[HotAir] I’m trying to decide how seriously this should be taken. On the one hand, I’m sure Trumpers’ irritation is sincere. Elise Stefanik has a more liberal voting record than Cheney and has been especially questionable on immigration, populism’s pet issue. She used to work for George W. Bush, was mentored by Paul Ryan, and was iffy about Trump until she realized at some point during his first term that the base’s infatuation with him wasn’t about to blow over, at which point she transformed into a pretend MAGA enthusiast. True populists have no reason to trust her. If the mood in the party were to shift tomorrow, Stefanik would shift with it.
I think of her as a sort of Republican Kirsten Gillibrand, another ambitious politician who started in upstate New York. Gillibrand was a moderate representing a centrist district when she was in the House; she supported border enforcement and gun rights. As soon as she was appointed to the Senate and realized she’d need to face a much more liberal statewide electorate in the future, she became a staunch left-winger. Stefanik made the same move, turning from establishmentarian to Trumpist once she realized that the constituency to which she’d need to pander to keep getting reelected had shifted and wasn’t shifting back. |