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Who Will be Polk to Trump’s Jackson?
About ten years ago I read an interesting biography on James Polk by Walter Borneman. In short, he was Andrew Jackson’s protege and cemented in place the changes that Jackson started. Many of these held, even after the Civil War. Polk and Jackson were opposites with regard to temperament. However, Jackson was a mentor to Polk, both ideologically and practically. Even so, Polk made his own mark, was his own man, and was not a mini-me to Jackson. In many ways, Polk was more ruthless than Jackson. The strength of Polk’s presidency was that many of the changes he established became the bipartisan establishment for decades. Possibly until the rise of the Progressives in the late 19th century.
In my opinion, Trump’s show-biz instincts will come to bear now. He will see that he’s going to be more powerful and more appreciated if he becomes an “elder statesman” for the MAGA set of policies. This will be the political equivalent of licensing his name on other hotels. If I’m right, I suspect that the same Polk-Jackson dynamic will develop. I do not know who it will be, although I have some thoughts. Who do you think and why?
Published in General
Explain please. (And document Mitch’s efforts in this area with his deep pockets and all powerful influence.)
P.S. You really went downhill from there…
Conned into what exactly?
Proved to be true? I disagree. Rather, assessments like the one you attribute to Tucker Carlson were always unlikely speculative blowhardiness and it continues to be. That’s the pedophile line from the folks at the Lincoln Project. I’m still surprised that so many accept it so easily.
I don’t attribute it to him. It is what he said. I was struck by it at the time. Let’s be honest, Tucker was right on the mark. Wish it weren’t so, but he was. There are many of Trump’s impulses (I don’t use the word policy because he didn’t think coherently in that way) I liked and hope we find someone to carry them out but without all Trump’s defects.
I don’t believe third party paraphrases anymore. Do you have a quote or clip? Otherwise honesty has nothing to do with this. It’s opinion, not fact. I disagree with the opinion. Honestly.
I don’t disagree with some of your comment, but these two items in particular are not in line with what I have observed and read.
Whatever the view of Donald Trump’s personal habits, there is one reason and one reason only that should receive primary blame for any charges of insufficient transformation that I don’t see mentioned: the resistance to it throughout every corner of government and to some extent within his own circle. It’s a wonder — and a testament to his force of will and a few dedicated allies — that anything got done.
Leaving whatever Sidney Powell could/could not prove aside, very little about the Dominion voting machines could or should be discounted as idiotic. I read as much as I could find about those machines (far too little), and they’ve been a problem in other elections in the US and abroad. There’s even video of a company exec holding a press conference to admit similar irregularities as alleged in 2020, absolving his company of blame of course. They are rife with vulnerabilities and should never have been widely used in US elections. They’ve refused to be forthcoming about them to Congress, and no one seems to know exactly what they can do.
Amen
I will reserve judgement on the Dominion issues until the lawsuit is resolved. Powell has a track record that demonstrates brilliance – I will retain that opinion until I see otherwise.
As to being “conned” by President Trump – I am better off for him having been president. He enacted just about every policy I cared about and his judges picks were amazing. I am thankful that Cocaine Mitch ran them through. I wasn’t conned. I donated a little money, went to a rally, and got most of the policies I want. One isn’t conned if what they received was substantive. Heck, all I cared about at first was Ding Dong the Witch is Dead – everything else was gravy.
It is not his fault that the political class has only faux respect for our institutions. They don’t even have that, actually. Just a desire for the trappings of our institutions – and seeing the rest of us bow and scrape.
That would be preferable. But it’s possible Trump will be the best choice next time, too, even with all the faults you list.
And that’s the problem, isn’t it? The McConnell/Romney/Sasse/Bush Remnants are a political dead end in a national election. Trump will be a diminished figure but his devoted followers may still be the largest segment left in the GOP, so even though it would be disaster a 78 year old, undisciplined, vindictive, selfish guy could be the nominee.
I found the Trump Presidency way better than I anticipated when he was elected. His restraint on the exercise of executive powers was surprising. I think the Covid pandemic coupled with the media and big tech influence on information flows is the cause of his loss in the 2020 election. It is actually amusing to me to see Trump isolated in these attacks while the Governors of liberal states with disastrous performance go mostly unmentioned. We will have three years to see what evolves on the Republican bench. It is too early to have serious, in-depth conversations as if certain outcomes are inevitable.
I like Trump too. I don’t think he’ll be the nominee in 2024. Nor will Pence, Cruz, Rubio, or Paul. So who then? I remember how I was looking to Walker from Wisconsin. I know he lost the governor spot and didn’t go anywhere in the 2016 primary, but I’m still not sure why he seems to have disappeared entirely. I agree that it’s too early; we’ll start to see things more clearly in a year from now, maybe.
