Congressional GOP Chooses Donor Class Over Trump Base

Mainstream Republicans in Congress are caught between the rock of Trump's rabid nationalist base and the hard place of the incessant greed of their already deep-pocketed donors. So far, under Trump, they have chosen their donors every time.

I never understood the widespread popularity of "repeal and replace" among the Republican base. Maybe it was like one of those advertising jingles that sticks in you head and became a catchy slogan that stood for something else. Even in the red states, Medicaid expansion was pretty popular, but perhaps those people did not understand those programs were Obamacare, instead thinking, Kynect, for example, was something entirely separate. Perhaps it was the ACA forcing them into high deductible, high co-pay policies. But that would probably mean they only had junk insurance before. Perhaps it was driven by that group of people who did not qualify for subsidies and were paying through the nose for insurance, although not as much as they would have paid pre-ACA for real insurance. But that group is a pretty small sliver of the electorate, certainly not enough in numbers and in monetary power, to drive Republican policy. Or perhaps it was just the usual GOP envy that "those people" were getting "something for nothing".

But for the Congressional Republicans, "repeal and replace" offered the opportunity to feed their donor class even more money. Essentially gutting Medicaid in order to pay for an even more massive tax cut for the rich was not what even the Trump base was asking for. And, predictably, the popularity of the ACA increased as more and more people understood what they would lose.

Now Congressional Republicans are virtually trying the same trick again with their tax bill. That same Trump base is not looking to again cut Medicaid, and now even Medicare, to help offset the tax cuts that will largely not even accrue to their benefit. But that seems to be the Republican plan, again, simply to satisfy the donor class.

This disconnect is what the Bannon/Mercer faction is trying to exploit on behalf of Trump. When talking about Mike Pence and his benefactors, the Kochs, Bannon said, "They’re aligned on tax reform. The Kochs are a hundred per cent with you, so long as it means cutting taxes for the Kochs. Anything that will help the middle-class people? Forget it." Sheldon Whitehouse perceptively noted, "One by one, all the things that Trump campaigned on that annoyed the Koch brothers are being thrown overboard. And one by one the Koch brothers’ priorities are moving up the list." The corporate wing of the party is ascendant, even with Trump as President.

In some areas, Bannon's nationalist agenda almost matches up far better with the Sanders' wing of the Democratic party, especially when talking about taxes and infrastructure, than it does with the corporate wing of the Republican party, which is obviously why so many thought Sanders would have been a more effective candidate.

Trump may have been largely a creation of Bannon and the Mercers, but he is such an incompetent and ignorant man that he could not even control his own agenda and appointments. As Whitehouse also noted, the Kochs could "stick one hundred of their own people into the government—and Trump will never notice." That is pretty much what has happened. The only way Bannon could move his own nationalist agenda forward was to leave the White House and attack the corporate Republicans from the outside. The fact that the Republicans in Congress continue to adhere to the agenda of the corporate right makes his job that much easier.

More importantly, Republicans in Congress seem to have convinced themselves that tax cuts are the only thing that will save them in 2018. Now maybe the GOP can pass some kind of tax cut that will satisfy their donor class. However, that still looks like a heavy lift. Yes, it will keep the donors giving big money, but it certainly won't appease the Trump base. In fact, it might anger them even more. Perhaps they believe they can fend off challenges from the right with all that money but annoying your already disgusted base does not seem like a winning strategy. But passing a tax cut before the end of the year, at least, would give them a few months to appease their Trumpist base before the primary season begins.

What form that appeasement might take is the big question. The border wall would be the obvious choice as would deporting the Dreamers. But both of those would be nearly impossible with Democratic opposition and Trump himself seems largely ambivalent about the Dreamers. Perhaps the Republicans could move on to infrastructure, but that has so little immediate impact that it's hard to see it being a game changer. Pulling out of NAFTA would also be possible but that would just annoy the donor class once again.

Whatever the case, the corporate wing of the Republican party is under serious attack and the Republicans in Congress are the ones in the direct line of fire. But the battle lines have been clear for well over a year now and those same Republicans chose their side. Unlike in the past, I think it will be difficult for them to finesse their way out of it this time.