What's really striking here is that a candidate who ran as the Paladin of the working class who'd deliver them picks a guy who heads a fast-food company, [Donald] Trump says he wants to bring back manufacturing.
E. J. DionnePolitically, Donald Trump doesn't seem to care much about what he says. He gauges the effect. Sometimes, in the middle of a speech, he will change his direction if the audience doesn't like him.
E. J. DionneOn the question of opposition, I think there are - when you want to send a signal if you're on the Democratic side that this is a very right wing cabinet at odds with so much of what [Donald] Trump said. And it's also going to be fascinating to see if your Republican Party in the congress actually goes along with those aspects of the Trump plan that are designed to raise wages.
E. J. DionneIn the Trump language, words change their meaning day by day depending on his own political needs.
E. J. DionneI think Donald Trump simply needs to make himself look less bigoted, less dangerous, more comfortable to people.
E. J. DionneThe new culture war is about national identity rather than religion and 'transcendent authority.' It focuses on which groups the United States will formally admit to residence and citizenship. It asks the same question as the old culture war: 'Who are we?' But the earlier query was primarily about how we define ourselves morally. The new question is about how we define ourselves ethnically, racially and linguistically. It is, in truth, one of the oldest questions in our history, going back to our earliest immigration battles of the 1840s and 1850s.
E. J. Dionne