1hundredsixty8

This week, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi laid out the road map that may lead to a Donald Trump Presidency. His basic argument is that “we let our electoral process devolve into something so fake and dysfunctional that any half-bright con man with the stones to try it could walk right through the front door and tear it to shreds on the first go.” And, he points out that Trump, a tv huckster with an outsized ego, “is no half-bright con man, either. He's way better than average.”

A strong showing in next week’s Super Tuesday primary orgy might well mean that Trump will be the Republican nominee for President, a circumstance that seemed unlikely only a few months ago. And the possibility that we will witness the inauguration of President Trump eleven months from now is a looming reality. Which leads to the question, what would a Trump Administration look like?

Despite the bombastic tone of his campaign, it is likely that the Donald will take the same approach as President as he has in his various business dealings over the past thirty years. He will be the front man and rely on professionals to handle the day-to-day workings of the government. He will doubtless attempt to transform some of the populist tenor of the campaign into policy, but he will likely face resistance from both parties in a Congress largely funded by the donor class he is currently poking in the eye. Despite his status as a rich guy, he will not be particularly good for the 1%, at least if he holds to his expressed antipathy towards various large corporate interests. If you ignore for the moment his populist anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim bleatings, you might detect hints of policy in his consistent anti-free trade rantings, or in his stated anti-insurance and big Pharma positions.

For me, when I close my eyes and imagine President Trump, I think of what Ronald Reagan would have been like with a Twitter account.