Last week I picked up a phrase during a politically-based seminar lead by a very established speaker. He said that Trump did not win the election as a Republican but as Populist.

According to Google’s dictionary, a Populist is “a member or adherent of a political party seeking to represent the interests of ordinary people; a person who holds, or who is concerned with, the views of ordinary people; a member of the Populist Party, a US political party formed in 1891 that advocated the interests of labor and farmers, free coinage of silver, a graduated income tax, and government control of monopolies.” Interesting, seeing as most ordinary people don’t get their careers started with a small loan of one million dollars.

Some argue that under the Trump administration (though maybe not a work of Trump himself), the Republican party has returned to its core values: low taxes, small government, and strong defense. What about Trump's almost manic obsession with building a border wall, deporting all immigrants, maybe or maybe not going into nuclear war with China?

The main issue with Trump's association as a Republican is that now that he is the government, he seems to want to make it as big as possible. Even still, he seems set on growing the economy and improving the lives of said ordinary, working-class Americans, so maybe he is a conservative at heart.

One of the reasons why the Trump administration may feel so entirely Republican is because of how pivotal the election in 2016 was. Because of Trump's victory, Congress stays with the Republican majority, a Republican judge is appointed to the Supreme Court, and the White House turns red for the first time in eight years. All three branches of government now conform to Republican ideals, so even if Trump himself likes to float in the middle, his surrounding government will keep on the right side of the middle-right.

So even though a lot of people are feeling like this...

A lot of people are also feeling like this...

(Yes, that is Obama. Man needs his props).

In summary, a lot of Independent or non-voters turned out for Trump because he appealed to the ordinary American citizen. However, this also turned away some Republican voters because he initially was very ambiguously conservative.

I personally think that the Republican party is thriving solely because of Paul Ryan, but that's just me. Let's be honest, Paul Ryan stopped the inappropriate dab, Trump would have probably dabbed with the poor kid who thought wearing three different shades of dark red was a good idea.

What do you think? Share and comment your thoughts on Trump's legitimacy as a Republican (please limit other comments about Trump at this time, I have to prepare myself to mediate THOSE discussions).

In the meantime, enjoy my second gif of Paul Ryan because there are a lot of great gifs Paul Ryan (including some of him drinking "kitten tears" if you have different views than I do. That's cool. 1st Amendment applies to gifs too my man).