The “Alt-Right has seized power” narrative is looking increasingly absurd.
I hadn’t seen this column until this morning. I was noticing the same trend in Trump’s Cabinet picks which stand in stark contrast to his rhetoric on the campaign trail:
“The prevailing opinion on President-elect Donald Trump is that he’s unpredictable, a man of no fixed views who transcends traditional notions of right and left. …
In Trump’s picks for economic and domestic policymaking jobs, there’s a consistent underlying thread. And no, it’s not that so many of them are billionaires.
It’s Republican orthodoxy. Trump’s choices have all been thoroughgoing conservatives who believe in the free market, deregulation and, wherever possible, privatization of government functions.
Most of them could have been nominated by any GOP nominee, including Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.
There’s nary a populist among them – not even the conservative kind.
“Conservatives are happy,” Scott Reed, a political advisor to the business-establishment U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told me. “It’s a mainstream conservative list of very competent people.”
Take a look at the names …
“This is a business-friendly Cabinet of pragmatists,” a top corporate lobbyist in Washington told me, asking for anonymity to protect his multinational clients. “These are people orthodox Republicans can work with.”
What happened to all the populism in Trump’s platform that made him the champion of so many white working-class voters? It’s been quietly downsized since election day.
The wall Trump promised to build along the southern border is now a fence. …”
Before this is over with, Trump’s administration is going to be the size of the Okefenokee Swamp if Reince continues to get his way and set the agenda:
“Trump campaign staffers are also angry that Priebus is attempting to staff the West Wing with mainstream GOP officials rather than Trump loyalists. According to sources, Priebus wants Trump to appoint RNC chief strategist Sean Spicer to serve as White House press secretary rather than Kellyanne Conway (who turned down the job, sources say); he is also promoting RNC chief of staff Katie Walsh for deputy chief of staff, and former George W. Bush deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin for deputy chief for operations. “If Priebus controls the schedule and the message, what does Bannon actually control?” one Bannon loyalist asked.
According to a senior transition official, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is supportive of Priebus’s staff choices because they bring a level of professionalism to the chaotic Trump team. But some at Trump Tower are alarmed that Priebus has so far not offered jobs to a number of Trump loyalists who may have been expecting them, including Michael Cohen, Corey Lewandowski, Hope Hicks, and Dave Bossie. “We didn’t fight two years against the swamp only to bring the swamp into the White House,” one senior Trump adviser told me. Sources said Trump himself may not be aware that members of his original team haven’t been offered jobs. With only about 40 West Wing positions available, Priebus is moving quickly to fill them with his choices. This may be one of the ways in which his knowledge of how the West Wing works puts him at an advantage. (For his part, Cohen describes that characterization as “inaccurate”: “Trump is the most loyal person I know,” he wrote to New York in an email. “He is currently filling certain key roles and upon completion, will concentrate on offering important roles to those who have been with him since the beginning of the campaign.”) …”
Sean Spicer is Reince’s lackey.
While so many people have been consumed by the #Pizzagate conspiracy, Reince has seized power within the transition team and is muscling in all these mainstream conservatives into key Cabinet positions. They will have the power to hire a slew of establishment Republicans in the departments underneath them.
Just wait for it … they’re going to move with lightning speed on things like deregulating Wall Street, repealing Obamacare and tax cuts which were never at the forefront of the campaign. They’re going to exhaust Trump’s victory on pushing the Paul Ryan agenda.