THE LAST LIBERAL PRESIDENT:

[T]hey have highlighted the curiously dual identity Mr. Trump has created for himself. There is the candidate who vowed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, deport all undocumented immigrants, rollback financial regulations, undo the Iran nuclear deal and repudiate the Paris agreement on climate change. But there is also the Trump who seldom espouses conservative ideology, especially its call to shrink the scope and scale of government. "I'm not going to cut Social Security like every other Republican and I'm not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid," Mr. Trump told The Daily Signal, a pledge he has since backed away from, but only haltingly. Since his victory he has spoken of bringing jobs to the heartland by spending $1 trillion on infrastructure.

This raises a question that has tantalized some observers during Mr. Trump's improbable campaign. As swiftly as he might try to dismantle President Obama's legacy, might he also emerge as a defender of F.D.R.'s?

It may sound far-fetched, but not necessarily to voters in Pennsylvania and Michigan, who, after voting Democratic in 2012, chose Mr. Trump this time. The conflict is brewing with another enclave of the party: its entrenched governing elite. Their leader is House Speaker Paul Ryan, who clashed repeatedly with Mr. Trump during the campaign and has since emerged as a rival architect of the new Republican Party. Mr. Ryan's free-market, anti-New Deal principles are spelled out in "A Better Way," a sheaf of ambitious proposals on issues ranging from jobs and education to health care and taxes. It has become the conservative blueprint, and a postelection survey showed that as many as two-thirds of Republicans think Mr. Ryan "should have more influence over policy" than Mr. Trump, Politico reported.

Tweet   @brothersjudd