Not anymore…..
I HAVE made the point here countless times that Trump has had Democratic leanings when he took office….
I have gotten flack on my views…
I only see those very few of those leanings pop up for a few minutes these days
They are promptly extinguished…
But FiveThirtyEight has given my views meat….
Trump NOW is a certified conservative …..
Ah, whatever that means these days…
Trump was an unusual candidate in many ways, but one important one was that before he took office, we knew less about his political philosophy than that of perhaps any other modern president. We’re now almost a year into Trump’s tenure, though, and his policy agenda has been almost entirely orthodox Republicanism. Voters have noticed.
Before Trump moved into the White House, he took a mix of liberal and conservative positions. He was, for example, vehemently against illegal immigration but in favor of infrastructure spending. He was against gun control, but he claimed to be stronger than Hillary Clinton on LGBT rights. When you totaled up Trump’s ideological score on economic and social issues from the website OnTheIssues — which assigns an ideological grade to politicians’ statements and votes on a scale that we’ve converted to go from -5 (very liberal) to +5 (very conservative) — he came in at +42.5. His score was closer to 0, perfectly “moderate,” than any incoming president of the past 40 years except George H.W. Bush.
Trump’s ideology was hard to pin down before he took office
OnTheIssues scores as of Nov. 2016
| SCORE | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| PRESIDENT | ECONOMIC | SOCIAL | TOTAL |
| Barack Obama | -30.0 | -30.0 | -60.0 |
| Jimmy Carter | -27.5 | -32.5 | -60.0 |
| Bill Clinton | -27.5 | -17.5 | -45.0 |
| George H.W. Bush | +20.0 | +15.0 | +35.0 |
| Donald Trump | +15.0 | +27.5 | +42.5 |
| Gerald Ford | +22.2 | +27.5 | +49.7 |
| George W. Bush | +32.5 | +27.5 | +60.0 |
| Ronald Reagan | +27.8 | +33.3 | +61.1 |
Trump’s stances led voters to believe he was relatively moderate for a Republican — or at least that he was ideologically idiosyncratic. More voters viewed Trump as liberal than any incoming GOP president since at least Ronald Reagan, and fewer voters viewed him as conservative than any Republican since at least Reagan. That stood in stark contrast to Clinton, whom the clear majority of voters saw as liberal. Trump’s ideological positioning relative to Clinton’s may have been one of the reasons he was able to pull off a slim Electoral College victory against her.
Upon entering the White House, however, Trump has taken up a primarily conservative agenda….
More…
Note…
Trump registered as a Republican in Manhattan in 1987 and since that time has changed his party affiliation five times. In 1999, Trump changed his party affiliation to the Independence Party of New York. In August 2001, Trump changed his party affiliation to Democratic. In September 2009, Trump changed his party affiliation back to the Republican Party. In December 2011, Trump changed to “no party affiliation” (independent). In April 2012, Trump again returned to the Republican Party.
In a 2004 interview, Trump told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “In many cases, I probably identify more as Democrat,” explaining: “It just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats than the Republicans. Now, it shouldn’t be that way. But if you go back, I mean it just seems that the economy does better under the Democrats […] But certainly we had some very good economies under Democrats, as well as Republicans. But we’ve had some pretty bad disaster under the Republicans.”In a July 2015 interview, Trump said that he has a broad range of political positions and that “I identify with some things as a Democrat.”….
The flack you took was not because of your view.
It was because it was meaningless.
You even say it,” Trump is now a certified conservative.”
What we were saying is that it didn’t matter about his past views,rather it was his present views and his actions as President that counted.No one denied his “ past views.”Once again,so?
RonaldReagan was once aNew Deal Democrat but he wasn’t as President.Irving Kristol,Bills father ,was once a Trotskyite Communist who later essentially becomes the original “neocon.”
History is replete with people who change or modify their views.There is nothing exceptional about what Trump has done.
Once again, though, this illustrates how you lack the basic comprehension about what those who criticize you and your views are even talking about and often respond , as you are doing here ,to a point they didn’t even dispute
And it was why so much criticism is rightly directed your way.
So,James, yes, we all understand that ,at various times in the past, Donald Trump expressed views associated with the Democratic Party and indeed was a member thereof and,once again,
SO?
Thank You Jack for finally acknowledging my point of view on Trump’s Democratic leanings….
Sorry you didn’t understand Jack’s point. Comments like you just made are the reason that we don’t engage with you more often,.
I can’t determine whether he is purposefully obtuse,a liar, or just plain dumb.
Whatever ,your point is well taken.
The less one engages him in any sort of discussion, the better off one is.
Actually, I think James sort of regards us as an “audience” for his daily dose of inane comments,
I “acknowledged” what was already general knowledge.Your “point of view?”
I don’t know what you are talking about.
A “fact “(that Trump was at one time aDemocrat) is not a”point of view” James.
Again….
Thanks Jack…
We ALL play our parts….
Yours is more like the “village idiot.”
