Will Trump's Cafeteria Conservatism Win Again?
But the issues on which Ryan and Trump most obviously disagree are fiscal. Way back in 2011, when Ryan was a rising conservative star as House budget chairman, the House GOP majority approved his budget plan, which he called "our defining moment" for his party. Billionaire Trump, then host of "The Celebrity Apprentice," lambasted Ryan's budget as "political suicide for the Republican Party."
The ideological divide between the two men was sharp. Ryan is an orthodox supply-side conservative in the model of his mentor, Rep. Jack Kemp. The late New York Republican and former pro football star pursued vigorous grassroots minority outreach and promoted market-based alternatives to liberal government-run social programs.
Trump, the cafeteria conservative, is more populist. He promised not to touch Medicare or Social Security, both of which would move swiftly toward privatization in Ryan's budget. He suggested raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans -- such as himself -- before he backpedaled.
Similarly he has supported raising the minimum wage (which wage-earners love but the GOP hates as a "job killer"), except on those days when he doesn't.
What we have here is a battle between Washington's insiders and its outsiders for the soul of the GOP. Ryan could press Trump to be more tolerant and constructive at a time when the nation needs congressional action on a variety of fronts.
But based on experience, we probably can expect Trump to stay in the ideological driver's seat with all of his bombast. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, worried about keeping his GOP majority, already has joined the Trump train.
That's because, beneath all of his insult-comic-dog bluster, Trump has stumbled on important issues to working-class and middle-class Americans that their leaders in both parties have been kicking down the road.
Even Trump, who has read national moods for decades as a TV showman, could see the leadership vacuum: A hard-pressed mostly white working class that has voted mostly Republican since the mid-1960s has too little to show for it. Out of the ashes of such discontent, even a billionaire showman can become a working-class hero.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
