What Should Democrats Do To Regroup Under A Trump Presidency?
“When Reagan was president and the Democrat party was in complete disarray, it lead to the rise of Bill Clinton.”
During his Republican National Convention speech last summer, President-elect Donald Trump said “safety will be restored” on January 20th, 2017. But as the “law and order” candidate takes the oath on Friday, how many campaign promises will he be able to keep?
“People, including me, have underestimated Donald Trump every step of the way,” says John Truscott, co-founder and principal of the Truscott Rossman political public relations firm. “I think he is going to out-preform everyone’s expectations.”
Truscott joins Detroit Today Host Stephen Henderson to talk about Trump’s inauguration and what to expect in the next four years.
He says that the political pendulum always swings back and fourth. Political elections are polarizing, especially for young people who have not lived through a transition of power. However, it is always important to hear the other the side’s opinion.
He says that when President Obama was elected in 2008, he and fellow Republicans felt the fear and sorrow that Democrats are feeling today. But he feels that the Democrats just need to regroup and create a new plan to implement as Republicans did eight years ago.
“When Reagan was president and the Democrat party was in complete disarray, it lead to the rise of Bill Clinton,” Truscott continues. “Because he moved to the center and did this kind of center-left coalition, went out across the country, and as a governor, brought in a lot of people who felt like him… I think that’s what the Democratic party has to do now. “
Truscott also says that Trump ran a campaign that differed very much from other recent Republican campaigns. However, Trump’s campaign and the its supporters were similar to the Republican party of the late 1800s that was aligned with the laborers of the country.
“This time it was when you look out to how Donald Trump reached out to labor and the working class, and minorities in urban centers, in a way that had never been done, at least in recent times, by a Republican. And he kind of threw out the old playbook and went right for it. And if you look back to the late 1800s, the Republican party was the labor party… He really took that playbook back. It’s an old one, but it worked here.”
Click on the audio player above to hear the full conversation.
