It's Not Trumpism

45* is almost exactly the latest version of the dumbass empty vessel the GOP has been saying they want for at least 20 years now. So it's not Trumpism, and if we walk around using that term to describe what's going on, we allow the GOP to distance itself (again) from what they've created.

driftglass has been making the point forever.  Since Nixon, whenever we go along with the GOP's nutty idea du jour, it leads us into disaster, and as we pull ourselves up, suddenly there are no Repubs anywhere willing to admit they voted for the guy, or there's a concerted effort to revise history and canonize the prick, or we get "Yeah but he did some things the liberals like too".

Anyway. Washington Post put up a piece taking a look at the scam 45*'s running. It's a little hard to pat the Press Poodles on the head when they helped put this rolling clusterfuck in office, but maybe we're seeing a self-redemption thing now, so I want to acknowledge that.

WaPo:

The set of policy proposals and ideas loosely known as Trumpism goes something like this: President Trump is not an ideological fellow traveler of congressional Republicans on the economy, the safety net and immigration. Unlike Paul Ryan Republicans, he sees a robust government role in maintaining protections for the poor, sick and old; and he is much more willing than other Republicans to slam the brakes on immigration to protect blue collar whites from global forces that are making them feel culturally, economically and demographically destabilized.

But little by little, as Trump seeks to make good on his promises, Trumpism — as sold by the man himself — is being revealed as fraudulent to its core.

- and -

The split was obscured for years, because Republicans could call for repeal, secure in the knowledge that it wouldn’t happen. It is between two camps. There are conservatives (mostly in the House) who actually want repeal, because they don’t think the government should be spending and regulating to expand coverage to poor and sick people, and instead want free markets to fulfill this goal. And there are other Republicans (mostly senators and governors) who want to say they’re repealing Obamacare (since they’ve railed against it for years in the abstract) while actually minimizing just how much of the coverage expansion gets rolled back in their states. Trump is more or less in the second camp, since he doesn’t want to be the guy who kicks millions off insurance or shatter Trumpism’s aura of ideological heterodoxy.