CommentsURBAN PERSPECTIVE--There’s no shortage of chatter about GOP Presidential contender Donald Trump campaigning. But almost nothing has been said about how a “President” Trump would actually govern.
While there’s no consensus that he could be elected in the general election, there is a consensus now that he has a real shot at winning the GOP nomination and making a real run for the White House.
It’s based on these very real facts. Since he officially declared for the presidency last June except for one brief moment he’s consistently gapped every other GOP contender in poll ratings; no expected implosion has happened.
He has fired up a big swatch of the GOP base, conservatives, and white evangelicals, but more ominously he’s stirred passion and zealotry among millions of disaffected, alienated white blue collar workers. He’s been a rating’s, and thus a cash cow bonanza, for much of the media and a sound bite dream machine for newsrooms. They will continue to play up every Trump quip, dig, and inanity big time. This will further cement his name, reputation, and even appeal to millions.
Despite predictions that his backers will resoundingly shut down on him when they get in the voting booth in the primaries, there’s a good likelihood that many won’t.
The GOP presidential nominee needs 50 percent plus one of the 2,470 delegates to bag the nomination. Party leaders gloat and nervously plot that Trump will crash and burn long before he gets anywhere close to that number. Maybe, but 11 states have winner take all primaries, ten states assign delegates proportionally, and 17 states use a caucus and convention to hand pick delegates.
With only Texas senator Ted Cruz and Florida Senator Marco Rubio flirting with double digit poll support, it’s no stretch to see Trump netting hundreds of committed delegates from more than a handful of states.
Though Trump has seemingly warred with the GOP establishment, the fight has been over mostly over his style, personality, and comportment, but not on the key issues from abortion and Planned Parenthood to the economy and foreign policy.
Take Trump’s rough edge off his bluster about these issues, and his stance on them is mostly in line with the party’s on these issues with some curious exceptions.
So the question that once seemed absolutely ludicrous to think, let alone ask, is now a question that can be seriously asked and … even to an extent answered. Just how would Trump govern?
There’s little reason to think Trump is suited to patient give and take negotiation and compromise to get his initiatives through Congress. His style is to bellow, bully, and harangue to get his way.
As for the issues, Trump has been on the political scene long enough to have enough of a paper trail to piece together from his statements in debates and interviews and speeches a fairly accurate picture of what he will say and do on the big ticket issues. Those issues are the budget, government spending, civil rights enforcement, the environment, crime control, the military and foreign policy. He’ll be totally hand’s off Wall Street and the banks on regulatory matters, slash corporate taxes to “0” percent, impose no cap and tax on big oil, and radically slash funding for the EPA and the Department of Education. But he’ll also cut funding for the Defense Department.
On civil rights and civil liberties, he accepts the Supreme Court decision in support of gay marriage, says he’s “fine” with affirmative action, and will enforce the laws on hate crimes. He’s disparaged the Black Lives Matter movement, but did acknowledge that black lives do matter.
He’ll let states decide what they’ll do about medical marijuana, legalizing marijuana, and the drug laws.
On the one hand, he derides climate change as a “hoax” but on the other acknowledges that there may be some need to take some action.
He repeats the GOP party line that the Affordable Care Act is a “disaster.” So, he will try to repeal and replace Obamacare.
He reminds all that he opposed the Iraq War, but will put boots on the ground against ISIS, take a hard line confrontational stance in confronting North Korea and Iran on their nuclear capacity.
On the signature issues that get him raves from millions, he’ll do everything to further erode labor unions, flatly oppose any minimum wage increase, try to wall off the borders, and crack down on Muslims coming and going in the country.
Trump hasn’t as yet laid down a specific blueprint for how he’ll work with Congressional Democrats or even Congressional Republicans, let alone foreign leaders, if elected, but there’s really no need to do that at this point. It would actually ham string his free-wheeling, shoot from the lip approach to campaigning. If anything the absence of such a blueprint adds to his take-no-prisoners, tough talking, rip the establishment, allure.
As for Trump’s hyped up, disgruntled, vengeful backers, they see all of this as the prescription for a new type of White House -- and better still, a change in the substance and style of governance. This would be nothing short of a monumental disaster and turn Washington into a home and away laughingstock. But in a political season of wide voter rage and discontent, too many, how Trump will actually govern is less important than that he will govern.
(Earl Ofari Hutchinson is President of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable and an occasional contributor to CityWatch.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 97
Pub: Dec 1, 2015
Here’s How ‘President’ Trump will Govern
