Trump Is Offering Populism, Minus the Free Candy

President Trump has delivered on some of the things he promised supporters on the campaign trail: He has appointed a conservative Supreme Court justice; begun more aggressive enforcement of immigration laws; and directed his appointees to slash regulations on fossil fuel and other industries. But in terms of spending, Mr. Trump has embraced the austere preferences of congressional Republicans, even when that approach has contradicted his campaign promises.

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Essentially, for all of Mr. Trump’s populist rhetoric, he has outsourced his domestic policy agenda to the austere, spending-averse congressional Republicans.

It’s hard to know how much of this reflects the president’s actual policy preferences versus the ideology of the people he has surrounded himself with, and how much of it is simply the path of least resistance. Letting House Speaker Paul Ryan and the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, set the domestic policy agenda is easier than doing it yourself.

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