Earlier this week, George Bush came out of retirement to deliver what was interpreted by many as a rebuke of Trump and Trumpism. The reaction from the left was divided, to say the least.

Many latched on to the comments to highlight just how much politics has degenerated in the era of Trump. Some commented, bemused, that they never thought they’d live to see the day when they thought Bush sounded reasonable. Others wondered aloud if we took people like Bush, McCain, or Romney for granted, heaping criticism on them only to realize years later how much worse things could get.

Others were alarmed that people would be so quick to forgive and forget all the terrible things Bush did in his day. Some pointed out that it was hypocritical for Bush to try to score points against things he himself enabled.

All this reflects something that’s been commonly debated since Trump came onto the scene more than two years ago: are Trump and Trumpism uniquely awful things that even the Republican Party of a few years ago would find unacceptable or is Trump basically a product of Republican politics that were always callous, extreme and spiraling towards dysfunction?

It’s not an idle question. Determining where and to what extent the Trump Administration’s actions are an aberration from typical Republican practices is an important in step in formulating a strategy to beat Trump and the Republicans. Highlighting the similarities between the two is important if Democrats want to leverage the unpopularity of the Trump administration into down ballot electoral victories. On the other hand, highlighting how much Trump has uniquely degraded things adds a sense of urgency to the opposition against him, and dispels the notion that it’s motivated merely by partisanship. There are also risks associated with both approaches, with emphasizing the misdeeds of one appearing to normalize the misdeeds of the other. So it’s important to figure out which interpretation is more relevant and accurate.

Well, to try to answering this question, and mark the end of Trump’s third quarter in office, we decided to work out just how much of Trump’s awful policies were things that derive from Republican politics, and which reflect his own unique insanity.

Finding The Root Cause Of Trump’s Horrible Actions

As many readers know, since the start of the Trump Administration last January, we have attempted to keep a running tally of all the harmful actions undertaken in the Everything Awful The Trump Administration Has Done Omnibus. Furthermore, we have attempted to categorize each item on the list by their relevant policy area, as well as scoring the actions on their relative impact. This has provided the basis for some analysis on the total impact and focus of the administration over time. (An in-depth discussion of the scoring system and past analysis can be viewed here, while a full accounting of the Trump Administration’s awful actions are viewable here).

Using the Trump Omnibus as a starting point, we went through the actions of the Trump Administration so far and tried to sort them into one of three categories:

Typical of Republicans – If an action is consistent with pre-existing Republican policy, it gets sorted into this category. Alternately, if an action is driven largely by other Republicans it fits in the category.

Unique to Trump – This category involves policy initiatives that are originated with Trump. For example, the Muslim ban was something that largely originate with Trump.

Mixed – This category would include actions that are not a consensus position within the Republican Party, but which reflect a substantial and pre-existing faction within the party. There are also trends that Trump is sort of a manifestation of, but which predate him or are obviously bigger than the Trump phenomenon itself.

Once each item of the Trump administration was sorted, their scores were added up to give a rough idea of just how much of the Trump Administration’s harmful policies can be attributed to pre-existing Republican policies, and how much appear to be a unique product of his particular style of politics. This is also broken down by time to determine if the Trump Administration seems to be drifting towards or away from the rest of the Republican party.

Some of this is obviously subject to debate. Most of the time, the policy preferences implied by a given action make it clear enough, but there are things that aren’t so clear. Cronyism is a hallmark of the Trump Administration, however the Bush Administration also had its fair share of good old boys and incompetent lackeys. Where exactly one draw the line between typical Republican sabre rattling switch over to the particular recklessness of a manner who leaks classified information in twitter posts? Opinions will vary.

All this is to say, while this is all anchored in the concrete actions of the administration and established precedence, there’s still a lot of subjectivity and ambiguity that’s unavoidable in this sort of analysis. So you shouldn’t read the end results here as an absolute score, but rather as a general indicator of how things breakdown.

Overall Summary

Going by the scores from the Trump Omnibus, about 67% of the impact of the Trump has come through policies that are typical of the Republican party while 22% came through actions that are unique to Trump and his administration. An additional 11% of the impact came through policies that were a mix.

