President Donald Trump and the Republican Party may be focusing on their infrastructure and budget policies on Monday, but in reality, 2018 will be the year in which they try to stave off political disaster by playing the race card.
Trump's $1.5 trillion infrastructure plan and $4 trillion budget are not top priorities for the Republican Party, according to Axios. Instead, the plan is to tout the benefits of the 2017 tax reform legislation — and allow Trump's Twitter feed to effectively become policy.
As Axios explained:
A source close to the White House tells me that with an eye to getting Republicans excited about voting for Republicans in midterms, the president this year will be looking for "unexpected cultural flashpoints" — like the NFL and kneeling — that he can latch onto in person and on Twitter.
And when it comes to domestic policy — let's say immigration, which Trump has made a priority — he can use his Twitter account to be really partisan.
It is worth noting that the controversy over the NFL player protests revolved around race — specifically, Trump arguing that it was unpatriotic for football players to choose to protest racial injustices in the United States by kneeling during the American national anthem. After all, Trump's Twitter account disproportionately focuses on violent crimes that can be blamed on racial minorities or Muslims. And last month he singled out Jay-Z after the rapper called him out — even as Trump has remained silent when others have criticized him.
Or when Don Lemon was critical of him.
Trump's upcoming budget, meanwhile, is expected to call for drastic spending cuts in social programs — even as it increases spending on defense, veterans' health issues and stopping illegal immigration. And over the past year, Trump's supporters agreed with the rest of the United States that the president is tweeting too much.
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