Aftandilian in Al Jazeera on Trump’s Republican Party
Gregory Aftandilian, Lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published a recent Op-Ed on the realignment of the Republican Party under United States President Donald Trump and his Chief Adviser Stephen Bannon.
Aftandilian’s Op-Ed, entitled “Remaking the Republican Party: Populism a la Trump,” was published on February 25, 2017 in Al Jazeera.
From the text of the article:
Even though US President Donald Trump has been criticised by “true” conservatives for his past liberal positions on social issues and his denunciations of trade pacts, his February 24 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) was widely applauded.
His comments, and those of his chief adviser, Stephen Bannon, suggest that he aims to take the Republican Party in a more populist and nationalist direction, and believe that traditional conservatives will be forced to fall in line.
Although Trump did mention some orthodox conservative positions, such as cutting taxes and regulations on business, much of his speech was aimed at showing the conservative rank and file that the popularity he gained during the election campaign means that he, not the traditional conservative movement, is setting the agenda – a concentration on militarism, economic nationalism, and populism.
You can read the entire article here.
Aftandilian spent over 21 years in government service, most recently on Capitol Hill where he was foreign policy adviser to Congressman Chris Van Hollen (2007-2008), professional staff member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and foreign policy adviser to Senator Paul Sarbanes (2000-2004), and foreign policy fellow to the late Senator Edward Kennedy (1999). Learn more about him here.