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(Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

Donald Trump campaigned as an outsider who would upend years of Washington orthodoxy in matters of both war and peace an approach that helped him assemble the unconventional coalition that ultimately won him the presidency.

But in recent days, the president has done an about-face and embraced many of the policy positions he once scorned as the trappings of a foolhardy establishment.

Trump voiced support for NATO, which he called obsolete during the campaign. He walked back his pledge to label China acurrency manipulator and endorsed the Export-Import Bank, which he had opposed.

These and other recent flip-flops have soothed the nerves of many Republicans who worried he was looking to upend too much of the status quo. But they could also alienate some supporters, who see Washington co-opting yet another politician elected to reform the government.

On Thursday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer argued that it wasnt Trump who had shifted.

(Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)

If you look at whats happened, its those entities or individuals in some cases, or issues, evolving towards the presidents position, Spicer said. I think you look at the presidents position, where he wanted to see NATO in particular evolve to, and its moving exactly in the direction that he said it was in terms of its goals of increasing the amount of participation from other member countries; and two, its having a greater focus on terrorism.

NATO has been moving toward greater burden-sharing for years and has long been involved in counterterrorism, particularly since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Spicer also pointedly declined to explain why Trump changed his position on a slate of other issues that had remained essentially unchanged since he was a candidate.

The administration has slow-walked moves toward renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement, despite his railing against the deal as a candidate. And the Trump administration has approved aggressive, even hawkish stances overseas on issues such as Syria, the Islamic State and North Korea, regardless of Trumps often noninterventionist stances during the campaign.

[The Daily 202: Here are eight flip-flops since Trump was inaugurated]

Among those heartened by the changes is Elliott Abrams, a former Never Trump Republican who had a change of heart but was rejected for a senior post in Trumps State Department because he was considered too much of an establishment Republican.

I would say this is looking more now like a more conventional Republican administration, said Abrams, who served as a foreign policy adviser in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. To me, thats a very good thing.

Trumps opposition to the Export-Import Bank a government agency that subsidizes U.S. exports endeared him to movement conservatives who labeled it corporate welfare and crony capitalism. It fit well with a campaign message in which Trump railed against the global elite conspiring against the common man.

But to the thrill of establishment Republicans, corporate leaders and some Democrats, Trump reversed course this week, solidifying a shift he first signaled in February.

Instinctively, you would say, Isnt that a ridiculous thing? ... But, actually, its a very good thing, he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview this week. It turns out that ... lots of small companies are really helped!

Almost immediately, the move drew praise from Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), whose state gets an economic boost from the bank.

Well done, Mr. President, Graham said in a statement.

The thaw, especially among Republican hawks, seemed to begin in earnest last week when Trump, faced with his first major foreign policy test, sided with the use of military force in Syria. That decision which contradicted Trump stances dating to 2013 endeared him to members of Congress such as Graham and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who had criticized his isolationist campaign rhetoric.

[Three big ways Trump is starting to sound like Obama on the economy]

I think its a product of the fact that he didnt understand foreign affairs, presidential historian Tim Naftali said of the president. His business career didnt afford him much information on foreign affairs. Hes learning on the job.

On economic issues, some have speculated that Trumps shift has been linked to the growing influence of a group of advisers led by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, many of whom are political moderates and who came to the administration from Wall Street.

The rift between Kushner-backed aides such as National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and Republican hard-liners in the administration especially the presidents chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon has only grown in recent weeks, raising questions about whether Trump will abandon the economic populism that got him elected in favor of a more traditional platform influenced by Wall Street.

But Trumps backers say that, from the beginning, the president assembled a Cabinet of military leaders, establishment Republicans and business leaders who would be at home in the Cabinets of more traditional Republicans. And he has pursued policies in other areas on immigration, the budget, taxes, and rolling back the Affordable Care Act that have left many conservatives content with the direction his administration is headed.

The budget hes put out is an incredible budget. Hes pushed hard to abolish Obamacare, said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. The tax bill he put forward is Reaganite in all its forms, so Im looking at a guy who did exactly what he said he was going to do on every big issue.

Both on China and NATO, he rattled the cage and got movement in the direction that he wanted, Norquist said, and, at least as of now, NATO is behaving the way he wants it to and the Chinese might be more helpful in Korea.

[President Trump, king of flip-flops (continued)]

One former Trump aide, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said that the president is known to form initial opinions based on instinct but later to change his stance based on new information and the influence of his advisers.

