Has anyone else noticed how Bernie's Campaign is now influencing the GOP, especially Donald Trump's speeches and policy positions? In recent days, the GOP front runner came into the public view with the statement that Hedge Fund Managers are paying no taxes, that Bankers need to be reigned in, and that the Tax Code must be rewritten to provide for fair taxation, with upper income people paying more than the less well off.
I wrote a diary a few weeks ago about this astounding development in our National Politics. It was largely disdained, amended, quibbled over and dismissed as just something we would hear no more about.
This morning on NPR, longtime progressive Amy Goodman, host and producer of Democracy Now! was interviewed by Scott Simon (!.. itself worthy of note given NPR's ignoring of most Progressive ideas and people in its coverage) and Goodman made the same point right off the top of the interview. Trump is now looking at the size of Sanders enthusiastic crowds, his policy platform, and parroting the Sanders policy approach to running, and if successful, governing. On the other hand, Trump may be accidentally boosting Sanders prestige and electability perception. This is an unbelievable turn of events, no matter why it is happening in this amazing election year.
Trump is winning in the polls against the lifelong professional prevaricators in his party who cannot utter a statement that has not been analyzed, focus grouped, polled and tweaked, and then, when they go off the cuff, off the script, are utterly inept at making the point they are supposed to make by their posses of handlers. The GOP field is being mopped up by Trump merely because he knows how to practice the art of popular phrasing and rhetoric, policy be damned. Who cares about policy when you can thrill crowds with an aggressive and pouting turn of phrase?
Now, due to pressure to issue some Policy papers and Position Statements, what does Trump do? He cribs from Sanders policy papers, adds the Trump Rhetorical Spin, and voila, even BIGGER crowds. Sanders now has his work cut out for him. He is now running against Trump primarily. He must address this co-opting of policy by the GOP front runner and let the voters know who has been saying these policies for 40 years, and it ain't the Reaganauts in the GOP Establishment.
Of course, this can be seen as Trump merely doing what Trump does; steal and advertise popular and effective ideas and make money from them. He does not have Original Ideas, but he has Original Reactions TO Ideas, both in his reality show and in political life. That is what makes Trump so worrisome a figure. As a man with no shame, he will merely buy, intimidate, steal, shade, spin and shake down others for his living, which in America is a pathway to rich rewards. You dont have to have talent here, you just have to be an immoral ass to get rich. So far, true to character.
But the fact remains; Trump sees Sanders and his consistently stated ideas for Taxation, Regulation, the proper relationship between Capitalism and Democracy as ideas worthy of being elected President on, and that is a big, big deal.