It occurred to me in a flash of insight that one of the
reason that Trump has successfully implemented some of the fundamental
objectives of Conservatism was because he’s faced an unprecedented amount of
hate from a broad spectrum of people.
Everyone agrees that he does not have an ideological bone
in his body. So why is he managing to
implement so many Conservative goals when, with the possible exception of
Reagan, previous Republican presidents failed to do so? Why is
he willing to back dramatic cuts in taxes for corporations, dramatically cut
the regulatory environment, and drastically expand the production and use of
fossil fuels?
Conservative theory holds that corporations don’t pay taxes;
they just pass them along to consumers so cutting corporate taxes increase
economic activity. Conservatives have campaigned
against the regulatory state for as long as I have been alive, yet the
regulatory state has grown under Democrats and Republicans. Global Warming has been exposed as Fake
Science for decades yet Republicans have gone along with the lie that it’s a threat
out of fear of being labelled science deniers.
Trump signed the largest corporate tax cut in history. Trump is slashing regulations. Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate
Accord and supports increased oil, gas and coal production.
So what gives the most reviled President the courage to
make moves that terrified his Republican predecessors? I think that Solzhenitsyn provided a clue
when he wrote (in the First Circle): “You only have power over people so long
as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of
everything he’s no longer in your power — he’s free again.”
He was talking about prisoners. But it applies in politics as well. Politicians, more so than other people,
depend on public opinion as both a weapon and a shield. They can use favorable public opinion to advance
their agenda but are acutely conscious of public opinion being used to reduce
their power and to affect their re-election.
Previous Republican politicians did not have opponents who were seeking
to totally destroy them and their families.
They were not going to leave office financial ruined. Their families were not threatened with jail,
or worse. They media and the culture
were not out to assassinate them.
In
an unprecedented way, the insane level of vitriol directed at Trump frees him caving
to the press and his political enemies.
He knows that they don’t want him to modify his policies but to overturn
the election, to destroy him and remove him from office. That leaves him free to counter-attack rather
than hunker down as previous presidents did.
He knows that the only people he has to care about satisfying is his
political base. That's what he meant when he spoke about being able to shoot someone on 5th Avenue without losing his base.
The great economic
expansion that began with his election is either denied by his opponents or
ascribed to Obama. Whether he approves
or denies the use of coal for power plants he knows that the level of vitriol
with stay at Max levels. Whether he
increases or decreases the number of immigrants he will still be called a
racist. If he were to implement a policy
to either increase or decrease CO2 emissions his enemies would still
denounce him as a science denier.
My theory is that Trump knows that he has a rock-solid
base of support – those who got him elected primarily because they are opposed
to the “Ruling Class” (a term that covers the coalition that’s been running –
and ruining –the country). He’s also
aware that his opposition is not persuadable.
They will oppose anything he does.
So he’s freed of the shackles that restrained
conventional Republican politicians who believed that they needed to do
business as usual even after getting elected on promises to make major changes.
Trump is free to use executive power,
build over generations as Congress gave the Executive more power. He has been freed of the illusion that he can
persuade the opposition. Like the
prisoner who has had everything taken away from him, he’s much more free that
those who still had that hope left. He
understands that it’s him, his base, and that part of Normal Americans who can
be shown that his ideas work.
Thanks to an insane opposition, Trump is the Conservative they never wanted and they are in danger of creating the autocrat they feared.
