Trump No Longer Even Pretends To Be a Republican

Scott Walker’s budget reforms in Wisconsin are one of modern conservatism’s greatest success stories. So why would Donald Trump attack them? Because 1) he is not a Republican, and 2) he is not a conservative. Trump went after Walker yesterday:

“Wisconsin is in turmoil,” Trump told a boisterous crowd at a rally in Iowa. He pointed to the state’s roads, schools and hospitals, which he said were all “a disaster.”

This is the kind of smear the Democrats perpetrate against Walker, but why would any Republican join them? This, too, is straight out of the left-wing playbook:

“A guy like Bush, a guy like Walker, are controlled by the people who give them money,” Trump said. “They will be bombarded by their lobbyists who donated a lot.”

Notice that Trump says nothing about Hillary Clinton being beholden to Wall Street donors, the baby-parts lobby, and so on. Why would any Republican parrot the Democrats’ attacks on his fellow Republicans? I don’t think any Republican would, but Trump admits he is no Republican. This was perhaps his most revealing comment:

“The other guys running, the Republicans — they protect each other,” Trump said early in his speech. “Me, I don’t care.”

So the “other guys running” are “the Republicans.” Not Trump. He’s no Republican, by his own acknowledgement. Nor is he a conservative.

Some believe that Trump is an agent of the Clintons, and his end game is a third party candidacy that will deliver the White House to Hillary, the candidate he has long supported. This may be plausible, given Trump’s history (including, but not limited to, his eight years as a registered Democrat) and the manner in which he mimics Hillary’s attacks on Republicans. I think it more likely that Trump is acting independently for his own ego gratification. But if he does run as a third-party candidate, his motives won’t matter. To the extent that he fools voters into thinking that he is a conservative, he will increase the likelihood of another four years of the Obama-Clinton disaster.

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