The president-elect’s moves so far don’t adhere to strict conservative or outsider themes
it is increasingly apparent that President-elect Donald Trump is opening the door to the postideological era.
In fact, it’s nearly impossible to identify a clear ideological bent in the incoming president’s early moves
.. The emerging picture suggests only two safe predictions about the Trump presidency. The first is that there will be a continuing struggle between the populist Donald Trump, who battles the corporate world and its love of free markets above all else, and the more conventionally Republican Donald Trump, who is comfortable with the leaders of that same corporate, free-market-loving world.
.. We have just witnessed that rarest of things, a realigning election, in which the coalitions and prevailing ideological lines within both political parties have been shaken up and are going to be put back together in new patterns.
Mr. Trump won with the votes of blue-collar whites who once were reliably Democratic, and without the votes of many in the business world who once were reliably Republican.
.. The early emphasis on overturning the Affordable Care Act is entirely in keeping with putting a priority in overturning what conservatives call government overreach. But the move to save jobs in Indiana by convincing Carrier Corp. to stop plans to move an assembly line to Mexico was a classic use of government power—both through economic incentives and threats of reprisal made explicit in a Twitter shout-out Friday night—to try to dictate decisions in the marketplace.
.. or Mr. Trump, that may be the point. If there is a discernible Trump ideology, it may be simply to display strength, whether in staring down a corporate chief executive or the Chinese government.