… Ryan’s deference to Trump’s nationalism on trade and immigration, and Trump’s acceptance of Ryan’s libertarian approach to health care, has left the GOP with a policy mix crisscrossed by contradiction. In an interview, Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress, noted that the Trump-like European populist parties all combine suspicion of immigrants and trade with support for a generous welfare state, which often includes expanded retirement benefits and a higher minimum wage.
Trump appeared to be heading in that direction, too. But by embracing Ryan’s ACA alternative, the president is now threatening the economic security of his working-class base, even as he loudly expresses their cultural anxieties on such issues as immigration. Trump’s risk is that this incongruence loosens his moorings at both ends: The cultural nationalism could repel minorities and white-collar whites, while the economic libertarianism disillusions working-class and older whites. CONT.
Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic