Kushner ridiculed for thinking he can take over and rewrite the GOP's 2020 platform: 'Good luck with that'

In a column for Bloomberg, former political scientist Jonathan Bernstein explained that White House senior adviser Jared Kushner is doomed to failure as he takes on another task for father-in-law Donald Trump: re-doing the Republican Party platform before the 2020 election.

According to the columnist: "Good luck with that."

As Bernstein notes, party platforms are essentially worthless exercises in public relations that are rarely adhered to, and, despite that, there is no way senior GOP officials are going to let him hijack the process and the wording.

 "He [Kushner] wants a Republican Party platform so short that it can be printed on a 'single card that fits in people's pockets.' This isn’t a new concept, but there’s a reason that platforms have become bloated over time and why this isn’t a fight worth winning," the columnist wrote. "If there’s one thing pundits will tell you about party platforms, it’s that they don’t matter. That’s half correct. As electioneering tools, platforms are in fact about as unimportant as can be. After all, the only people who care about them are activists, organized interest groups and other party actors, all of whom are almost certain to vote for the party ticket in November."

However, he notes," The nomination process, including the drafting and adoption of the platform, generally winds up reflecting the agenda and political positions of the party as a whole. So it’s not a bad guide to what the party will do if it has the chance." 

"This is why the platforms are so bloated, and why Kushner, a senior adviser to the president, is unlikely to advance his plan," he explained. "It’s true that (unlike in 2016) President Donald Trump’s campaign will be in total control of the Republican convention and all its committees, including the platform committee. It will probably get what it wants. But when push comes to shove, hollowing out the platform is certain to anger a lot of Republican party actors. And the gain from doing so is … just about nothing. "

Saying Kushner is welcome to try and take over the time-wasting process since, "it's not as if the party would sue him over it," Bernstein suggested that it is not a fight the Trump administration needs now since their president has bigger battles to fight as he falls behind in the polls.

"This is separate from the question of whether campaign staffers will try to eliminate platform items they don’t like or don’t think will play well in the election. They may try to do so, and certainly may succeed," he wrote before warning, "But it's one thing to take on a small number of specific groups over their platform requests; it's another to take on every group in the party that cares about their platform language — especially with no tangible gain. Sure, it may happen anyway. But it’s a fight that wouldn’t make any sense to win."

You can read the whole piece here.