Donald Trump and his team displayed a ruthless efficiency in the process of making a platform, confiscating delegates’ cellphones and stifling dissent and even debate.
The new platform softened language on abortion, excised old language referring obliquely to gay conversion therapy and culled a section about reducing a national debt that Mr. Trump had increased by nearly $8 trillion during his term in office.
Mr. Trump made clear to his team that he wanted the 2024 platform to be his and his alone. He wanted it to be much shorter and simpler — and, in some cases, vaguer. He was especially focused on the language about abortion, which he recognized was a potentially potent issue against him in a general election. He wanted nothing in the platform that would give Democrats an opening to attack him, and he made clear to aides that he was perfectly fine with bucking social conservatives, for whom he had delivered a tremendous victory by reshaping the Supreme Court with a conservative supermajority.
Mr. Trump also stressed that he did not want to define marriage as between one man and one woman. Instead, the document contains a vague statement open to interpretation: “Republicans will promote a Culture that values the Sanctity of Marriage.”
One person involved in the process recalled Mr. Trump saying privately: “Sanctity of marriage. Don’t define it.”
The lack of promises with regards to abortion and same-sex marriage is huge. It’s a colossal shift. Trump has always been more of a traditional Jeffersonian Republican than a Federalist - he’s in favour of shifting power from the federal government to the states. This is an increasing indicator that the states will be what decides on these social topics, not the feds.
That also explains why he’s getting so much funding and support from the elite in Silicon Valley - they would like nothing more than for California to decide legislation rather than DC.
It’s increasingly apparent that Trump views the role of the federal government as an arbiter of the economy and the role of the United States (as a concept) as a way of unifying the disparate interests of different states with regards to foreign policy. By gutting federal agencies, the only logical result is pushing power down to the individual states.
I mean, yeah. It’ll be interesting to see if that means that they’ll still pursue those legislative ideals (just without a platform or unifying cry or whatever), or if they’re happy to push the responsibility down to the states.
My opinion is that the Republicans see the writing on the wall: why make unpopular decisions federally when you can make popular decisions at the state-level? They can maintain a christofascist state in their home ground without having to project onto states that’ll ignore their legislation anyway.
This is a huge paradigm shift. The Republican party went from being an evangelical Christian, tax-cut whackoparty into…
well, without the platform, nobody knows.
It’s just a change to be vague about polarizing topics to attract voters. There is zero accountability for campaign promises.
The lack of promises with regards to abortion and same-sex marriage is huge. It’s a colossal shift. Trump has always been more of a traditional Jeffersonian Republican than a Federalist - he’s in favour of shifting power from the federal government to the states. This is an increasing indicator that the states will be what decides on these social topics, not the feds.
That also explains why he’s getting so much funding and support from the elite in Silicon Valley - they would like nothing more than for California to decide legislation rather than DC.
It’s increasingly apparent that Trump views the role of the federal government as an arbiter of the economy and the role of the United States (as a concept) as a way of unifying the disparate interests of different states with regards to foreign policy. By gutting federal agencies, the only logical result is pushing power down to the individual states.
I think you’ve put more thought into his policies than he has
You can’t make it to lead an American political party without being at least one standard deviation smarter than the average American.
What evidence do you have of that?
A vague blank slate that people can project their hopes onto with no accountability whatsoever.
I mean, yeah. It’ll be interesting to see if that means that they’ll still pursue those legislative ideals (just without a platform or unifying cry or whatever), or if they’re happy to push the responsibility down to the states.
My opinion is that the Republicans see the writing on the wall: why make unpopular decisions federally when you can make popular decisions at the state-level? They can maintain a christofascist state in their home ground without having to project onto states that’ll ignore their legislation anyway.
So he wants to enact shitty awful terrible ideas still but he doesn’t want everyone to know he’ll enact those shitty ideas that no one likes.
I don’t think America can last another presidency of this braindead moron.