Queer president, Twink (#3)
(Edited)
#7. To: hondo68 (#4)
(Edited)
Enjoy your Log Jamin Republican prez while it lasts.
“....while it lasts?” You are always so misinformed....it NEVER even STARTED. Continue reading and you will learn how Trump made 2017 a horrific year for LGBT rights—and worse is to come. 2017 wasn’t just a bad year for LGBT equality in the United States. It was a pivotally bad year; an epochally horrific one, in sometimes subtle but almost always sinister ways.
#9. To: Gatlin (#7)
Replies to Comment # 9. Posting a thoughtful, reasonable response to the perverted Hondo 68 is a waste of bandwidth.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
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