But often the newest attempt at a new right offers a rhetoric of nationalism that cashes out in policies not obviously bolder than what reform conservatism offered.
.. So as an experiment, I thought I’d write a few columns (an intermittent series, as events permit) floating genuinely radical visions of how policy makers might respond to our order’s slippage toward something worse than stagnation. These will not be ideas that I find entirely convincing, they will not be fully fleshed-out, and I will disavow responsibility if they’re ever put into disastrous practice.
.. So an emergency response would set a more ambitious goal: a swift boost in work force participation and family formation, using a few sticks and a lot of very expensive carrots.
.. The sticks would include cuts to disability and unemployment benefits and tighter Medicaid eligibility rules for the able-bodied — not as “pay fors,” but simply to make sustained worklessness less pleasant.
.. The scale of spending means this proposal gores more conservative oxen than liberal ones. But that’s only because I’m saving a related proposal to ban pornography and video games for a later installment in this series — which I promise will only grow more outlandish as it grows.
Who does Donald Trump listen to? Other Trumps.
One trademark of the most unconventional campaign in modern history is that members of Trump’s family — who have virtually no political experience — are so deeply involved in his campaign that they often act as gatekeepers and strategists.
.. The campaign’s latest financial filings showed that not only did Trump have a surprisingly small amount of cash on hand — $1.3 million — but he had spent more than $1.1 million in May reimbursing his properties and family members for expenses.
.. Lewandowski’s abrupt departure was spurred in part by suspicions within the family that he was trying to sideline Kushner by spreading dirt to the media about him.
.. In 2005, Kushner’s father, Charles, was convicted in federal court of making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. The charges were rooted in a nasty family dispute that involved Charles Kushner hiring a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law in order to get an incriminating sex tape.
.. Jared Kushner — the 35-year-old chief executive of a huge family real estate company — now sits in campaign meetings with the prosecutor in that case, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), who was a U.S. attorney at the time and now advises Trump.
.. is widely credited with helping Trump write his well-received March speech to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.
.. Ivanka, 34, who is as controlled as Trump is spontaneous, has urged her father to soften his tone
.. Ivanka was key in him offering support for Planned Parenthood’s non-abortion work
Trump Family Values
people who’ve had business dealings with the three oldest Trump kids have described them to me as intelligent, even-keeled and relatively grounded in light of the media circus that surrounded their upbringing. That’s a reminder that for all of their father’s willful buffoonery, he has real smarts, real skills and a real place in polite society that they’ve all been exposed to.
THEY’RE an obedient lot, too, versed in the relevant talking points. They slipped in a reference to the self-funding of Trump’s campaign. They digressed to note that he was no poll-tested, focus-grouped political automaton.
.. Scratch that: He’s making it “amazing.” That was an adjective that his wife and kids, emulating his hyperbole, used 20 times during the town hall to describe Trump the man, Trump the mission, Trump the moment.
.. Donald Jr. proposed to his fiancée at a jewelry store in a New Jersey shopping mall to which TV cameras had been summoned, and there was chatter about his getting the ostentatious ring for free in the bargain. Those Trumps and their deals!
Trump’s Family Values
As my regular readers know, I am no fan of Trump’s — indeed, I fall somewhere between #probablyNeverTrump and #NeverTrump on the Republican spectrum. But let me nevertheless say a good word for Trump-family values.
.. It is true that Trump has discarded two wives, cheated on at least one of them, and (as I have) made a child out of wedlock. But he then married the woman who bore that child, however briefly. He has always supported all of his children financially, unlike many unmarried or irregularly married fathers. And he has managed to create and maintain close relationships with those children despite the barriers to fatherhood imposed by divorce.