What If Trump Had Won As a Democrat?
It’s not as crazy as it sounds. And taking the idea seriously offers revealing insights about our political culture. By Matt Latimer
| July 08, 2017 Not long ago, the writer Peter Beinart offered an interesting idea about our 45th president: “Someone should write a novel in which he runs and wins as a Democrat.” Underpinning this suggestion, of course, is the highly probable possibility that at one point or another the ideologically ambidextrous Donald Trump contemplated just such a scenario.
It’s a fascinating thought experiment: Could Trump have done to the Democrats in 2016 what he did to the Republicans? Why not? There, too, he would have challenged an overconfident, message-challenged establishment candidate (Hillary Clinton instead of Jeb Bush) and with an even smaller number of other competitors to dispatch. One could easily see him doing as well or better than Bernie Sanders—surprising Clinton in the Iowa caucuses, winning the New Hampshire primaries, and on and on. More to the point, many of Trump’s views—skepticism on trade, sympathetic to Planned Parenthood, opposition to the Iraq war, a focus on blue-collar workers in Rust Belt America—seemed to gel as well, if not better, with blue-state America than red. Think the Democrats wouldn’t tolerate misogynist rhetoric and boorish behavior from their leaders? Well, then you’ve forgotten about Woodrow Wilson and John F. Kennedy and LBJ and the last President Clinton.
There are, as with every what-if scenario, some flaws. Democrats would have deeply resented Trump’s ‘birther’ questioning of Barack Obama’s origins, and would have been highly skeptical of the former reality TV star’s political bona fides even if he hadn’t made a sharp turn to the right as he explored a presidential bid in the run up to the 2012 election. His comments on women and minorities would have exposed him to withering scrutiny among the left’s army of advocacy groups. Liberal donors would likely have banded together to strangle his candidacy in its cradle—if they weren’t laughing him off. But Republican elites tried both of these strategies in 2015, as well, and it manifestly didn’t work. What’s more, Trump did once hold a passel of progressive stances—and he had friendships all over the political map. As Bloomberg’s Josh Green notes, in his Apprentice days, Trump was even wildly popular among minorities. It’s not entirely crazy to imagine him outflanking a coronation-minded Hillary Clinton on the left and blitzing a weak Democratic field like General Sherman marching through Georgia. And besides, it’s fun to think about.
So how, in fact, might history have changed if Trump descended that infamous golden escalator and declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination? And how would it be (depressingly) the same?
Below: a guess at some of key moments from the first six months of the presidency of Donald J. Trump, Democrat:
January 20, 2017In a star-studded celebrity Inauguration, where attendees include Cher, Madonna, Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres, President Trump offers stirring praise to his predecessors. “We are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition. They have been magnificent,” he says—and with rhetoric that seem squarely aimed at the Republican leadership, slams “a small group in our nation’s capital that has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.” Republicans criticize the speech for its “angry, bitter tone.” Former President George W. Bush is heard remarking, “That was some weird shit,” a comment that MSNBC’s Chris Matthews calls “outrageous” and “disrespectful.”
January 21, 2017<..snip..>
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/08/what-if-trump-had-won-as-a-democrat-215351
