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August 25, 2015 at 07:14 AM
(Bloomberg Politics) — In some ways, all the progressive angst over Donald Trump’s rise and further rise is misplaced.
Because aside from his completely unworkable plan to deport 11 million people, then welcome back the “good” ones, he’s by far the least conservative of the 17 GOP options.
On Social Security, just for starters, Trump is such an outlier that the liberal economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently wrote a column headlined “In GOP war on Social Security, only Trump gets it.” Instead of arguing that we must raise the retirement age or privatize the program, the current Republican front-runner argues that he’ll create so much wealth in this country that we won’t need to make cuts.
Of other government programs, no other Republican candidate has uttered anything like Trump’s remark during a rally in Phoenix: “I know this doesn’t sound very conservative, but we’ve got to take care of everybody, not just the people up here,” he said, holding his hand up high.
He also says single-payer health care systems work well in other countries, even while also saying that he no longer thinks that’s what we should have here.
See also: Trump, Kasich face PPACA screening tests
And while he speaks ill of the “hedge fund guys,” he’s the only Republican with a good word to say about Planned Parenthood: “I would look at the good aspects of it and I would also look because I’m sure they do some things properly and good, good for women, and I would look at that,” Trump told CNN.
Yes, he also told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that PP should lose all federal funding, but later seemed to backtrack on that, telling Sean Hannity on Fox News that “They do good things. There’s two Planned Parenthoods in a way.”