It depends on whether the GOPe again tries to stuff a Jeb type down our throats while working to ease all the normal good guys out and telling everyone that we need to unite behind one candidate. That could leave us with a choice between Trump (who won’t be eased out) and the GOPe annointee. If it doesn’t play that game again we might have some good alternatives to choose from besides Trump. But what are the chances that the GOPe will have learned its lesson?
And now the big tech Democrats with all the money can enter the Republican fight and who knows what results.
That brings us back to the problem. I am completely against restoring the GOPe but if you are right that Trump won’t be eased out it is a doomsday scenario. The question is whether someone can step forward who policy-wise is towards Trump but can also bring new people, be their own person, and win. Will Trump let there be breathing room for that to happen or will he demand 100% loyalty and agreement from anyone and immediately turn on them if they disagree with him on anything, which is his pattern?
For some reason I just cannot think this way. I think the biggest failures have been legislative and that is where I would concentrate effort now or, as we have recently seen, it will just get worse dominated by group think.
I’m guessing Trump might leave a MAGA person alone. He really has no basis for demanding 100% loyalty, and even his 100% loyal followers aren’t likely to give him 100% loyalty. They’re too independent for that.
Everything depends on external events. If Biden gets lucky and the economy rebounds quickly because of the vaccines and the narrow Senate majority keeps his excesses in check so that we go back to the slow low growth of the Obama years. It may not matter who the Republican’s run in 2024. If Biden gets his fondest wish list and overheats and crashes the economy Trump may seem like a prophet and have a chance to draw people back into his coalition if he wins the nomination. Right now a lot more depends on the democrats than anything the republicans do. One thing for sure though the Romneys, Sasses, and Cheneys of the world are not the path forward. none of them have a hope or prayer of winning a national election.
This is an issue that has bothered me for awhile, the pejorative of “GOPe” meaning the Establishment GOP. Excuse me, viewed in the context of Bush II, Bush I, Reagan, Ford, Nixon and Ike, the GOPe is actually simply the GOP, and the Trump branch of the GOP should be labeled the “GOPt” to be more accurate.
I don’t think that Trump has the emotional maturity to allow the party to move on. The problem is that the NT’s threw the election in 2020 (Trump lost Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by .2%, .3%, .6% and 1.2%, which reflects the NT vote) and with the NAT’s (Never Again Trumpers), Trump would also lose Michigan again, as well as North Carolina and Florida. To nominate Trump would be “game over” in any election in the future.
With all due respect, a Romney, Sasse or Cheney who are NAT’s (“Never Again Trumpers) is our only hope. (Of note, both Sasse and Cheney are extremely conservative Republicans.) The only problem is getting through the Republican primaries.
But consider this. What if Sasse, Graham, Haley and a whole bunch of MAGA folks run in 2024. Sasse does respectfully well in Iowa which is next door to Sasse’s Nebraska. Sasse appeals to the Libertarians in New Hampshire and wins there. Since Lindsey Graham and Nikki Haley are from South Carolina, the results from South Carolina are disregarded, just as when Tom Harkin of Iowa ran for President in 1992 and the results of the Iowa caucuses were disregarded. Sasse appeals well to the libertarian instincts of Nevada. All of a sudden, Sasse has huge momentum. Republicans who want to win decide to go with Sasse, and to leave Trump behind.
Reagan was a reaction to the GOPe, which opposed him at nearly every step. He ended up picking the establishmentarian Bush I as a VP, which did great harm to his legacy. We’ve been dealing with GOP vs GOPe for a long time; it was a major issue when Newt Gingrich showed up and rattled the cages of the stodgy GOPe. It’s a slur on Reagan’s reputation to group him together with the GOPe-ers of his era.
Reagan did form a coalition which included the GOPe, which is something Trump did not do. I’m glad Trump did not, because the GOPe has gotten even worse and more dangerous since the Reagan era. It would have corrupted Trump’s presidency to ally with them. One of the reasons I went from an extremely reluctant Trump voter to an enthusiastic supporter is that he didn’t step into that trap.
Now it is true that when upstarts come to power, stay in power, and then become set in their ways, they too will become the establishment that needs to be expunged. In that sense you are right that the GOPe is simply the GOP. But it doesn’t describe what you think it describes.
So for now I wish GOPe would become a pejorative and will do my best to make it one. I have a lot more basis for doing that than you have for making a frog a pejorative.
