We Married Trump

For those who might want to ask what does Tom Donelson know about Politics, well I have been involved in politics for four decades and have run campaigns either for individuals or for Super PACs in 15 states. I have overseen the production of hundreds of ads along with the placement of 100,000 ads on radio, print media and social media. Americas PAC, which I presently am the chairman of, has an excellent track record comparable to the best of political operations. In 2014, my PAC helped defeat the establishment in electing a conservative congressman in Oklahoma and in the process, defeating a political consultant who ran a Presidential campaign this past primary season. I am also a research associate and Project Director for Americas Majority Foundation. In my capacity as Project Director, I have overseen the production of eleven major reports, so I know something about politics.

I am going to turn this into a three-part analysis for a simple reason, there is too much data to present and too many arguments to pursue that one piece won’t do. I will discuss the risk of Donald Trump to the GOP, explain the rise of Trump and finally discuss one scenario that Trump wins and one scenario explaining why Trump can’t beat Hillary Clinton. I will report and you can decide the fate of the GOP and Trump. 

I have learned to like Trump less and less as a candidate and question if he is even qualified to be President, so that is my bias upfront. The other problem is that Hillary Clinton is equally not qualified to sit in the oval office and Bernie Sanders is the least knowledgeable man to ever run for President when it comes to economic and foreign affairs, but then he has an excuse, he is a socialist, so that explains his ignorance on economics. 

The reality is, for better or worse, the GOP is now married to Trump and now will suffer either the consequences or reward of having Trump as their nominee.  I wrote last September, “If Sanders is waking up the Democratic socialists on the Democratic side, it is hard to say what Trump’s long term goal for conservatism is or if he even has one. Is Trump Conservative? … Trump has made immigration, protectionism and bad manners a focal point of his campaign. He is telling Americans that America will be a patsy no more.   His attack on Mexico and China’s trade policies are the mirror image of socialist Bernie Sanders.  Even his immigration discussion is not much different than what Bernie is saying on the campaign trail.  While Trump talks of tax reforms and cutting government spending, he is not going to reform the entitlement programs.  He will keep them as is.  Nor is he the only one on this score as Mike Huckabee has said similar things about entitlements and often time sounds like a big government conservative.” On the budget side, Trump has been inconsistent throughout the campaign and last example of this ambiguity was during the Wisconsin primary when Trump abandon any pretense of being a conservative and simply attacked Scott Walker and the Wisconsin conservatives for not raising taxes and spending enough while repeating the leftist talking points (Much of it outright lies). 

If Trump has shown anything in his career, it has been inconsistency of any solid ideals and this election cycle has reinforced that Trump is not a candidate of too many strongly held beliefs. On abortion, he has gone through four or five positions that I can count from jailing women for having abortions to keeping the laws as they are and then to appointing the right judges to overturning Roe v. Wade and who knows what the Trump position will be during the election. He changed his positions on the using worker Visas to bring in foreign workers three times in one week including having two different positions in two straight debates that were 180 degrees apart and this is supposed to be Trump’s signal issue.  He has gone from letting the Russians destroy ISIS to allowing 20 to 30,000 American troops on the ground and who knows what his solution is now? 

Other than trade where he is a hardcore protectionist, there is very little consistency in his world view other than he is smart enough to run the government and as I have pointed in past articles, adopted a progressive ideal of government that the best and brightest should run the government and come up with the “smart solution.”  He is a believer of a technocratic state that will similar to the Democratic belief in the bureaucratic state. 

The one president that Trump resembles is Herbert Hoover, in which I wrote, “To many voters Herbert Hoover was the Great Engineer who would bring all of his business expertise to government.  While much of Hoover’s reputation was that of a conservative, the reality was that Hoover was a progressive Republican.  My father once reminded me that much of the New Deal began under Herbert Hoover.  His run for President emphasized his business expertise and his managerial skills which included his efforts in heading the American Relief Administration which relieved the hunger of more than 200 million people from 1914 through 1922… Hoover was a disciple of the Efficiency Movement which sought to eliminate waste throughout the economy and society.  This movement played an essential role in the Progressive era in the United States.  The theory began that society and government would be better if experts fixed the problem after they identified the problem.  Hoover felt comfortable with the Progressive movement.  I bring Hoover up since Trump’s campaign is similar to the Hoover appeal; a businessman who will run government by bringing in the best experts.  Trump doesn’t talk about “reducing the size and role of government” but talks of managing the present government better.” 

Trump is not about reducing the size of government but about using government to benefit his supporters. Similar to Richard Nixon’s own strategy, a point I made previously, “Trump’s model of Republicanism will be similar to Hoover’s and Nixon’s who proved to be an equal statist as President including creating new bureaucracies like OSHA, EPA and NOAA as well as wage and price controls.  Nixon’s goal was to make government work for the Middle Class and his supporters – his silent majority.”

Trump's foreign policies are similar to isolationists policies of the 1920-30’s that failed to keep the peace and help lead to World War II and his trade policies are similar to Hoover’s proposal that helped create the Great Depression.  My biggest fear about Trump is the effect of his policies as I previously noted, “Hoover’s policies turn a recession into a Depression and his policies failed to provide for the average American.  At a time when international trade is retrenching, Trump’s idea could lead to a recession.  Considering that Bernie Sanders’ ideas are similar as far as trade is concerned, Trump or Sanders could lead to a fate similar to Hoover’s economic fallacies.  This is something to think about when nominating the next President.”