Since it is Thanksgiving week, I am going to write a positive article today about Donald Trump (well, semi-positive, at any rate...).

Of course, there is indeed a whole universe of negative aspects of having Trump as president again, but even I have to admit that Trump has had a few positive effects on the Republican Party -- mostly by his insistence that they blindly follow him in all things. This has meant the party as a whole has had to largely accept some of Trump's very non-traditional stances on issues (non-traditional for conservatives or Republicans, that is). Trump, unlike many of the ideologues who used to set the party's direction and policy objectives, has the ability to occasionally spot an issue where the GOP's traditional position is so unpopular that it winds up hurting them at the ballot box. Two of these issues in particular stand out. Trump can't truly be said to be "on the right side" of either of these issues, and his objection to the more-extreme positions the Republicans traditionally have taken is rather thin and transactional. But it's better than where the party was headed without Trump, so he at least deserves partial credit for how he's changed the party's orthodoxy. And then finally, Trump has now made one cabinet pick that even plenty of Democrats will likely get behind in the Senate, when it comes time for their confirmation vote.

The first issue Trump has changed Republican dogma on is Social Security and (to a lesser extent) Medicare and Medicaid. Republicans have a long tradition of hating all these programs ever since Democrats initially created them, and they've tried various different ways of either undercutting them, slashing their budgets, or eliminating them entirely. Trump has sworn to protect them from cuts, which has (somewhat) muted the calls from the GOP to attack them.

As I said, Trump is not exactly a pure-of-heart champion of what Republicans like to sneeringly call "entitlement programs." But he is politically savvy enough to have realized that Democrats are on the winning side of the argument in elections. Cutting Social Security, in particular, is never going to be popular, no matter how Republicans try to do so. Social Security is almost universal -- virtually everyone is going to benefit from it if they reach a certain age -- so it's hard to scapegoat as some sort of program for "freeloaders." Which Democrats effectively point out, in highly emotional terms, every time Republicans get a creative new idea for how to undermine it.

Trump is nowhere near as strong on the other two programs, however. He promised in his most-recent campaign to "protect" Medicare and Medicaid, but he's already reportedly considering jettisoning Medicaid from that campaign promise. Medicare, like Social Security, is also near-universal since it covers everyone of a certain age or older. Medicaid, however, is for those who are permanently disabled or for those whose low income precludes them affording health insurance. It is a "safety net" program, in other words, and is nowhere near as universal. Pretty much every family in America has either had or currently has members in it receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits, but plenty of families will never have to resort to applying for Medicaid. This makes it an easier political target for Republicans, and as mentioned there are already ideas being floated for how to make it even more difficult to qualify for Medicaid. Medicaid was expanded under both Obamacare and during the COVID pandemic, and Republicans (even those Trump has now nominated) are looking for ways to tighten up the rules (like adding work requirements, for instance).

However, now Republicans will have to tread carefully, since Trump is obviously aware of the political repercussions of cutting these programs. He knows the effectiveness of Democratic ads showing granny in a wheelchair being pushed over a cliff, to put this another way. This doesn't guarantee that Trump won't sign budgets with cuts or new restrictions -- each of his White House budget proposals in his first term did indeed suggest cutting the programs -- but it'll all really depend on how Trump feels about it at the time. Trump's support is, as mentioned, transactional. He doesn't really care how any proposed cuts would actually affect people on these programs, but he does care about his own political brand, so it remains to be seen whether his support will be mere lip service or actually telling his own party to back off such proposed cuts. [This is all before Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy weigh in, I should mention -- who knows what they'll suggest?]

The other big change in Republican dogma was a lot more obvious during this election cycle. Trump figured out -- a lot sooner than most Republicans -- that the abortion rights issue was causing the Republican Party some serious damage with the voters. Even in a very Republican election cycle, abortion rights were on the ballot in 10 states and won in eight of them. New laws protecting the right to an abortion were approved by majorities of the voters in eight states, although the laws only passed in seven of them. The discrepancy: over 57 percent of Florida voters voted to enshrine the right to an abortion in the state's constitution, but this failed to meet the supermajority (of 60 percent) needed to pass. Laws protecting the right to an abortion passed not just in blue states but also in purple states (Arizona, Montana, Nevada) and one very red state (Missouri).