This breakdown was relatively consistent over time. The initial hope that that the Trump administration would normalize as it entered office turned out to be false, and so far there’s no indication that he’s being brought in to ideological orthodoxy with the party. But on the other hand, for all the infighting between Trump and Congressional Republicans, there hasn’t been a major split between the two as of yet, at least not on policy issues.

One worthwhile observation is that those actions which were typical of Republicans tended to be much more substantial than those which were unique to Trump. On average they affected more people to a greater degree, had a greater degree of legal formal, and they were less easily reversed. This is, perhaps, not surprising. Much of what has distinguished Trump from typical Republicans in the popular imagination is the constant stream of outrageous, but ultimately petty, controversies he seems to cause daily. In terms of actually crafting and implementing policies, it’s not surprising that Trump would need to rely on Republican officials, since he himself doesn’t actually have all that much political capital.

Results By Policy Area

The relative uniqueness of the Trump Administration’s policies varied significantly between policy areas. Generally, he was most distinct from Republicans in his impact on government/political institutions, while he was most typical in the realm of economic policy. Trump’s approach to civil liberties and human rights, as well as foreign policy, tended to be much more of a blend of typical Republican practices and his own idiosyncrasies.

Within these broad policy areas there were wide, and often surprising variations. So let’s look at each of them individually:

Civil Liberties and Human Rights

The most uniquely awful the Trump administration has done is fan the flames of extreme right wing ethno-nationalistic extremism while dismantling programs that combat them. There is precedence for these activities, of course. Republicans have making dog whistles for decades and the right has had a number of extremist groups for years, including the oath keepers, the militia movement, anti-abortion extremists, among others. However, Trump as a political phenomena is unique in being a product of these phenomena, and his election has emboldened unreformed klansmen, outright fascists, and their fellow travellers to an extent that would have been inconceivable a few years ago.

Beyond this, though, Trump’s policies on Civil and Human Rights issues are best characterized as an extension of pre-existing trends, rather than a unique deviation.

In the realm of immigration, Trump has been more eager to impose draconian anti-immigration measures than previous Republican administrations. However, for the most part his actions align with prominent right wing movements, like the Tea Party movement, which have been pushing the Republicans to take a harder anti-immigration line for years. There are still many ways that Trump has arguably gone beyond even the Tea Party. For one thing, his enforcement of anti-immigration measures has been particularly cruel. Likewise, attempts to ban immigration from numerous Muslim countries are something that originated with the Trump administration.

In most other areas, the Trump administration is largely just reflecting awful Republican policies. The drive to disenfranchise voters with voter ID laws is a well-established Republican practice, and the Trump administration is largely just validating a drive that’s driven that’s taking place at the state level. The administration’s attempts to undermine gender and racial discrimination are typical of the Republican party. Draconian tough on crime measures and their attendant violations are common among Conservatives almost everywhere.

Economic, Healthcare, and Environmental Policy And Similar Issues

When Trump was running for President, and for a time after he entered office, there was some speculation that he would break from established Republican economic policies and pursue right wing form of economic populism. In practice, this would have meant meant toning down the free market fundamentalism and attacks on the welfare state in favor of focusing on nationalistic protectionism and targeted intervention to curry favor with his base. Was this the case?

For the most part, the answer to this has been a pretty resounding no.

To be sure, there are things Trump has done that might signal a shift towards economic nationalism: nixing TPP, flirting with a trade war with Canada, the carrier deal, raising more trade dispute in the WTO, and pushing for the re-negotiation of various trade deals. He may yet break off existing trade deals and lead the US into a trade wars. The Trump administration has exercised favoritism towards various businesses and industries, but it’s usually either been a matter of personal interest or the type of crony capitalism typical of Republicans rather than a sort of systemic economic nationalism. This could always change. For one thing, news this week seems to indicate NAFTA may be heading for a messy breakup, and however you feel about NAFTA this would be a very costly and disruptive. Still, so far to the extent that Trump administration has broken from typical Republican policies, it’s largely been around the margins to ambiguous effect.

In most ways the Trump administration has pursued policies typical of any Republican. The administration has aggressively dismantled consumer safety protections, environmental regulations, labor protections and worker safety rules, and financial regulations. He’s also undercut healthcare, social programs and green investments, all while pursuing tax cuts that would exacerbate inequality and destroy government finances. The spending measures he’s pursued, like his push for infrastructure, are largely packages of corporate handouts. This is all well within the scope of pre-existing Republican policy, and there isn’t much evidence that Trump’s “economic populism” is leading him to pull his punches on things that help workers.