He has a general reaction to something, then after he does a lot more homework on the situation, he can change his view, the former adviser said. The reason most of these voters voted on him was less because of the core issues, it was more based on the Trump decision-making, the Trump judgment.

Yet Trump promised his supporters a coalition that included larger-than-expected numbers of non-college educated, working-class voters that he would pursue populist policies that put the interests of American workers first. It remains to be seen whether these changes will be viewed as moving toward that goal.

John Weaver, a former presidential campaign aide to Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), said that so far, the dissonance between Trumps campaign pledges and his current positions havent touched on core promises, such as bringing back U.S. jobs or seeking to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The fact that he says one thing or another about NATO has no impact on their day-to-day lives, Weaver said of Trumps supporters.

And with Trump, allies and adversaries alike are never sure he wont change his mind again.

It represents Trump is a New York City liberal returning back to form, said Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist sharply critical of Trump. People should not be surprised.

But Trump, he added, because he has a short attention span, could easily flop back.

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Trump as a 'conventional Republican'? That's what some in GOP ... - Washington Post

WASHINGTON In a spate of local elections last week in Illinois, Democrats picked up seats in places theyve never won before.

The city of Kankakee elected its first African-American, Democratic mayor. West Deerfield Township will be led entirely by Democrats for the first time. Elgin Township voted for a complete changeover, flipping to an all-Democratic board. Normal Township elected Democratic supervisors and trustees to run its board the first time in more than 100 years that a single Democrat has held a seat.

We had a pretty good day, said Dan Kovats, executive director of the Illinois Democratic County Chairmens Association. We won in areas we normally would win, but we also won in areas Republicans never expected us to be competitive in. They were caught flat-footed.

These may seem like relatively small victories were talking about municipal races in towns with tens of thousands of people but they fit with a broader pattern that should have Republicans on edge ahead of the 2018 elections: Progressive grassroots activism,exploding with energy since President Donald Trumps win in November, isfueling Democratic gains in GOP strongholds.

This week, a Democratic congressional candidate in Kansas nearly pulled off a shocking winin a heavily Republican district. In Georgia, 30-year-old Democratic newcomer Jon Ossoff is outpacing his GOP rivals in a race to replace former Rep. Tom Price. The seat has long been Republican and was once held by former Speaker Newt Gingrich. These races come after a Democraticstate Senate candidate in Delaware, buoyed by anti-Trump activism, annihilated her GOP challengerin an election thats traditionally been close.

In the case of Illinois,a number of Democrats who just won got a boost from a program launched by Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) called Build The Bench. Its an all-day boot camp that offers nuts-and-bolts details for running a successful campaign. Bustos came up with the idea last year when she noticed a dearth of new Democratic candidates for Congress, and decided the best way to help build up her partys ranks was at the local level.

Shes held two boot camps in her district so far The Huffington Post attended one of them in March and shes already seeing tremendous payoff.Twelve Build The Bench alumni ran for local seats in this election cycle, and eight of them won. A ninth alum, Rita Ali, is currently down by one vote in her race for Peoria City Council.

I am incredibly proud that the majority of our graduates who were on the ballot in April municipal elections won their races, said Bustos. If we want to be successful in the heartland, we need to connect Democratic candidates for office at all levels with the best practices, skills and expertise needed to run winning campaigns.

Chemberly Cummings and Arlene Hosea are among the Build The Bench alumni who recently won races.They both made history by becoming the first black members of Normal Town Council and Normal Township Trustee, respectively. That is no small feat in a predominately white, Republican region of the state.

Theres this concept in Bloomington-Normal that everybody is conservative, said Cummings, a 34-year-old State Farm employee. But we are a group of people who are actually concerned about the issues in our community. I also think ... when you have the representative of a party who is negative, I think youll start to see some things change. Nobody wants to be associated with something negative. They want to be associated with the positive.

Hosea, a 57-year-old former Illinois State University employee, came out of retirement to run for her seat. She hadnt planned on going into politics, but was deeply affected by Trumps divisive tone all last year.

I am a descendent of slavery, she said. I saw and heard on the campaign trail so much awful rhetoric. My mom is still alive, shes 90, and she faced racism through all of her childhood. I thought, Arlene, you have to do more. You have to be the change that you want to see.

As someone born and raised in the area, Hosea said she takes pride in being able to give back to her towns next generation. She got choked up thinking about how far she and her family have come, recalling how her mom lived through Jim Crow in the South and once watched the Ku Klux Klan drag her uncle out of the house and almost beat him to death in front of her when she was a child.

Even if its just my seat at the table, they get to see me at that table. I have a voice, Hosea said, her voice cracking. In this community, no one has done it. So, its time.

Of course, not everyone can win their first campaign.Jodie Slothower, a Build The Bench attendee who HuffPost met in March, lost her race for Normal Township clerk. She is disappointed, of course, but shes already onto her next project: fueling the progressive momentum to oust more Republicans, like Rep. Rodney Davis (Ill.). She started a grassroots mobilization group in November, Voices of Reason, and its up to 2,000 members.

We have events planned all the way through August, Slothower said. Were going to keep up the pressure on the congressman. Were figuring out how to take what weve learned here and bring it to other communities. We have a lot of work to do.

Read more:
Democrats In Illinois Just Unseated A Whole Bunch Of Republicans - Huffington Post

A few days ago I noted that Republican views of the economy changed dramatically when Donald Trump was elected, but Democratic views stayed pretty stable. Apparently Republicans view the economy through a partisan lens but Democrats don't.

Are there other examples of this? Yes indeed. Jeff Stein points to polling data about air strikes against Syria:

Democrats are about as supportive of the strikes as they were under Obama, with 38 percent backing them in 2013 and 37 percent agreeing with them now, according to the Washington Post. Now 86 percent of Republican voters back the strikes, compared with the just 22 percent who did so in 2013.

This is a pretty stunning difference. Democratic views stayed solidly negative regardless of who was president. But Republican approval rates skyrocketed from 22 percent to 86 percent when Trump became president. This despite the fact that Bashar al-Assad's use of chemical weapons was more extensive in 2013 than it was this year.

To be honest, I figured the data on economic views was a fluke. Now I wonder. It's difficult to make these comparisons over time because you rarely have identical circumstances to compare. Trump's Syrian bombing is unusually similar to the situation in 2013. Still, there are bound to be others. I wonder if this is a fairly consistent result? What other examples do we have of presidents of the opposite party doing extremely similar things and getting different responses from partisans?

See the article here:
Republicans Love Bombing, But Only When a Republican Does It - Mother Jones

Republican Ron Estes won a competitive congressional race in Kansas, marking the first special election of the year for a House seat vacated by a Republican lawmaker. (The Washington Post)

On Tuesday night, Democrat James Thompson did not win the first congressional election in the country since President Trump was elected. But he came within seven points in one of the most Republican districts in the nation. And Democrats are absolutely thrilled about what that says about their party in the era of Trump with good reason.

If we can make Republicans go into full-on freakout mode in a ruby red Kansas congressional district now, said Jim Dean, director of the progressive group Chair of Democracy for America in a statement, we have the power to rip the gavel out of Paul Ryans hands in November 2018.

Maybe. What happens in April 2017 does not mean the same thing will happen in November 2018, when the entire House of Representatives is up for reelection. But it's the best evidence we've got that right now, votersin traditionally Republican districts aren't thrilled with Trump.

As my colleague Aaron Blake wrote yesterday, it's hard to overstate just how Republican this Wichita-area congressional district has been:

On Tuesday, this district swung more than 20 points in favor of the Democrat. There were some, but not alot of race-specific factors that should have made this much of a difference.

Thompson, an Army veteran and civil rights attorney with no legislative experience and very little help from the national Democratic Party, wasn't an uber-gifted candidate who could overcome these fundamental barriers. Nor was Rep.-elect Ron Estes, the state treasurer, a particularly flawed GOP candidate. Though we'll add that the governor, Sam Brownback (R), is incredibly unpopular in the state, and Estes is a part of his administration.

Brownback's unpopularity aside, that leads us to conclude per our guide on how to pundit like a pro that there are national factors that spurred Thompson's surprisingly close loss. Specifically, this election could be a window into how voters in this deep-red congressional district feel about Trump and Republicans' leadership right now.

Especially in aspecial election, most voters aren't paying much attention to the candidates, said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan elections analyst and columnist at The Washington Post. Which means many are voting to send a message to Washington rather than for or against a specific congressional candidate.

When they think about choices, they tend to think big choices: change versus status quo, Rothenberg said. Keep the president, or send a message of dissatisfaction to the president.

Seen through that lens, Thompson's seven-point loss should have Republicans across the country very worried. Estes performed 20 points worse than Trump did in this district just five months ago. In 2018, Republicans will be defending23 seats that Clinton won. If Democrats can net 24 seats, they would recapture the majority.

