The New Republic: The Populist Realignment That Never Came

This is a bitter pill to swallow:

“The White House has sent its budget recommendation to Congress, and it’s a spending agenda only a plutocrat could love. The proposal would slash funding for Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and other social programs, but nonetheless run up deficits by increasing funding for the military, the Mexican border wall, and President Donald Trump’s other priorities. While some have expressed amazement about Trump’s willingness to increase the national debt, this is an aspirational budget in line with the Republican Party’s reactionary agenda.

As The Washington Post notes, the budget “hits the poorest Americans the hardest, slashing billions of dollars in food stamps, health insurance and federal housing subsidies while pushing legislation to institute broad work requirements for families receiving housing vouchers, expanding on moves by some states to require recipients of Medicaid and food stamps to work.” As a candidate and president, Trump repeatedly promised to leave Medicaid and Medicare alone, but now he has completely embraced the Republican agenda of austerity for the poor. …”

The old Trump was supposed to realign American politics by foreswearing key pillars of the Republican agenda. He was going to respect entitlements and pour hundreds of billions into infrastructure, thereby winning the Republican Party the loyalty of the working class of all races. …”

Remember the Amtrak train crashes?

The Trump Budget also slashes Amtrak funding. This budget is going nowhere, but it reveals what the Trump administration would do if it had the power. It’s not doing anything near what Steve Bannon (who is that?) snake charmed voters into believing in the 2016 election.

This was a classic example of a Republican bait-and-switch: running on a populist-nationalist platform, governing on the conservative one that primary voters rejected. As I write this, Sen. John Cornyn is on the floor of the Senate pitching his DACA amnesty, which the GOP needed the Senate in the 2014 midterms to stop, and the White House in the 2016 presidential election to rescind.

About Hunter Wallace 12379 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

4 Comments

  1. Assuming there will be another presidential election (which looks sort of doubtful) and I haven’t defected to Russia or North Korea, guess who will NOT be voting for Trump again?

  2. Bait and switch indeed. Not much to choose from in the beginning. Strange that cynicism and wisdom are so proximate in politics. In the Great White North, the conservative party leader is a jew larping as a christian (((Scheer))). The liberal leader is the cuckold son of Fidel Castro. You must choose, goyim! Democracy ain’t free.

  3. What I think a lot of people fail to understand is that the editors at TNR, NRO etc. literally sit around for hours at a time thinking up stories they can use as a wedge to stick between Trump and the people who elected him.

    I just don’t get why people on our own side are so eager to validate these wedges, no matter how tenuous or tendentious they are.

    Something is gravely wrong when you are constantly at odds with your own side while constantly agreeing with the people who want to destroy you. Folks in this position need to stop and ask themselves some tough questions.

    But it usually never happens because these people are just not able to see it. They’re too caught up in their own savior complexes and seeing themselves as the “lone voice of reason.” Worse, they willing allow themselves to be operated and moved around by the media. The media yanks their chain, and they dance like marionettes.

    If you want to read actual valuable criticisms of Trump, read VDare.

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