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My insights into what is going on in the far-off Planet Trump are gleaned only from what I read in various media outlets. While I have access to the President-elect’s spasmodic tweeting, these analyses of the Trump transition and the coming “Twilight of the Elites’”* Administration are based on absolutely no reporting in the strict journalistic sense.

• At first glance, the nomination of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley to be UN Ambassador seems curious since Haley has no foreign policy experience. However, consider the possibility the some in the GOP braintrust may be looking four or eight years into the future and projecting Haley as a viable candidate to be the first female President. She has already established her executive credentials, so the UN gig allows her to check off the foreign policy box on her resume.
• The misdirection and distraction that are features of Trump’s con man persona are manifesting themselves more and more as the post-election dust settles. He campaigned as a populist, but his Cabinet will be staffed with billionaires and Wall Streeters. It would be facile to point out that he is pulling a fast one on the middle class voters who formed the base of his support. He was quick to tout the deal with Carrier Corporation to retain some of the jobs the company had announced it would move from Indiana to Mexico. What he did not mention was that this “deal” was engineered by Vice-President-elect Mike Pence, the current Indiana governor, and that it involved giving Carrier seven million dollars in state tax credits to entice them to retain some of the jobs. Also not mentioned was the fact that Carrier is a wholly-owned subsidiary of United Technologies, a corporsaurus that earned a reported six billion dollars last year from defense contracts.
• Keep in mind the old saw that “once a con man, always a con man”. Trump supporters are not the only ones about to be taken in by a classic bait-and-switch: the Congressional Republicans are likely his next marks. Trump knows how to make deals, but he probably cannot spell the word “compromise”. He is doubtless willing to give up that in which he isn’t particularly invested- Supreme court justices, for instance- to get what he is actually after, namely issues that bolster his popularity or his wallet- trade, immigration, and tax breaks for the rich. After the inauguration, you can count the time in months, if not weeks, when his honeymoon with Congress ends and open conflict begins.  
• To paraphase, popularity is a fickle lover. The Trump approach is classic American carnival barker. He revels in the approval of live crowds. This was on display as he opened his “thank you tour” in Ohio. To rev up his audience, he trotted out applause lines recycled from his campaign rallies. Given his apparent compulsive need to have popular approval, expect that the Trump approach to public policy will be inconsistent. He may be the Republican President,  but he is by no means a Republican.
• The Republican Congress will be in a very big hurry to enact a radical agenda after January 20. Be prepared to hear words such as “mandate” and “the American people voted for these changes” punctuating GOP soundbites. Their targets will be social welfare entitlements and safety net programs. They intend to repeal the Affordable Care Act, though they hope to avoid any electoral repercussion until after the 2018 mid-term elections by delaying implementation until 2019. They need to accomplish all this quickly before they face the fact that an obdurate President Trump will not countenance actions that threaten his popularity. Alternatively, the imperative to move quickly will just as likely be driven by the idea that Congressional Republicans will sooner rather than later encounter the unavoidable necessity to impeach the Self-Dealer-in-Chief. This latter situation will not trouble them since they will be more at ease with a President Pence than a President Trump. They will make their move when they believe the optics will immunize them from a public backlash.

This is crunch time for the Republican Party. They have control of two branches of the government and will soon add the third. There is not inconsiderable risk in the GOP’s position, given that the acrimony of the primary campaign portends an estimable prospect of intra-party discord and that the lack of a black President means there is no one on which to foist blame when things go awry. The problem with ideology is that the true believers begin to mistake it for reality. The Republicans have controlled the House since 2010 and the Senate since 2014. In that time, Congress has maintained astoundingly low approval ratings, rivaling such lovable institutions as Comcast and ISIS. And yet, the extremists, having gone from ideological to dogmatic and abandoned the pragmatism that is at the heart of effective politics, are hell-bent on moving forward. In what seems to pass for the long view among Republican policy makers- eight years at most- they no doubt see this as their last opportunity to undo as many progressive achievements as possible before they are submersed by a younger and more diverse electorate.

When your leader is Donald Trump, good luck with that.

*Shoutout to Christopher Hayes and his insightful book of this title.