The must-read reporting over the weekend was Jonathan Swan’s series at Axios exploring the efforts of former President Donald Trump’s supporters and other Trump-friendly Republicans to prepare to staff a potential Trump second term.
During the presidential nomination competition in 2015-2016, Republican Party actors generally opposed Trump, in part because they considered him a risky general election candidate and in part because they were not convinced he would be reliable on matters of public policy.
When push came to shove, however, the elected officials, party professionals, interest group activists, party-aligned media figures and others who might have prevented his nomination chose not to challenge him, mainly because by the time of the Republican National Convention in July they were convinced he was willing to abide by party preferences in most policy areas. Notably, Trump had shown that he was willing to add conventional Republicans to his campaign, and the pattern continued into the presidency.
