Has Trump Adopted An Ideology To Call His Own?

Click here for an article at Esquire by Charlie Pierce, entitled "Trump Finally Has an Ideology, and It Will Lead Us to Serious Trouble."

The premise of his story -- and I feel pretty much the same way -- is that he found comfort in Trump's seeming lack of ideology. He thought, as did I, that Trump's only concern was for his image as a celebrity, and his wallet. At least he wasn't a far-right wingnut like Cruz.

Pierce worries that someone -- Steve Bannon? Stephen Miller? -- has persuaded Trump that he needs to adopt some kind of ideology, at least for appearance's sake, to counter those who say he's a windsock, devoid of principle, adopting whatever course is expedient at the time (he can always change back again next week). And the ideology he seems to have adopted is pretty scary.

He's made common cause with the alt-right, giving tacit approval to the KKK and neo-Nazis, championing the cause of Confederate (racist) glorification. He pardoned fellow birther Sheriff Joe Arpaio because he holds the same bigoted, racist views. He's endorsed the new book of law-and-order freak Sheriff David Clarke. And he's lifted Obama's restrictions on military equipment -- tanks and other armored vehicles, grenade launchers, body armor, semi-automatic large-clip rifles -- to local police forces.

And he's supported to the hilt by his racist, bring-back-the-'50s buddy, Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III. He quotes CNN:

President Barack Obama issued an executive order in 2015 prohibiting the transfer of a host of equipment, including armored vehicles, grenade launchers, high-caliber weapons and camouflage uniforms following controversy over the "militarization" of the police response to unrest in Ferguson, Missouri. "We've seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like there's an occupying force as opposed to a force that's part of the community that's protecting them and serving them," Obama said at the time. "It can alienate and intimidate local residents and send the wrong message." President Donald Trump will sign a new executive order Monday rescinding Obama's directive and Attorney General Jeff Sessions addressed the policy change during a speech at the annual conference of the Fraternal Order of Police in Nashville, Tennessee, where he received multiple standing ovations and appeared touched by the warm welcome.

And again:

"(W)e are fighting a multi-front battle: an increase in violent crime, a rise in vicious gangs, an opioid epidemic, threats from terrorism, combined with a culture in which family and discipline seem to be eroding further and a disturbing disrespect for the rule of law," Sessions said, as he walked the audience of mostly law enforcement officials through a broad tour of his policy changes at the Justice Department over the past several months. "The executive order the President will sign today will ensure that you can get the lifesaving gear that you need to do your job and send a strong message that we will not allow criminal activity, violence and lawlessness to become a new normal," Sessions added.

Trump has adopted enthusiastically the ideology of the "constitutional sheriffs" movement:

This is a profoundly disturbed vision of democracy whereby the local sheriff is presumed to be the highest legal authority within a jurisdiction. Therefore, they are empowered to interfere with even the lawful authority of state and federal officials. (The actions of the Bundy bunch, recently acquitted in federal court, were based in this theory.) Both Joe Arpaio and David Clarke are adherents of this movement and, with a hurricane bearing down on Houston, the president* found time to pardon Arpaio and to plug Clarke's new book-like product on the electric Twitter machine.

America won't begin to recover until the election of a Democratic president, Senate, and House -- something Trump may bring about with his protectionist views on trade and his plummeting popularity. All we need now is a good solid economic downturn (scrap NAFTA!).