Is Trump going soft?

President to be, 'the Donald' as he likes to be known, appears to be taking the edge off some of his more radical plans. We will see when his first 100 day plan is launched, but so far he says he is going to stick by 2 parts of Obama's health policy, that he does not give priority to jailing Hilary and his earliest aim is to get people working on his new infrastructure projects.

What is missed in the vast speculation around Trump's mellowing - or not - is the real political dynamic underway at the heart of the US's political system. And this new dynamic is going to make life worse for tens of millions of Americans; worse than the Trump programme.

Extreme, not to say rabid, right wing Republicanism dominates the House of Representatives and the Senate. These are the people who all but destroyed Obama's 8 year presidency. Trump ran his own election campaign against most of the Republican leadership but the relations between the new President and Congress  are completely different. 

Unless Trump, unlike Obama, mobilises his social base then he will become the prisoner of his reluctant Party.  

On some matters (hopelessly narrow minded judges on the Supreme Court etc) there will be no problem. But there are still major divisions ahead. The right of Republicanism wants to reduce the state drastically and regards the deficit as a mortal sin. Trump needs to borrow massively and most economists thought his programme wildly more expensive than Clinton's. He needs to water his ground with millions of better paid jobs. Private wealth will invest, especially after huge tax breaks, but nothing like enough to get anywhere near 5% growth that Trump would need just to prevent the deficit rising. 

All in all a great collision is rising up in US politics. And it is only 2 years for the swath of new Republican buccaneers to cut back the state before the next elections change a third of them. 

Which is why Trump is as conciliatory and as reactionary as possible on all the social issues as is seen by his proposals for the new members of the Supreme Court. He needs to court the Republican right, in order to have the slightest chance of any leeway with his spending plans.

All the commentators have been stressing how Trump has always run his own show. Well, Congress has been running its particular political show for some time and it is extremely unlikely to give its power up to a lucky billionaire charlatan that, up to now, has managed to dodge the Republican's silver bullet.