But the contrasts extend beyond tax policy. A candidate who railed against trade deals and foreign wars, while promising to protect entitlement programs and restore manufacturing, now seems preoccupied with the stock market, how beloved he is by Americans who can afford “beautiful” boats, and how he’ll protect wealthy suburbanites and their “housewives” from the unwashed masses trying to overrun their neighborhoods…
Two people working on Trump’s re-election effort told The Daily Beast that they have directly implored the president in recent weeks to pivot back to the kind of populism that won him the presidency the first time. The advice seems to be falling on deaf ears, with one of the sources saying the president responded by saying he’s already doing a lot of it.
But Trump has created his own problems too. Having run on a pledge to “drain the swamp,” he’s turned around and hired prominent lobbyists for key administration positions. The Trump campaign website devoted to the promises the president has kept contains a page hyping his efforts at “making government accountable.” But its list of “recent achievements” ends in 2018, with the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
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