Institutions

Trump, as a political phenomenon and a President, has been seen in the popular imagination as a very large shock to the America’s political and governing system. For the most part this is accurate, though decidedly not in the sort of iconoclastic “drain the swamp” sense that Trump and his supporters would like to imagine. The Trump’s unique impacts seem to be overwhelmingly concentrated in the realm of government institutions.

The main driving factor in this is the abuses of power associated with the Trump administration, including the administration’s generally poor record on ethics, the ever present conflicts of interest and nepotism, and, of course, the myriad scandals the administration has fallen into. Collectively, these types of abuses of power represent the main distinguishing point between Trump and his Republican peers.

At the same time, Trump has uniquely degraded the political system, though he’s not as exceptional as one might think. Trump’s antagonism of the media, his demagoguery and so forth do go beyond what you might expect from typical Republicans. However, as much as these thing capture national attention, their impacts are relatively minor and abstract in the greater scheme of things. On the other hand, three of the most substantial actions he’s taken, repealing the Johnson amendment, exempting Sinclair Media from FCC regulations, and appointing Niel Gorsuch, are things that it’s easy to imagine a typical Republican administration would do as well.

The situation for the regulatory system and civil service is largely similar. Trump has foisted a number of impractical directives that badly corrode the functionality of government agencies, and he’s general antagonized and understaffed the federal workforce. However, Republicans have been imposing broad, poorly thought out mandates on governing institutions that badly undermine their capabilities for decades. Arguably Trump has been particularly reckless in the way he’s gone about it, but the difference is one of degrees. The most notable aspect of Trump’s policies towards the civil service where he’s been uniquely bad is transparency. Trump’s campaign against leakers is hardly unprecedented (see Nixon), but the issue is a good deal more pronounced than it would be in a typical Republican administration.

Foreign Policy

The Trump administration has left a rather obvious mark on Foreign Policy. This is partly due to an intentional break in policy, with the Trump administration’s inward looking nationalism contrasting sharply with the sort of Neo-Conservatism that’s more typical of Republicans. It’s almost inconceivable to imagine Bush threatening to leave NATO in the way Trump has.

But the main distinguishing feature of the Trump Administration’s foreign policy is just how diplomatically inept and incoherent it is. This is an administration that’s nixed diplomatic deals with Iran at the same time that it’s enabling Iranian militias win the war in Syria, where the secretary of State and the President are openly at odds with each other. Trump’s mishandling of communications with foreign leaders is already a running joke, and by most appearances he has no interest in getting better. Perhaps the main positive thing you can say about the Trump administration’s foreign policies is that they lack the clarity of vision and competence necessary to execute the sort of grand disastrous foreign adventures that typified the Bush administration.

Implications

There are two broad takeaways from these results.

Most of the Things You Could Criticize Trump Over Are Things You Could Criticize Any Republican For…

Especially if one factors in the Tea Party.

The differences between Trump and the Republican Party are largely superficial. Most of the things Trump has done, especially in terms of substantial policy making, are things any Republican President would have done given the opportunity. There are differences around the margins, of course, and there may be a more pronounced split at some point in the future, but for the most part the Trump administration has been awful in the same ways the modern Republican party is awful.

On the one hand, this means that all the urgency and popular disdain that’s crystallized against Trump can, should, and must also be directed at Republicans. All his awful behavior in law enforcement and civil rights issues have a long established precedence. Most of his draconian immigration policies and cruel deportation practices were things that the Republicans had been trending towards for a while. Whatever hope Trump’s apparent economic populism might have engendered was a false one, in almost every meaningful way he’s vigorously continued the systematic rigging and destabilization of the economy Republicans began decades ago. Correcting these things will need to go far beyond beating. They will also require beating back Republicans and achieving meaningful systemic change.

In short, there are plenty of opportunities to leverage anti-Trumpism into a broadside against right wing ideology and a call for an alternative.

But there are also draw backs to this. For one thing, reining in Trump or winning an electoral rout would be much easier if the Republican party and/or base were alienated by Trump. This is not likely since for the most part he’s just doing things that they basically like, especially if they’re ready to dismiss the Russian scandal as some sort of liberal conspiracy theory. There’s also an issue of normalization. If Trump is doing things that are mostly just things typical Republicans would do, then it’s easy for self proclaimed moderates and a disinterested public to dismiss criticism as simply partisan bickering.

