It’s rather lonely being the Genderqueer Messiah, isn’t it? https://t.co/MHEfBTBGi3 h/t @AmPowerBlog pic.twitter.com/FUlYuCpfw2— The Patriarch Tree (@PatriarchTree) March 31, 2018
I wrote about the Roseanne reboot for the @nytimes. https://t.co/Oq1lhBoMcN
— roxane gay (@rgay) March 29, 2018
THIS—>Jews Are Being Murdered in Paris. Again. https://t.co/2gTRwJAk8l
— Christina Sommers (@CHSommers) March 30, 2018
How Trumpism upended long held Republican orthodoxy. My Sunday take: https://t.co/2frvCLtPmy
— Ashley Parker (@AshleyRParker) March 25, 2018
Over just a few days last week, the essence of Trumpism was on global display: The president ignored his advisers by congratulating Vladimir Putin, took the first steps toward imposing tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese goods and signed a huge $1.3 trillion spending bill that will balloon the federal deficit.Keep reading.
In each case, President Trump cast aside years of Republican orthodoxy — and most of the party followed right along. The raw, undefined brand of populism that Trump rode into office is now hardening into a clearer set of policies in his second year, remaking the Republican Party and the country on issues ranging from trade and immigration to spending and entitlement programs.
Even amid persistent unpopularity and the chaotic din of his White House, Trump has used a mix of legislation and unilateral actions to successfully push ahead with key parts of his vision — tariffs that have rocked global markets; harsh crackdowns on illegal immigrants; a nationalistic foreign policy that spurns allies while embracing foes and costly policies with little concern for the growing national debt.
The spending legislation — which puts the deficit on track to pass $1 trillion in 2019 — faced little meaningful opposition from Republican lawmakers despite years of GOP complaints that federal expenditures were out of control. Trump called the bill “ridiculous,” but focused on issues other than the amount of spending.
It was another example of how Trump seems to have overtaken his party’s previously understood values, from a willingness to flout free-trade principles and fiscal austerity to a seeming abdication of America’s role as a global voice for democratic values.
“While the president’s vision of pro-American immigration, trade and national security policies may not have had widespread support in Washington, they are widely supported by the American people,” said Raj Shah, a White House spokesman. “This is President Trump’s Republican Party.”
A tweet Friday, in which Trump threatened to veto the spending bill, also underscored another tenet of Trumpism — a state of continuous uncertainty about where he will land on key policies. In the tweet, Trump said he was frustrated with the legislation both because it “totally abandoned” young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers” (long a Democratic priority) and because it failed to “fully” fund his controversial border wall (now a Republican priority).
“There has certainly been a wholesale repudiation of many core principles that have guided the Republican Party’s thinking over the years,” said Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University. “Their willingness to accept certain victories on their agenda in return for the acceptance of Trumpism more broadly — that seems to be the guiding principle of Republican Party leaders.”
Trump allies and advisers say that while he has in some ways reshaped the Republican Party, he rose to power by understanding where the party’s base already was and channeling those existing worries and desires.
“I would argue that Trump is more a reflection of where the voters are today,” said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser. “I don’t think he persuaded them into these stances. That’s where they were. He’s merely being a mirror to them. . . . He heard what the voters were talking about, what they feared, the pain that they had, and he immediately championed it.”
White House officials also stressed that Trump’s professed “America First” theme serves as a kind of connective ideology, whether in prioritizing American workers over foreign workers on immigration or calling for NATO members to spend more on a shared defense. They said that on many regulatory and economic issues, such as last year’s tax cuts, the president and Republican lawmakers remain naturally aligned.
For many pro-Trump voters, one senior White House official said, the actual policies are less important than the principle — and the principal, Trump himself, promising to stand up and fight for them...
