Word; Trump is no populist

Jim Hightower - Candidate Trump grandiosely says he'll lift up the middle class, but his proposed economic policies would do the opposite by expanding the GOP's old anti-labor agenda: giving massive new tax cuts to corporations and the rich, slashing public spending on programs that working families rely on, and embracing the laissez-faire ideological claptrap that Tea Party Republicans mindlessly repeat in their ceaseless efforts to drive down wages.

On the minimum wage, he's taken more positions than you'll find in the "Kama Sutra." First, he said $7.25 an hour was already too much; then he called for abolishing the wage floor entirely; then he mused that he might be open to an increase (but certainly not the $15-an-hour living wage that worker activists are fighting for). Even Trump's "rock-solid" opposition to NAFTA, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and other trade scams now looks to be a political bait-and-switch fraud, as indicated by his choice of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence to be his VP and top policy "partner." Pence is a notorious free-trade fanatic who pushed zealously to pass all eight trade deals that came before him while in Congress, and he's been lobbying hard this year for passage of the TPP.

Now, consider whom he's vilifying, mocking and bullying at his rallies and in his tweets. Overwhelmingly, they are terrorized migrants, Mexican immigrants he labels "rapists," black protestors experiencing police brutality, disabled individuals, and so on. This pampered son of privilege wants America's hard-hit, angry working people to elect him because he demonstrates the "courage" to be politically incorrect by kicking the poor, the powerless, and the marginalized. Since he's willing to do that, how long will it take him to throw those workers into the ditch, too?

Some might see Trump as a brilliant, can-do corporate chieftain (though his multiple bankruptcies among other business disasters make that assessment doubtful). Or they might be tempted to cast a protest vote to throw the political class into disarray. But people should consider the consequences and not fool themselves into thinking Trump's a populist who'll be on our side. In his heart, mind, and whole being, the central political truth about Trump is that he's foremost a Trumpist -- of, by and for himself.