The following article was posted on the TrumpAccountable.org website August 18, 2017:
Recently fired adviser to the President Steve Bannon likes it when progressives talk about racism because it distracts them from Trump’s core message of economic, nationalistic populism. “I want them to talk about racism every day,” Bannon told The American Prospect earlier this week. “If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”
Indeed while much of the country processed and litigated Trump’s controversial comments on Charlottesville, Republicans were meeting at Rancho del Cielo, Ronald Reagan’s country home, to honor Reagan’s 1986 tax reform success and continue building momentum for tax reform in Congress this fall.
There seem to be two ways of looking at this:
- Distraction – While Trump distracts the country with controversial statements about racism that embolden white supremacists, tax and policy wonks in the White House and Congress can quietly meet to craft tax legislation that will in all likelihood increase the deficit while also giving enormous tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans.
- Lost Allies – Trump is imperiling his legislative and domestic agenda by supporting white supremacists and throwing rocks at Republican members of Congress who call him out on his unpresidential behavior. When he needs Lindsey Graham (R-SC) or Jeff Flake (R-AZ) to help him pass controversial legislation, he may find himself with another Obamacare-McCain moment.
We see both narratives playing themselves out in the media and discussed ad nauseum with cable news panelists across the country.
It may be that the “Distraction” narrative, which seems to play into Bannon’s strategy to get the left to focus on race, is the operating plan. However, that means that there has to be reasonable confidence that Republicans can cobble together a tax plan that the public will support and that enough Republicans can support. With the failure of Obamacare repeal and replace legislation, this may be a taller order than they can deliver.
A Reuters piece on the meeting at Rancho del Cielo on Wednesday, for example, lead with the headline “Republicans Offer Few Tax Plan Details at High-Profile Event.” Every time they offer tax plan details the media and special interest groups likely to be affected by tax code changes launch a blistering PR effort. It’s shaping up like the Republican’s ill-fated answer to Obamacare: a plan crafted by a select number of Republicans in a back room with no bipartisan or popular support.
View the post here.