Another day, another promise of a Donald Trump “pivot”...this time, we’re to believe that his “regret” of unspecified comments on the campaign trail will mean something. It won’t. Donald Trump’s pivots have a blink-of-an-eye half-life, and his hiring of Breitbart’s Steve Bannon should snuff out any hope that Trump will aim to please more than his Alex Jones/build-the-wall share of the electorate. As Eugene Robinson at The Washington Post explains:
Trump’s decision to throw in with the likes of Bannon can only increase the probability of a GOP debacle. Does it have to be spelled out for you in neon lights, Republicans? Trump could not care less about the party, and he would happily destroy it to feed his own ego.
Bannon, likewise, appears to view the party of Lincoln as merely a vehicle for his own ambition, which is to nurture and grow a nationalist-right movement. His website is as critical of the Republican establishment as it is of the Democrats. He has no interest in making Trump more palatable to the general electorate. Like all would-be revolutionaries, he first wants to heighten the contradictions within the system he ultimately seeks to destroy.
It was perhaps foolish of me to hope that very many Republican elected officials would reject Trump on principle. But now, perhaps, more will do so for reasons of self-preservation.