(04-04-2022, 12:16 PM)mikesez Wrote:

(04-04-2022, 11:32 AM)The Real Marty Wrote: What sort of "coherent deviation from Republican dogma" would you imagine?

He already changed Republican dogma in two important ways.  
One, you will no longer find any Republican advocating for mercy for any kind of illegal immigrant, regardless of how good they've been, or how young they were when they came over.  Unfortunately, this is an area where there was some cross party agreement before Trump, and he eliminated that. Members of both parties had agreed that they would pass a comprehensive immigration reform that took care of the illegal immigrants that are already here. Trump eliminated that possibility, but he could have at least worked on a reform of how we handle our borders and handle people coming in.  But instead he had a singular focus on getting a wall built.  And he got neither.

Two, you will no longer find any Republican arguing that tariffs are always bad. You will still find some arguing that they should be lower, or more selective, but after Trump, they are no longer the party of unfettered free trade.  This is a stance where they are finding some agreement with Democrats, especially Democrats from Rush Belt states.  So that's a bit of good news in my book. I think something good will come of it.  We will get closer in trade with countries that share our values, and farther from those that don't. Hopefully this takes the form of a new trade law, I wouldn't want our current president or the next one being able to unilaterally reverse these types of things.

So after you look at these two areas where Trump definitely had an impact, I feel like there are so many other areas where he could have had an even bigger impact. He could have forced his allies to tie their efforts to restrict abortion to increased welfare benefits and job security for mothers (about 4 out of 5 women who have abortions are already raising a kid).  He could have proposed laws staking out a middle ground on the new issues of wedding cake baking and transgender rights.  Trump left the gays alone but as soon as he left the scene those culture wars started up again because ignoring the issue is not the same thing as building consensus and healing around that issue.  Name any other hot button issue and you will see that Trump was provocative, increasing the temperature, and increasing the ideological sorting of the two parties. Trump's base would have forgiven him or even agreed with him if he had taken a different stance, and the rest of the Republican party would have been along for the ride, just like they are now.  He had a massive opportunity to change almost every facet of his party, and with the exception of two issues, he wasted it.

Contrast this with Joe Biden, who is much less gifted than Trump.  He became the leader of a diverse and disfunctional party, yet on so many hot button subjects he's at least proposed something.  Some of his proposals pass, some don't.  Some are conciliatory, some aren't, but at least he's putting them out.  Trump didn't put in that kind of work.  He just wanted to win the next news cycle.  He didn't care about the next floor vote.