Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Another WI clue to Trump/GOP motivations ahead

I'd listed yesterday with an update this morning some policy clues about what's coming to the country in light of the Trump/GOP election night wave based on the Republican Party's takeover of all three branches of government in 2010 in Wisconsin, and I want to add this observation:

Count on the vindictive erasure of as many of President Obama's signature accomplishments that the incoming, hard-edged rightist ideologues can manage.

In Wisconsin, then-GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker campaigned hard in 2010 against Jim Doyle's agreement to accept federal funding for a roundtrip Amtrak extension between Madison and Milwaukee.

Walker successfully forced the abandonment of the funding and the project - - a legacy achievement laden with substance and symbolism for Doyle that was derailed, then demolished, by Walker.

So - - no train. No win for transit. And for the purposes of optics and policy and partisan power hegemony - - no Madison Amtrak station which some Democrats hoped would be named for Doyle near the State Capitol building that would have been visible to Republican officials reporting for work in Madison.

Other significant policies unwound by Walker and his GOP legislative allies at the expense of Democratic party priorities and incumbent's legacy: Doyle's support for climate change goals and his opposition to voter ID and relaxed gun carry permissions.

Doyle had successfully obstructed NRA goals for Wisconsin, but the state now allows concealed carry, open carry and 'castle doctrine' home self-defense.

The Republicans' intention in Wisconsin: get rid of policies backed by the former Democratic Governor.

Walker even sent away from the Executive Mansion a beautiful painting of a diverse group of Milwaukee kids.

Everyone in Wisconsin knows that Doyle enjoyed widespread minority and urban support and has two African-American sons. 

Message delivered to Doyle, his supporters, and to Walker's base: 
We're deleting anything associated with Jim Doyle. We're even scrubbing online files. And even the Mansion walls. Jim Doyle wasn't really Governor.  If he were Governor, where's the evidence?
So Trump and the GOP Congress will move quickly to overturn Obamacare, though I am unsure how the contractual relationships of more than 20 million Americans have with their insurers under Obamacare would come into play.

And while Trump will never give his most rabid supporters the follow-through on that "lock her up" chant which he encouraged, he'll have to fall in with the Ryan-McConnell GOP-led Congress which had been trying to de-legitimize Obama and make him a failure from the beginning and had been voting against Obamacare since Day One to drive that home.

That's for the GOP base and the history books: 
Obama got his health care plan through, but we took that away from him.
Also: While Trump has already begun backing away from building his costly and absurd southern border wall, he will ramp up law and order bluster against illegal immigrants, and will honor the support he said he was getting from ICE workers by accelerating deportations and backing legislation that more tightly controls immigration.
No Obama-linked Dreamers wanted. No light for good citizen illegal immigrants trapped in the shadows. If families are broken up or continually separated, so be it. No Obama legacy here.
And I think Trump will make some moves against the Iran nuclear deal - - another Obama high-profile achievement - - though seriously pushing for overturning the deal carries so much existential peril that he will have to settle for bombast that won't put the region and world at risk.

But you can count on GOP elected officials and insiders getting lists of Obama achievements on Trump's Oval Office to change policy and erase his precessor's influence and record.

As Republicans in Wisconsin have been doing here since they overwhelmed Democrats in 2010.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sounds like Don the Con didn't really have any use for Scotty. He is now telling his BFF Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he will not take a cabinet post. This must mean that none will be offered for him.

And MJS is dutifully catapultin' that propaganda. Yeah, right. Walker sold his house, knowing his approval ratings are still underwater and have been since he "won" (demonstrably fraudulent) in 2014, because he planned to stay in Wisconsin.

Yeah, that's the ticket...