Julius Krein: "It’s no longer early"

В суматохе событий последней недели почти незамеченной прошла знаковая статья Джулиус Крейна I Voted for Trump. And I Sorely Regret It.

For months, despite increasing chaos and incoherence, I have given Mr. Trump the benefit of the doubt: “No, I don’t really think he is a racist,” I have told skeptical audiences. “Yes, he says some stupid things, but none of it really matters; he’s not really that incompetent.” Or: “They’ve made some mistakes, but it’s still early.”

It’s no longer early. Not only has the president failed to make the course corrections necessary to save his administration, but his increasingly appalling conduct will continue to repel anyone who might once have been inclined to work with him.

Крейн – это довольно примечательная личность. Совсем молодой - ему только-только исполнилось 30 лет - он получил довольно широкую известность во время выборов, когда вместе с другими авторами поддерживал про-Трамовский блог (ныне уничтоженный) Journal of American Greatness; по итогам выборов он же объявил о новом издании American Affairs. Он был одним из главных претендентов на философское обоснование "трампизма" как политического течения. В приведенной выше статье он кратко суммирует свое видение:

... Mr. Trump eschewed strict ideologies and directly addressed themes that the more conventional candidates of both parties preferred to ignore. Rather than recite paeans to American enterprise, he acknowledged that our “information economy” has delivered little wage or productivity growth. He was willing to criticize the bipartisan consensus on trade and pointed out the devastating effects of deindustrialization felt in many communities. He forthrightly addressed the foreign policy failures of both parties, such as the debacles in Iraq and Libya, and rejected the utopian rhetoric of “democracy promotion.” He talked about the issue of widening income inequality — almost unheard of for a Republican candidate — and didn’t pretend that simply cutting taxes or shrinking government would solve the problem.

He criticized corporations for offshoring jobs, attacked financial-industry executives for avoiding taxes and bemoaned America’s reliance on economic bubbles over the last few decades. He blasted the Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz campaigns for insincerely mouthing focus-grouped platitudes while catering to their largest donors — and he was right. Voters loved that he was willing to buck conventional wisdom and the establishment.

He flouted G.O.P. orthodoxy on entitlements, infrastructure spending and, at times, even health care and “culture war” issues like funding Planned Parenthood. His statements on immigration were often needlessly inflammatory, but he correctly diagnosed that our current system makes little sense for most Americans, as well as many immigrants, and seems designed to benefit the wealthy at the expense of working people.

Не открою Америку, если скажу, что каждый, отдавший свой голос за нынешнего Президента, голосовал за какую-то свою версию "Трампа". Невозможно отрицать, что даже не совпадая с Крейном полностью в смысле политических взглядов, его версия "Трампа" обладает безусловной притягательностью. Наверно, далеко не все формулировали это для себя с подобной тщательностью; но мнение, что Трамп - в принципе, нормальный мужик, давно известный и в каком-то смысле "привычный", толковый и прагматичный бизнесмен, не идеолог, не помешан на религии, не без харизмы и при всех своих закидонах в общем многим симпатичный - было, безусловно, очень распространено и легло в основу победы Трампа на выборах.

Теперь от этого ощущения не осталось и следа.

Кругман пишет в своем блоге, по горячим следам после ухода Бэннона:

... what did Trump seem to offer that was new? First, during the campaign he combined racist appeals with claims that he wouldn’t cut the safety net. This sounded as if he was offering a kind of herrenvolk welfare state: all the benefits you expect, but only for your kind of people.

Second, he offered economic nationalism: we were going to beat up on the Chinese, the Mexicans, somebody, make the Europeans pay tribute for defense, and that would provide the money for so much winning, you’d get tired of winning. Economic nonsense, but some voters believed it.

Where are we now? The herrenvolk welfare state never materialized, in part because Trump is too lazy to understand policy at all, and outsourced health care to the usual suspects...

Meanwhile, things have moved very slowly on the economic nationalism front — partly because a bit of reality struck, as export industries realized what was at stake and retailers and others balked at the notion of new import taxes. But also, there were very few actual voices for that policy with Trump’s ear — mainly Bannon, as far as I can tell.

So if Bannon is out, what’s left? [...]

On real policy, in other words, Trump is now bankrupt.

Или то же самое, словами самого Бэннона: "The Trump Presidency That We Fought For, and Won, Is Over." (via)

Я думаю, он знает, о чем говорит.