More immediately, Kansas's results willlikely rev up progressive momentum in a more high-profile special election coming up in a week outside Atlanta, where 30-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff is trying to win a majority of the vote against some 16 mostly Republican candidates to replace former congressman Tom Price, who is now Trump's health and human services secretary. Again, this is a traditionally Republican district, and the fact we're even talking about its competitiveness is extraordinary.

This race is as much about the next year and a half nationally as it is about district, Rothenberg said. Ossoff wins and suddenly every Republican in a swing district is going to be nervous, and they will demonstrate their independence.

If Ossoff wins, or even if he forces the race into a runoff, that could manifest an even bigger drag on Trump's historically low popularity: House Republicans become more resistant to working with their president, whichin turn makes Trump's job trying to pass big legislation with his party that much more difficult. And that in turn leaves him and a Republican Congress without many victories to call home about next November.

In the past, special election upsets were trembles of a big wave coming against the party in power.

It's still a year and a half away, but what we know right now is that Republicans can barely hang onto a districtthat Trump won by nearly 27 points.

Read this article:
A Republican won in Kansas. But here's why the GOP is not celebrating. - Washington Post

AnyaBerkut/Getty

Policymakers reacted swiftly this week to the outrageous viral video of police officers forcibly removing an innocent passenger from an overbooked United Airlines flight. A new passenger bill of rights, including regulations on bumping people from flights, was announced on Tuesdayby Canada's transportation ministry.

"Their constituents are being mistreated, just like Democratic constituents."

Here in the United States, at least one party has a long history of siding with the airlines at the expense of their passengers. "It's an ongoing frustration that we haven't had good cooperation on the Republican side," says Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League. "Their constituents are being mistreated, just like Democratic constituents. I'm disappointed and frustrated."

In 2016 alone, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) introduced 22 different consumer-protection riders to a funding bill for the Federal Aviation Administration. Among other things, the proposals would have placed a moratorium on seat-size shrinkage, required more transparency about ticket fees and passenger complaints, promoted competition between airlines, and ensured that passengers had the right to sue airlines instead of being forced into arbitration. (See the complete list below.) None of the proposals made it through the GOP-controlled Senate.

"The degrading treatment of this [United passenger] is the latest example of a major US airline disrespecting passengers and denying them their basic rights," Blumenthal wrote to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao on Tuesday. "Your agency must conduct a swift, sweeping investigation into United Airlines and the industry practices that led to this incident."

Congressional Republicans delayed for years the passage of the handful of consumer protections that exist for airline passengers. During the George W. Bush administration, GOP senators killed a passengers bill of rights that, among other things, would have restricted how long people could be confined to a grounded airplane without food and drinks. In 2011, the Obama administration enacted a stricter version of the rule administratively, adding requirements that airlines reimburse passengers for lost bags, disclose extra ticket fees on their websites, and compensate bumped passengers financially.

During the last election cycle, the top airline lobbying group gave almost six times as much cash to Republicans as to Democrats.

"The Republicans can be viewed as the party of big business, whereas Democrats are more for personal rights and equality," says Ranier Jenss, director of the Family Travel Association. One provision his group backed that requires airlines to let families with children sit together on flights free of charge became law last yearbut only after it attracted support from a Republican congressman who'd had a family member get separated from his kids during a flight, Jenss says.

Not all Republicans, after all, are airline industry lapdogs. On Tuesday, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie asked the TSA's Chao to suspend the federal regulation permitting airlines to overbook flights and remove passengers as a result. "This conduct is abusive and outrageous," Christie said in a press release. "The ridiculous statements, now in their third version, of the CEO of United Airlines displays their callousness toward the traveling public with the permission of the federal government."

The airline industry, however, favors Republicans. In the most recent election cycle, United Continental Holdings gave them $547,000, versus $497,000 for Democratsa split that roughly mirrors the industry's spending patterns. The main airline lobbying group, Airlines for America, leans far more toward Republicans: It donated about $85,000 to Democrats in the latest cycle. It gave nearly six times that much (about $478,500) to Republicans and conservative groups, according to OpenSecrets.org. In 2015, Politico reported that House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster (R-Penn.) was actually dating Shelly Rubino, an Airlines for America executive. Republicans "are literally in bed with the industry!" says the National Consumers League's Greenberg.

She hopes the United scandal will convince Republicans to end their love affair with Big Air: "I think Congress is going to be under a lot of pressure to take some decisive action because of what people saw in that video." ______

Here's what Sen. Richard Blumenthal proposed last year to keep airlines in check. But not one of his amendments made it past Mitch McConnell et al.

Read more:
Airlines Treat People Like Dirt Because the Republicans in Congress Let Them - Mother Jones