Pres Trump Putting His Stamp on DC

For John, BLUF:  Good surface analysis, but a deeper dive is needed.  And, Mr Viser should be checking out the Massachusetts border towns.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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‘When are Republicans going to stand up to Trump?  Never.’  Here’s why

From The Boston Globe, by Mr Matt Viser of the Globe Staff, datelined 15 June 2018, out of Washington.♠

Here are the first three paragraphs:

President Trump’s White House presents a daily tableau of chaos, falsehoods, caustic attacks, and allegations of corruption.  But despite his stormy and impulsive management style — and in some ways, because of it — Trump is presiding over an administration that is grinding out policy victories with surprising efficiency, fulfilling campaign promises and propelling his support among Republican voters to record heights.

Nearly 18 months after taking office, his accomplishments have reached something of a critical mass, with Republicans rallying around him over wins that have thrilled the party base from social conservatives to defense hawks.  The majority of his successes have been reversals of the Obama agenda, a goal shared by Republican leaders who are now tacitly or actively participating in his remake of the 164-year-old Republican Party to match his own image and priorities.

Republican supporters assert that, after a rocky start in 2017, Trump has learned on the job and is now firmly in control of the GOP and the nation’s agenda.  If they are right, it is certainly Democrats’ worst nightmare.

OK, so far so good.

I thought this was an interesting comment by Mr Peter Fenn, a longtime Democratic strategist:

There are people, whether in the Justice Department dealing with immigration or in housing and urban development dealing with help for poor people — you’ve got ideologies in there who are undermining, in our view, clear, right policy objectives.

Interesting in that it is said like there were no ideologies under the previous administration, or no deeply imbedded ideologies left over in the Federal Government in the current Administration.  Ideologies are, apparently, only those evil Republicans.

Here is the concluding paragraph:

In those places where he placed very conservative people who had a clear agenda . . . there is definitely big change happening in subterranean ways,” said Daniel Gitterman, a professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has studied Trump’s executive orders.  “Perhaps by all the focus on dysfunction of the White House, we’re missing that he’s got some lieutenants who have a clear mission.

I am glad that sort of thing didn't happen in the previous Administration.  And you can tell by the way Government employees pretty evenly split their contributions amongst the several candidates for President in 2016.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Matt Viser can be reached at matt.viser@globe.com