Anyone who doesn’t understand the difference between a “fact” and a”point of view” is dumb.
Like I said earlier, you are either being purposefully obtuse, a liar or just plain dumb.
Whichever it is?I find it distasteful in the extreme.I am going to try to refrain from responding to anymore of your foolishness.Since almost all your comments are foolish my communication with you will be limited.
I notice that Scott rarely,if ever, directly responds to you.Hes probably the smartest guy here.Im going to follow his lead.
Come on, hug it out fellas. Think of what unites you…. a shared hatred of Republicans!
Jack doesn’t bother me…
We do this at least 2 or 3 times a year….
It’s what we do here….
2 or 3 times a “year”?
The term “village idiot” sounds offensive. I prefer “gormless gimp”.
I don’t hate Republicans. I just see many, but not all, as amoral beings. An example is the baby prisons. I don’t like illegal immigration as much -if not more – than anyone here. But young children could be traumatically affected the rest of their lives. I know that because I have some scars myself. Trump only took action because they were politically unpopular with everyone but Republicans. But penalizing children to get at their parents is nothing short of amoral.
If we “hate” Republicans,then ,CG “hates” Democrats.
The criticisms leveled here against Republicans is certainly no worse than his criticisms of Democrats.
I agree with ya Z….
Trump himself started off supporting the DACA program and saying he had to do something….
Trump himself started off saying he’s sign ‘anything’ Congress brought to him on immigration…
The truth is , as you point out, Trump doubled BACK to the Right each time he tried to find some sort of middle ground in immigration policy….
They literally took him in a room and told him if you play to your moderate to left leanings on immigration it will hurt the right and your support…..
And Donald disavowed his previous point of view…
Paddering?
Heck, even his current wife HAS to be uncomfortable with the way this is playing out…
She’s an immigrant
And don’t hate Republicans on the whole…
People are individuals….
People are also NOT just one thing…
I thought James didn’t think 538 was credible because they gave Trump over 20% odds that he would win the 2016 election, and James foolishly thought Trump’s odds of winning were close to zero. So to say that 538 is not credible one day and then quote from them “to prove” something the next day is disingenuous.
And yes, everyone knows that Trump was not a pure conservative either before he took office or even after he was elected. Getting rid of NAFTA was typically considered a liberal position – even though it is not a liberal position I agree with.
It will be interesting to see whether Trump has permanently redefined what it means to be “conservative” in the US. At a minimum, it appears that being conservative in the US now means to strongly support heavy deficit spending. Ironically, the same Republicans who support massive deficit spending (such as the tax bill) also oppose increasing the debt ceiling! Most of us know this is all a game to appeal to the GOP base – which is increasingly only comprised of poorly educated white people who don’t understand what is going on. Trump knows how to successfully play to this crowd.
538 like EVERYONE else got the 2016 wrong….
Silver DID give Trump better odds in the end then most others…..
The odds of rolling a “3” with a dice is one in six. But if a “4” comes up, that doesn’t mean the .167 odds were wrong. There is no reason to believe 538 was wrong with the Trump prediction. Sorry you are not able to understand the concept.
As Jack often says…..conservatism is bunk.
It means nothing anymore than railing against the Non FOX media and being complete bigots and assholes just because it might produce “liberal tears”.
The Republican Party is either complicit or lacls the balls to do anything about it so it’s time to defeat them all.
George Will and I agree with you Scott.
Today’s New York Post (owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International) is not happy at all. See this cover:
Prez gives big Bear Hug
to wicked BFF Vlad,
jabs US intel
SEE NO EVIL
https://nypost.com/cover/covers-for-july-17-2018/
¶ But more relevantly to this ancient thread — and specifically to the point that Jack has been arguing with James since some time in the Obama Administration — is a Post column about who’s changing their policy positions, by Jonathan S. Tobin of National Review:
…But these theories have it backwards with respect to Trump and conservatives. On the vast majority of issues, it’s Trump who has discarded his past stands in order to conform with the views of most Republicans, not the other way around.
It’s true that Republicans now support a populist president who is a protectionist and has a soft spot for Russia, positions that most in the party opposed. Yet Trump the longtime liberal on domestic and social issues is now Trump the tax cutter, apostle of deregulation and president who has become a fierce defender of religious liberty and constitutional conservatism.
It may have taken a leap of faith for Republicans to vote for a man bereft of conservative principles or religious convictions, but he kept his promises to them about appointing conservative judges like Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.
Even on foreign policy, where his isolationist tendencies are a reason for concern, Trump has taken stands that are in accord with that of the pre-2016 party. On the Middle East peace process, Jerusalem and the Iran nuclear deal, Trump has done the bidding of the conservative base, not the reverse.
If some Never Trumpers now oppose Trump on taxes, Iran, climate change and many other issues, it is they who have changed their tune, not other Republicans….
https://nypost.com/2018/07/16/no-the-republican-party-isnt-headed-for-a-split/