Why Donald Trump Is Free To Show Independence From GOP
The president’s backers know he didn’t run as a traditional Republican.
By Gerald F. Seib
The Wall Street Journal
September 12, 2017
A few weeks after Donald Trump won the presidential election last year, the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll asked Trump voters why they went for the man who had just shocked the world.
Four in 10 Trump voters said one of the primary reasons was that he would change business as usual in Washington. By contrast, only one in 10 said they picked Mr. Trump because they thought he would pursue traditional Republican policies.
Those two numbers explain why now-President Trump probably is on safe ground in his sudden pivot to wooing Democratic leaders in Congress, while openly scorning those of his own Republican Party.
A large share of Trump voters picked him because they thought he would rattle the status quo—and by that they meant the status quo of both parties. Mr. Trump wasn’t a true ideological conservative, and his supporters knew that.
A few weeks after Donald Trump won the presidential election last year, the Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll asked Trump voters why they went for the man who had just shocked the world.
Four in 10 Trump voters said one of the primary reasons was that he would change business as usual in Washington. By contrast, only one in 10 said they picked Mr. Trump because they thought he would pursue traditional Republican policies.
Those two numbers explain why now-President Trump probably is on safe ground in his sudden pivot to wooing Democratic leaders in Congress, while openly scorning those of his own Republican Party.
A large share of Trump voters picked him because they thought he would rattle the status quo—and by that they meant the status quo of both parties. Mr. Trump wasn’t a true ideological conservative, and his supporters knew that.
He was barely a Republican, and his supporters also knew that. In the first moment of the first Republican primary debate, after all, Mr. Trump alone among the candidates refused to say he’d support the eventual GOP nominee or forswear running as an independent if he didn’t get the nomination.
In sum, Mr. Trump ran as a virtual political independent. He used the Republican Party apparatus when he had to, particularly when he rented it as a substitute campaign infrastructure. But the party’s congressional leaders had no love for him, and he none for them. After he won, he stood on the steps of the Capitol on Inauguration Day and delivered an angry address that attacked the entire Washington power structure arrayed around him, without regard to party.
Given all that, it’s actually surprising it took Mr. Trump this long to really break with his own party and to exercise an option that was always available to him: the option of trying to govern as he ran, which was as an independent in pursuit of working-class Democratic support.
Indeed, one of the great what-ifs of the current political era is this one: What if Mr. Trump had decided to adopt this tack at the very beginning of his administration? Bolstered by the support of those populist and working-class Democratic voters, he could have opened his presidency by moving out on three issues where he had the chance to win the support of some lawmakers in both parties: a plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure, establishment of a new trade regime and a tax cut focused on the middle class. On the first two, he had at least the tacit backing of Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.
But that isn’t what happened. Instead, Mr. Trump opened his presidency with two issues guaranteed to drive away Democrats: a ban on travel to the U.S. by residents of seven Muslim-majority countries he said were terrorist hotbeds, and an attempt to repeal the crown jewel of recent Democratic domestic policies, the Affordable Care Act.
He also accepted Republican congressional leaders’ assurances that they would produce a new health plan and a tax cut in short order, opening the way for the bipartisan favorite of infrastructure spending by year’s end. The effort failed, Mr. Trump was embarrassed and infuriated, and that helped spur his decision to turn to Democrats to strike a deal on hurricane relief and short-term budget problems.
At this point, if Mr. Trump really wants to operate as a political independent, and attract the support of politically independent Americans to bolster the effort, picking a fight with Republican leaders probably will only help him. In recent Journal/NBC News polling, the share of independents who had a negative view of the GOP outstripped those with a positive view by a hefty 31 percentage points.
Still, the limits to bipartisanship are real and significant. Disdain for Mr. Trump among rank-and-file Democrats will put a ceiling on how far Mr. Schumer or any other party leader can go in cooperating with him. Just 8% of Democrats say they approve of the job the president is doing, the latest Journal/NBC poll found. That’s half the share of Republicans who approved of Democrat Barack Obama’s performance at this stage of his presidency and one-seventh the share of Democrats who approved of Republican George H.W. Bush at this point.
That means Democratic leaders probably have the license to cooperate with Mr. Trump on raising the debt ceiling, funding government and improving infrastructure, and on some trade matters. But the party base figures to rise up against the kind of large-scale tax cut and defense-spending increases Mr. Trump envisions and revolt if he doesn’t agree to extend legal status for “Dreamers,” immigrants brought to the U.S. as young children.
So cooperation with Democrats has distinct boundaries. But nobody should be surprised Mr. Trump is choosing to test those boundaries at this point.
In sum, Mr. Trump ran as a virtual political independent. He used the Republican Party apparatus when he had to, particularly when he rented it as a substitute campaign infrastructure. But the party’s congressional leaders had no love for him, and he none for them. After he won, he stood on the steps of the Capitol on Inauguration Day and delivered an angry address that attacked the entire Washington power structure arrayed around him, without regard to party.
Given all that, it’s actually surprising it took Mr. Trump this long to really break with his own party and to exercise an option that was always available to him: the option of trying to govern as he ran, which was as an independent in pursuit of working-class Democratic support.
Indeed, one of the great what-ifs of the current political era is this one: What if Mr. Trump had decided to adopt this tack at the very beginning of his administration? Bolstered by the support of those populist and working-class Democratic voters, he could have opened his presidency by moving out on three issues where he had the chance to win the support of some lawmakers in both parties: a plan to rebuild America’s infrastructure, establishment of a new trade regime and a tax cut focused on the middle class. On the first two, he had at least the tacit backing of Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.
But that isn’t what happened. Instead, Mr. Trump opened his presidency with two issues guaranteed to drive away Democrats: a ban on travel to the U.S. by residents of seven Muslim-majority countries he said were terrorist hotbeds, and an attempt to repeal the crown jewel of recent Democratic domestic policies, the Affordable Care Act.
He also accepted Republican congressional leaders’ assurances that they would produce a new health plan and a tax cut in short order, opening the way for the bipartisan favorite of infrastructure spending by year’s end. The effort failed, Mr. Trump was embarrassed and infuriated, and that helped spur his decision to turn to Democrats to strike a deal on hurricane relief and short-term budget problems.
At this point, if Mr. Trump really wants to operate as a political independent, and attract the support of politically independent Americans to bolster the effort, picking a fight with Republican leaders probably will only help him. In recent Journal/NBC News polling, the share of independents who had a negative view of the GOP outstripped those with a positive view by a hefty 31 percentage points.
Still, the limits to bipartisanship are real and significant. Disdain for Mr. Trump among rank-and-file Democrats will put a ceiling on how far Mr. Schumer or any other party leader can go in cooperating with him. Just 8% of Democrats say they approve of the job the president is doing, the latest Journal/NBC poll found. That’s half the share of Republicans who approved of Democrat Barack Obama’s performance at this stage of his presidency and one-seventh the share of Democrats who approved of Republican George H.W. Bush at this point.
That means Democratic leaders probably have the license to cooperate with Mr. Trump on raising the debt ceiling, funding government and improving infrastructure, and on some trade matters. But the party base figures to rise up against the kind of large-scale tax cut and defense-spending increases Mr. Trump envisions and revolt if he doesn’t agree to extend legal status for “Dreamers,” immigrants brought to the U.S. as young children.
So cooperation with Democrats has distinct boundaries. But nobody should be surprised Mr. Trump is choosing to test those boundaries at this point.
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