Brad Plumer characterizes Donald Trump's as "just Mitt Romney's energy policy with more exclamation marks." The notion that Trump will represent some break from GOP orthodoxy on policy issues is rapidly evaporating.
In this campaign, Trump has shown very little interest in policy. Other than his simplistic off the cuff pronouncements like his wall on the Mexican border, the Muslim immigration ban and his novel idea that the U.S. should default on its debt, Trump has said very little of substance about actual issues. Now that he is presidential nominee and thus the leader of the Republican parties, he is going to get a lot of GOP flunkies who can write policy papers and press releases for him. Those flunkies are going to write stuff that reflects the standard party stances, even if they Trump it up with a bunch of bravado and exclamations. So long as what they write doesn't contradict whatever Trump happens to be saying at the time that the document is released (Trump doesn't seem to care about contradicting stuff he has said in the past), the Trump campaign will probably sign off on it. Thus, Trump will evolve into a candidate with standard GOP positions on all the big issues, just with more open bigotry and outrageous comments.
In this campaign, Trump has shown very little interest in policy. Other than his simplistic off the cuff pronouncements like his wall on the Mexican border, the Muslim immigration ban and his novel idea that the U.S. should default on its debt, Trump has said very little of substance about actual issues. Now that he is presidential nominee and thus the leader of the Republican parties, he is going to get a lot of GOP flunkies who can write policy papers and press releases for him. Those flunkies are going to write stuff that reflects the standard party stances, even if they Trump it up with a bunch of bravado and exclamations. So long as what they write doesn't contradict whatever Trump happens to be saying at the time that the document is released (Trump doesn't seem to care about contradicting stuff he has said in the past), the Trump campaign will probably sign off on it. Thus, Trump will evolve into a candidate with standard GOP positions on all the big issues, just with more open bigotry and outrageous comments.
