The following article by Kenneth T. Walsh was posted on the U.S. News and World Report website February 16, 2018:
The Republican Party as Americans have known it is vanishing under President Trump.
WEEK AFTER DRAMATIC week, it’s becoming increasingly clear that, under President Donald Trump, the Republican Party as Americans came to know it for 40 years is vanishing.
Trump is redefining conservatism in his own erratic image, and most Republican members of Congress are going along with him even though the long-time pillars of their belief system are crumbling. Trump is not a true conservative. He is taking some pages from the right’s agenda but abandoning others, and GOP stalwarts are in a stew over it. Yet there is no Republican rebellion and precious little pushback.
In interviews with many conservatives in recent weeks, I’ve learned how deep their frustrations and disappointments go. They see Trump wrecking their party’s foundations and they feel powerless or are fearful about challenging him. They worry about retribution because he has such a strong following of die-hard voters who are furious with Washington and ruling elites, including Republican congressional leaders such as Mitch McConnell in the Senate and Paul Ryan in the House. And these voters want Trump to continue defying convention and serve as the Disrupter in Chief.
True, Trump has slashed many federal regulations that he says hindered business and limited economic growth. And the Trump-backed tax cuts that passed the Republican-controlled Congress several weeks ago were very popular with the GOP base. Both of these initiatives fall within the conservative agenda as we have known it for the past few decades.
In other areas, however, Trump is acting like a liberal or taking hybrid positions. These include abandoning the long-time conservative goals of fiscal restraint and a balanced budget. Instead, Trump announced this week an economic and tax policy that calls for massive deficits for many years, probably creating more than $7 trillion in debt during the next decade, according to government estimates. This policy alone is causing conniptions within the GOP.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told CBS the recent budget deal was a big mistake. “The swamp won,” he said. “And the American taxpayer lost.” Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., emerged as one of the main critics of the spending plan and gave a lengthy speech to the Senate that led to a brief government shutdown because Paul blocked key legislation for a while. “When the Democrats are in power, Republicans appear to be the conservative party,” Paul said. “But when Republicans are in power, it seems there is no conservative party. The hypocrisy hangs in the air and chokes anyone with a sense of decency or intellectual honesty.”
Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., told CNN his party’s new economic policy is “craziness” and “a debt junkie’s dream” because the GOP would create vast deficits that could depress the stock market, increase interest rates and harm business. “It was the worst piece of legislation I have voted on since I’ve been in the United States Congress,” Brooks said.
Yet most voters don’t seem to care. The nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation finds that only 17 percent of voters say the budget deficit is the nation’s “most important issue.” In contrast, 29 percent of voters said the deficit was the top issue in March 2011, according to a Bloomberg poll.
Trump has also departed from the conservative playbook in his personal behavior and pugnacity. He is constantly feuding with other politicians, including some in his own party such as McConnell and Sen. John McCain of Arizona, even though veteran Republican legislators prefer unity and conciliation. Trump also gets personal with his attacks, belittling those who disagree with him. He still calls 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated, “Crooked Hillary” and he has called Democrats who refused to applaud him at the State of the Union address treasonous and unpatriotic.
This is no way to win friends and influence people, or to propel a conservative Republican agenda. And it runs counter to the sunny, above-the-fray approach of President Ronald Reagan, who used to be the paragon of conservatives.
Some of the more optimistic GOP strategists say all this will pass and eventually the party will reject Trump’s heresies and go back to its true principles. “Trump is an aberration,” a longtime Republican strategist told me. “At least I hope so.”
View the post here.