We need to undermine Trump’s populist brand

I’m not going to pretend to understand what is driving many of Donald Trump’s seemingly contradictory pronouncements and positions during his first two weeks in office. While it has become clear that his presidency will be just as chaotic and schizophrenic as his campaign, what is unclear is how much of it is a calculated political strategy and how much of it is simply a symptom of a personality disorder.

It’s also unclear whether there is a genuine gulf between his “establishment” advisers, led by Reince Priebus, and the nationalist/populist team, led by Steve Bannon, or whether the Trump administration has carefully mapped out a strategy for pursuing policies that appeal to different segments of the GOP base, including some that seemingly collide.

The contradiction is more clearly displayed on economic policy. While Wall Street is horrified by Trump’s threats of trade wars and public shaming of companies that off-shore jobs, it is salivating at the prospect of major tax breaks and financial deregulation. Meanwhile, the less well-to-do Trump supporters, including many of those in the heartland who supported both Obama and Trump, are likely cheering the president’s tough talk on trade but as for the Wall Street giveaways….well, who knows what they think about it at this moment? It isn’t getting nearly the attention from media and Democrats that it deserves.

And therein lies the challenge for progressives. While it was heartening to see thousands demonstrate on behalf of refugees and immigrants (even if I wish these people had paid more attention to the plight of immigrants over the last eight years), and fighting Steve Bannon’s racist authoritarianism is rightfully the top priority for the left at this point, defending multiculturalism is not enough, either in terms of policy or politics.

To defeat Trump we also have to undermine his populist brand by showing his working class supporters how he is screwing them over, just like every other crony capitalist Republican would.

The fact that Trump has filled his administration with Goldman Sachs alumni and is plotting to overturn Dodd-Frank is a great example. It’s frankly stunning to me that Trump, who if nothing else thinks in terms of optics, would so publicly embrace a group of people and a policy that are synonymous with the 2008 financial crash, but maybe he’s just assuming that Democrats will be too distracted by other issues to make a big deal about it.

Unfortunately, he wouldn’t be crazy to make that assumption. We’re talking about the party whose standard bearer thought nothing of taking $250,000 speaking fees from Goldman in the months preceding a campaign that she spent almost entirely in the presence of the uber-rich.

There are a number of other ways that Trump and Republicans in Congress will shaft average Americans that Democrats and progressives need to highlight.

For starters, Obamacare. I sincerely hope that the heckling that Republicans are getting at town halls over their nonexistent plan to repeal the ACA turns into a roar. Republicans are now facing the ugly reality that the central promise of their platform –– that they could provide a better health care solution than the ACA –– is a big, fat lie. That’s not to say there aren’t great alternatives to the ACA. They exist in just about every other western country. But it ain’t Republicans who are going to deliver single-payer care.

Also significant: Medicare and Social Security. After a campaign in which he repeatedly promised that he wouldn’t touch the programs that keep tens of millions of American seniors out of poverty, Trump has become suspiciously quiet on the subject. He has not renounced Paul Ryan’s stated plans to privatize Medicare and he has filled his administration with the same cast of supply-siders and austerity-mongers that you’d expect from any GOP administration.

Trump will undoubtedly push plenty of other awful anti-worker policies, including the rollback of the new overtime rule and a national “right to work” law aimed at weakening America’s already-emaciated unions.

To fully and utterly defeat Trumpism, the left has to successfully prosecute two cases against its charlatan-in-chief: That he’s a dangerous fascist and that he’s a liar who is using the Oval Office to pillage America’s working class for the benefit of himself and people like him.

The GOP is counting that the left focuses entirely on the first case against Trump. We shouldn’t shy away from the first, but we can’t forget the second one either.