I’ve been harshly critical of Trump on this thread because of his self-destructive tendencies. But I voted for him twice. Directionally he was correct. He should have no political future but none of the people you mention should either and, in their case, it is both on policy and political grounds. They all seek to go back to a GOP interventionist party that seeks to Make America Great Again via foreign wars; a party that want to resume traditional alliances without recognizing the world has changed; a party that is a subsidiary of the US Chamber of Commerce and more interested in cutting capital gains taxes than the future of working Americans; a party that runs away from real immigration reform. And a party that not only refuses to recognize the greatest challenges to decent Americans, but runs away from facing them – the totalitarian nature of the Democratic Party and our major institutions that seek to instill a false narrative of American history and threatens, intimidates, and censors decent people by tossing them out of their jobs and careers if they dissent from the new narrative.
Sasse’s cowardly article in The Atlantic is a prime example. He attacks his fellow Republicans in a magazine read primarily for Progressives who hate the GOP whether it be one led by Trump or Sasse. He’s a useful idiot. If any of these people want to have a future as a national figure in the GOP, they ought to be attacking Progressives in government and our institutions every day, denouncing their un-American behavior.
For all of Trump’s many faults that is something he did not shy away from. He may have done it ineptly at times but at least recognized its importance.
I really, really like this comment. I think it portrays and outlines how the Trump Presidency has shown the way to create a new majority party of Republicans for the people to replace a minority party of Republicans whose first priority has been corporate, initially American and then/now global. The Democrats seem very willing to adopt the corporate/global mantle so I say let them go for it.
It is unlikely to happen because Sasse needlessly alienates base Republicans who voted for Trump in 2020 and may have been horrified by the Capitol riot; however, thought that impeachment was merely a club to beat Republicans with. The GOP is not going to win by running the second Romney or McCain campaign. I don’t think Trump is the right choice either, although I will allow that events could change that. Trump alienates people the Republicans need to win; however, he energizes and broadens the Republican base as well. He had the largest turnout of African and Hispanic Americans for a Republican candidate in the modern age. That having been said he lost the suburbs. What we need is someone who can take the best parts of Trump’s message and style and leave off the excesses. That isn’t Sasse. I also don’t think it is Hawley or Cruz. I don’t know who it is at this point but It is most like not a NT, NAT, or ET politician. It is someone who is broadly MAGA but less threatening to the suburbs, but it has to be someone who knows that the really enemy isn’t Trump it is the Democrats.
Why not? One criterion is that a candidate has to have been tested under fire by the hate media, and I think those two have stood up pretty well (if one puts aside Cruz’s recent “apology.”)
Interesting…
I think I mentioned before that I would prefer Governors to Senators. I was a strong Cruz support in 2016 and am still happy to call him my Senator; however, I don’t think he has the broad appeal that Trump has, while he definitely alienates many of the same people Trump does. I would be happy to vote for Cruz in a general if he wins the nomination but In an honest analysis I don’t think he can win in the general. Honestly I don’t know enough about Hawley to have a firm opinion other than a general preference against Senators. Could they change my mind? Sure, but winning is the key and to do that you have to be able to put together a bigger coalition than Trump did. I don’t think either of these guys can do that based on what I am seeing right now.
I prefer governors to senators, too, because I want to see how people respond to the stress of the hate media when they are taking administrative actions. We don’t get to see that with Senators. But I also want to undermine the GOPe’s ongoing whispering campaign that says Cruz can’t win the general election. They need to think that we think he is the one.
I am reminded of an interesting course of events…(from memory) I am old enough to recall a certain Gov. GWB sending a sternly written letter to the EPA about the bounds of their authority and how he wasn’t going to stand for their overreach. Then, about a year later, a certain Pres. GWB directing/allowing that same EPA to push those same boundaries from the other direction. Such is the world of compassionate conservatism. Same goes for maverick conservatism, severe conservatism, “country first” conservatism, NT conservatism, and any other marketed brand of fake conservatism you care to plop on the table with all these other turds.
Well we agree no one from the GOPe can win a general. The best they can do is lose gracefully. The GOPe is a non-governing coalition that is extremely happy with minority status and content to have the crumbs left over from the leftist’s table. That having been said. I Think Cruz has some challenges even getting to a general election. I’ll support him before a Haley, Rubio, or Sasse for sure. I will also vote for him in a general happily; however, he has to show me something in the primary to get me to take another look. There is no way forward with the GOPe, NT, or NTA of this I am certain. I don’t think a straight up Ever-Trump politician can win the general at this time. In four years that could change. I think what we need is a MAGA candidate that is somewhat independent of Trump, i.e. someone who has been pro-Trump but has an independent record as well. Governors fit this bill quite well.