After last Tuesday’s testy exchange between Donald Trump and Democratic leaders, it seems quite possible that the tweeter in chief will shut down the government in an attempt to get funding for a wall on the Mexican border. Even if you’re bitterly opposed to immigration, legal or otherwise, spending tens of billions of dollars on an ostentatious physical barrier is neither a necessary nor an effective way to stop immigrants from coming.
So what’s it about? Nancy Pelosi reportedly told colleagues that for Trump, the wall is a “manhood thing.” That sounds right. But that got me thinking. What other policies are driven by Trump’s insecurity? What’s driving this administration’s policy in general?
The answer to these questions, I’d argue, is that there are actually three major motives behind Trumpist policy, which we can label Manhood, McConnell and Moola.
By McConnell I mean the standard GOP agenda, which basically serves the interests of big donors, both wealthy individuals and corporations. This agenda consists, above all, of tax cuts for the donor class, with cuts in social programs to make up for some of the lost revenue. It also includes deregulation, especially for polluters but also for financial institutions and dubious players like for-profit colleges.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump posed as a different kind of Republican, someone who would protect the safety net and raise taxes on the rich. In office, however, his domestic policy has been totally orthodox. His only significant legislative victory in the first two years has been a tax cut that heavily favored the rich; he has done all he can to undermine health care for lower- and middle-income Americans; he has gutted both environmental protection and financial regulation.