Is Trump stronger than the ideology that got him elected?
For several months now, much of the national political debate has danced around one big question: which is more powerful, Trump or Trumpism? Mainstream Republicans should find an answer in the primary election victory of Judge Roy Moore over Trump-endorsed Sen. Luther Strange, R.-Ala. Trump’s ongoing struggle to hit his political stride means there’s a golden opportunity for new leadership to seize the mantle of insurgent nationalism. While someone at the fringe could do that, someone much closer to the respectable center could do it too – laying claim to the most popular parts of the populism Trump had promised, but has yet failed to deliver.
Consider the rather farcical course of the Alabama primary race. Because Strange had gone to bat for Trump’s agenda, the president felt some loyalty to the candidate. But he was also pushed by Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to help rally Republicans behind Strange, who was widely seen as vulnerable but not worth writing off. Yet Trump’s base, and his former consigliere Steve Bannon, lined up firmly behind Moore. Partly, the insurgents saw Moore as one of their own. But even more so, they saw Strange as one more limp creature of the Beltway establishment – the kind of person who needs to be beaten out of the GOP power structure in order to “drain the swamp.”
As a result of this political mess, Trump found himself publicly expressing misgivings toward Strange, who he rightly sensed was in real trouble. And on election night, when Strange was humiliated, Trump himself felt the burn. Embarrassed and infuriated, he has blamed McConnell, deepening an already significant estrangement that has pushed Trump closer to Congressional Democrats in an effort to get some political points on the board this legislative year. Bannon and company, meanwhile, are flush with a sense of momentum.
At the same time, neither Bannon nor Moore nor any public figure representing what was supposed to be Trumpism has shown the chops, the charisma, and the sophistication needed to set a workable agenda in Washington and show demonstrable progress toward the sort of realignment the GOP clearly needs.
As the established party whiffs time and again on implementing its own agenda, with “repeal and replace” at the top of the list, voters are still crying out for policies that will bring infrastructure, health care, and the tax code – to name just a few – out of their respective morasses and into the twenty-first century. For all their momentum, the insurgent outsiders bedeviling the Beltway GOP haven’t shown they can do what it takes to deliver.
That means one of two things: either a candidate will emerge who can, or mainstream Republicans and Democrats will continue fighting over political control and delivering too little to satisfy an increasingly restive and disillusioned electorate. To be sure, some Democrats have begun feeling out more populist and nationalist alternatives, especially on health care and trade. Even the Democratic leadership has shown a willingness to work with Trump in that way. Mainstream Republicans, however, have been more reluctant to do so, fearing that would help hand the party over to Trump.
— The Orange County Register, Digital First Media