#BREAKING OC Board of Supervisors vote to join Trump admin lawsuit against CA over sanctuary lawhttps://t.co/uAWBgGYF9Q pic.twitter.com/BTFOOotpfk
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) March 27, 2018
Walmart pulls “Cosmopolitan” from checkout lines. @jolingkent explains why pic.twitter.com/tYlsNnApo6
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) March 28, 2018
Let's be clear: Cosmopolitan is filled with soft-core porn and Planned Parenthood propaganda. This is a good move by Walmart. I can't help but laugh at the irony of #MeToo and "women's liberation" intersecting. The downside of "intersectional feminism," I guess. https://t.co/fKwe8A0v4A
— Kelsey Harkness (@kelseyjharkness) March 28, 2018
John Paul Stevens: Repealing the Second Amendment would move Saturday’s marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform https://t.co/6USnyIMMDq
— NYT Opinion (@nytopinion) March 27, 2018
From @JonathanTurley: A full repeal of the #SecondAmendment is hard work, but it is the only way #MarchforOurLives won't be hijacked by political figures wanting to harness energy and votes more than save lives. https://t.co/iQrqPHPSmI
— USA TODAY Opinion (@usatodayopinion) March 28, 2018
Rep. Steve King’s campaign ties Parkland’s Emma González to ‘communist’ Cuba https://t.co/DSauujUDsF— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 26, 2018
ICYMI, @Emma4Change was proudly wearing a Cuban flag in support of an oppressive communist regime at the #MarchForOurLives. pic.twitter.com/4J8oP9xKjP— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) March 25, 2018
In one of the most publicized moments at Saturday's March for Our Lives, 18-year-old Emma González stood on the stage in complete silence, weeping. She marked the six minutes and 20 seconds that claimed the lives of 17 people at her high school in Parkland, Florida. And on her olive-green jacket, she wore several sewn-on patches, including a Cuban flag.More.
That flag, representing González's Cuban heritage, became the subject of attacks from some conservatives online over the weekend. And on Sunday afternoon, one of those critical messages appeared on the Facebook page for the campaign of a U.S. congressman — Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.
"This is how you look when you claim Cuban heritage yet don't speak Spanish and ignore the fact that your ancestors fled the island when the dictatorship turned Cuba into a prison camp, after removing all weapons from its citizens; hence their right to self defense," said the post, which also included a photo of González at the podium Saturday.
The meme, which was posted by King's campaign team, prompted hundreds of comments, many of them criticizing the congressman and defending González.
"Are you SERIOUSLY mocking a school shooting survivor for her ethnic identity?!" wrote Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando. "When it was my community, where were you? When it was Sandy Hook? Columbine? Were you on the sideline mocking those communities too? Did you question someone identifying as a mother? Did you question whether people like me were crisis actors?
"Emma stood for 6 mins and 20 seconds to honor the lives of 17 gone too soon," Wolf added. "The least you could do is shut your privileged, ineffective trap for 6 seconds to hear someone else's perspective."
King's campaign team promptly and defiantly fired back at individual comments, creating a heated exchange on the Facebook post.
"Pointing out the irony of someone wearing the flag of a communist country while simultaneously calling for gun control isn't 'picking' on anyone," the campaign team responded to Wolf's comment. "It's calling attention to the truth, but we understand that lefties find that offensive."
Reached for comment early Monday by The Washington Post, a spokesman for King's campaign said that the King for Congress Facebook page is managed by the campaign team, not the congressman himself.
"And the meme in question obviously isn't an attack on her 'heritage' in any way," the spokesman wrote in an email. "It merely points out the irony of someone pushing gun control while wearing the flag of a country that was oppressed by a communist, anti-gun regime. Pretty simple, really."
González has become a prominent face of the student-led movement against gun violence since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. And she has not been shy about explaining her various identities.
"My Name is Emma González. I'm 18 years old, Cuban and bisexual," she wrote in an essay in Harper's Bazaar last month. "But none of this matters anymore. What matters is that the majority of American people have become complacent in a senseless injustice that occurs all around them."
Her father immigrated to New York from Cuba in 1968, Univision has reported. Emma was born in the United States. As Univision wrote, González does not speak Spanish, "but her voice reveals the heritage of the communicative passion of mixed Hispanics with oratory skills perfected at school."
Other images attacking the teenager's Cuban heritage circulated in conservative circles online...
President Trump has ordered the expulsion of 60 Russians from the U.S., including 12 people identified as Russian intelligence officers stationed at the United Nations in New York, in response to the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain https://t.co/aGQIx7Sqxz— New York Times World (@nytimesworld) March 26, 2018
Noted Putinphile and Russia lackey Donald Trump expels 60 Russians from America. 🤔
— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) March 26, 2018