Trump, very early on in the 2024 campaign, realized that the anti-abortion faction in the Republican Party had vastly overstated the popularity of their extremist forced-birth position on the issue. So Trump made a political pivot. He used to proudly brag that he had named the three Supreme Court justices who were instrumental in jettisoning Roe v. Wade, but because this was nowhere near as popular as some in the GOP thought it would be, Trump conveniently rewrote history to make it more politically palatable. In his new telling, "everyone" wanted to see Roe overturned so the issue could go back to state governments. This was a whopper of a lie, but nobody ever adequately challenged him on it, so he largely got away with this historical revisionism. Everybody most certainly did not want to see the end of Roe, but Trump has gaslighted this falsehood successfully enough that he could then wash his hands of the entire issue. If it was up to the states, then a president and the national Congress could just ignore it, because "everyone" was happy with this outcome -- and if they weren't, well... it was merely a state matter.

Trump even castigated Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (back when they were vying against each other in the GOP primaries) for passing a forced-birth 6-week abortion ban in his state. According to Trump, this was a bad idea because it was too extreme. At the time, only Trump could get away with staking out a position within the Republican Party that any abortion ban was "too extreme" -- any other Republican would have been ostracized or even drummed out of the party for saying such a thing. Trump being Trump, he got away with it.

As with the other issues, though, Trump still can't be seen as any sort of hero championing the right side of things. Since he's a resident of Florida, the question came up of how Trump was going to vote on the ballot initiative that would have thrown out the 6-week ban. Trump waffled about it and staked out positions on both sides of the issue before finally knuckling under to the extremists and declaring he would vote against the measure. As with everything else, Trump is transactional, not some sterling champion of a woman's right to choose. He says he wouldn't sign a national abortion ban (should his Republican Congress pass one), but we simply won't know whether he changes his mind about that until it happens.

Nevertheless, Trump's realization that the issue had become an albatross around the GOP's neck has freed up the conversation within the Republican Party. Rather than a contest to see who can outdo whom on staking out the most extreme position possible, there are now Republicans who are actually vocally against the "no abortions, ever, for anyone" faction. That is progress, at least. And it likely wouldn't have happened (or would have taken a lot longer) without Trump.

The final thing to actually be thankful for with Donald Trump is his nominee to lead the Department of Labor. Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer is an Oregon Republican with a surprisingly pro-Union record. She was one of only three Republicans to support the "Protecting the Right to Organize Act" (PRO Act) and also supported the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, both of which were written to increase the power of Unions. She would be the most pro-Union secretary of Labor in a Republican administration in a very long time, in other words.

Her nomination was political payback to the Union support that Trump got (most notably from the president of the Teamsters), and it is already causing a few GOP heads to explode. Her confirmation hearing may be notable for having Democrats lobbing softball questions while Republicans try to grill her. And I could easily see a whole bunch of Republicans voting against her nomination while a whole bunch of Democrats support it -- which is rather unusual in today's polarized and partisan Senate.

Once again, however, Trump's support should be seen as transactional. While having a pro-Union Labor secretary is obviously better for Unions than the alternative, there are plenty of others in Trump's orbit who will be trying to rip protections away from Unions -- especially all the gains made by President Joe Biden. Elon Musk is fervently anti-Union, so once again who knows what bright ideas he will come up with to undercut Union power?

It will make for an interesting dynamic, though. After having a Union president speak at his Republican National Convention, Trump may be a whole lot more open to lobbying by Unions than any modern Republican president in memory. It's no guarantee of a good outcome, but at least the possibility exists where it wouldn't have with any other Republican in the White House.

Donald Trump has entirely taken over the Republican Party, and he expects complete loyalty from all of them. This includes supporting ideas he supports, even when they run completely counter to bedrock beliefs the party has held for decades. This has shaken up the party's ideology in a lot of big ways, more than just the ones discussed here.

But we've got to be thankful for something this week, right? So that's my list of things to be thankful for from Donald Trump. I don't fully trust him to follow through on any of them -- he changes position like a windvane spinning in a raging storm, at times -- but at least there is some hope that on a few things he will actually have shifted the dialog among Republicans for the better.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant