As Rome Burns

Pedro Gonzalez explains the inner machinations of policy decisions and the power struggle going on in the White House.  Any conservative should find these revelations disturbing.

“On a White House executive staff call just this morning,” Tucker said on the night Underwood died, “key domestic policy advisors Brooke Rollins and Ja’Ron Smith argued that it might seem ‘racist’ to say anything about the rioting in Minneapolis,” or elsewhere for that matter.

While Smith is your run-of-the-mill Washington social climber, Rollins is something far worse.

From 2003 until 2018, Rollins was president and CEO of the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a think tank aptly characterized by journalist Mark Hand as “a Koch-funded research and advocacy group.” A list posted online revealed Koch Industries, Inc. to be one of Rollin’s chief donors. Companies like Chevron and ExxonMobil also feature prominently in the donor roll.

Though it is billed as a think tank, there is actually very little “thinking” going on at TPPF. The organization has little in the way of ideology; it is merely a vehicle for securing corporate interests, from rolling back environmental regulations, progressive prison reform, and radically increasing immigration levels.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation was once a formidable regional force for good and has now transformed into something else altogether.  It is no longer Dr. Leininger’s passionate mission.

The political calculus behind inaction is as cynical as it is simple. It’s also flawed.

Kushner and Rollins believe that Trump’s base will not flip for his opponent, no matter how badly they are abused and betrayed. “Where will they go?” Kushner reportedly likes to say.

This thinking runs on the assumption that Joe Biden would take someone like Stacey Abrams as his vice-presidential running mate. Because Biden is a senile cipher, Abrams would likely run the administration. Trump’s advisors believe an outcome such as this terrifies his supporters more than his failures disappoint them. In other words, the administration sees its base as a hostage.

But even Trump’s staunchest supporters see the administration’s strategy backfiring in real-time.

Brooke Rollins and the President

If you have been puzzled by the contradictory and hesitant actions and reactions of the Trump administration lately you have every reason to be alarmed.  Kushner and his wife along with Brooke Rollins are arrogantly driving domestic policies they know are anathema to the base of Trump’s support, but they think they can take them for granted just like the Democrats treat the black vote. It is time to push back.