However, that’s offset by the observation that…

Trump Has Accelerated The Deterioration Of Both The Republican Party And Modern US Politics In A Significant And Unprecedented Way

While from one perspective Trump’s actions can be seen as mostly typical of the Republican Party, the picture changes if you view Trump’s unique actions as indicating how much worse he is than a hypothetical pre-Trump Republican administration would have been, then his impact has been very stark indeed. Going by the numbers in the Trump Omnibus, we’d estimate that he’s about 25%-50% worse. Think about how reckless a person would have to be to drive 25%-50% over the speed limit on the freeway? That’s essentially what Trump Administration is doing, the only difference is more people will get caught in the flaming wreckage when it inevitably crashes and burns.

And this is all the more serious because such a large part of what makes Trump uniquely awful are things that cut straight to the core of American life. Trump has brought a level of corruption and mismanagement to the center of our governing institutions and politics that’s quite frankly unprecedented in modern American history. He’s already committed the very things Richard Nixon was impeached over, and he’s still going. The actions of some people in the Trump campaign easily qualify for the technical definition of treason. They aided a hostile foreign power trying to tamper in our election, and that isn’t some conspiracy theory, they admitted it. Compared to that, the flagrant misuse of government funds, the conflicts of interest, and nepotism look almost banal. But they aren’t banal, any one of those things would have caused a scandal that would have easily brought down administration’s not too long ago.

Worse yet, Trump is normalizing all sorts of awful things. If you went back to 5 years ago things and told people about any of this, they likely wouldn’t believe you. To be sure, 2012 wasn’t “normal” either, but by comparison 2017 is like a fever dream. The Tea Party radicalism of yesteryear is now the stated policy of the President. Not only that, they’ve gone further still. Not too long ago, a candidate saying that they were going to ban Muslim immigrants from the country would have been seen as a fringe character. Now it’s an accepted position of the mainstream right. Literal Nazi’s are coming out of the woodwork, and the dog whistle appeals to racism are more explicit than they’ve been in nearly half a century. And establishment Republicans, like Ed Gillespie, have mostly acclimated themselves to the situation. This may be an indication that they were always secretly terrible, but it’s not reassuring that they’re now free to be openly terrible.

Of course, this argument can be overdone. For one thing, it risks implying that if it weren’t for Trump everything would be okay, or that pre-Trump Republicans weren’t that bad. That’s wrong for two reasons. First, as we’ve established, most of the awful things the Trump administration has done fit within established Republican policy positions. Second, establishment Republicans have mostly acclimated themselves to the situation, enabling the Administration or adopting its methods on the belief that they’re a political winner. Whatever they would have done in the absence of Trump, their behavior has demonstrated they have no compunction about stooping to his level.

Conclusion

We started out with the question of whether Trump was a continuation of all the things that were terrible about Republicans before or a unique aberration that represents a special threat and warrants special urgency. The answer we’ve found is that, despite their apparent incompatibility both are valid depending on one’s perspective.

Moreover, these two characterizations are complimentary. If some someone responds to a litany of complaints about Trump by trying to argue that criticism of Trump does not apply to Republicans, you can point out that yes, in fact, in the vast majority of cases they do, which is why they’ve been prepared to enable him for so long. To anyone who wants to dismiss criticism of Trump as merely partisan rhetoric, you can point out that not long ago a large percentage of what he’s doing would have been unacceptable a few years ago, and enters into the realm of objectively horrifying.

Which case you make is going to have to depend on your audience, of course. To someone who prioritizes economic issues, highlighting that Trump has continued the sort of callous oligarchic policies that voters had roundly rejected in Bush and Romney is likely a good way to go. For someone who’s more interested in clean governance, point out what a singularly corrosive influence has been on our institutions. For a populist with no particular love of the powers that be, point out that Trump’s promise of change was always a hollow one. For self proclaimed “centrists” and “moderates”, point out how much Trump has degraded our politics and enabled radicals. And so on and so forth.

And while some may try to accuse you of talking out of trying to have it both ways, as we’ve seen, all of these arguments are accurate. There’s nothing contradictory in saying the right was starting from a low base, and then Trump dragged it way lower.