Sixty-five days do not ultimately define a presidency, especially the first 65 of a new president’s first term. That’s as true for President Trump as for other presidents who suffered early setbacks. But without some serious stocktaking inside the White House after the failed effort to replace the Affordable Care Act, there could be more trouble ahead for the most unorthodox president of modern times. …
Trump won the election with significant support from conventional Republican voters, but the animating message of his candidacy was anything but Republican orthodoxy. Instead, it was an anti-establishment, nationalist populism, best articulated over time by Bannon but also instinctively embraced by candidate Trump in his early campaign.
Whether on trade or immigration or America’s place in the world, candidate Trump was at odds with the party whose nomination he captured. But the early days of his administration seemed more an expression of the kind of conventional conservatism that he demolished. The health-care fight highlighted some of the conflicts inherent in those differences. CONT.
Dan Balz, Washington Post