_Aaron Carter is a sophomore journalism and political science double major at MU. He is the co-director of MUTV sports._
President Donald Trump is moving away from establishment Republicans and back toward his campaign self. This was bound to happen, as it seems the office of the presidency and people not in Trump’s original inner circle, such as Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, led him toward the middle.
Now with the recent firing of Communications Director Mike Dubke, it seems as if Trump has signaled the end of his attempt to compromise with career politicians in the White House.
Trump came in wanting, and promising, to “drain the swamp,” but hiring Dubke was quite the opposite of draining the swamp. In fact, Trump’s promise has yielded hardly any results. Trump talked in depth about taking action against lobbyists, to stop the “revolving door” of incumbents being reelected. However, the number of lobbyist registrations is up since election day compared to a year ago, according to NPR.
Dubke is a former ally of Karl Rove, who is a big face of the Republican party, and this made it so he was never really an insider in the Trump administration.
Back when Dubke was hired, John Wagner and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post interpreted that the hiring signaled an attempt to please others than himself.
Besides the exit of Dubke, Jim Acosta reported that people formerly within Trump’s inner circle, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, may be making their way back into Trump’s ear. This would be a distinct signal that Trump is tired of dealing with people who disagree with and contest him.
Lewandowski, one of Trump’s former campaign managers who was infamous for not censoring Trump’s divisive rhetoric on the campaign trail, might encourage this trait in the White House. Now, while he ended up being correct in that Trump’s followers welcomed his rhetoric, there are differences between how a candidate acts and how a president acts. This encouragement by Lewandowski, if he is hired, might set others on edge and discourage establishment Republicans from working with Trump.
Bossie is a ex-top campaign official and has repeatedly shown loyalty to Trump, which is something that has been proven valuable in this administration.
Finally, with all of the Russia controversy, which has been a huge distraction to the administration, establishment Republicans are already wary about Trump and how he will affect their odds of doing well in the midterm elections in 2018. If the ties to Russia become more overt or if President Trump reverts to candidate Trump, then the majority of Republicans will most likely distance themselves from Trump in hopes of keeping their jobs.
