Donald Trump Is Ideologically Gutting The Republican Party

[corbe]

Donald Trump Is Ideologically Gutting The Republican Party

The worst part of Donald Trump's economic interventions is that he's getting other Republicans to throw out the party's free-market ideology.

By Robert Tracinski
December 9, 2016
 

I don’t know what’s worse about Donald Trump’s determination to intervene, as he did with Carrier, to keep manufacturers from moving any capital or operations overseas.

Is it the fact that he is vowing to interfere “on a day-by-day basis,” one deal at a time, to threaten “retribution” against recalcitrant firms? This is a policy that will turn the White House (or maybe just Trump Tower) into a central office for the ad hoc micromanagement of the American economy, ungoverned by any general rules or laws.

Or is it the fact that he does want to make the rule general by imposing a massive, across-the-board 35 percent tariff on foreign goods? Gee, what does that policy remind me of? Anyone, anyone….

(Video at Link)

But no, those aren’t the worst parts of this policy. The worst part is that Trump is getting other Republicans to excuse his actions by throwing out the party’s entire nominal ideology.

Isn’t the Republican Party supposed to be the party of free markets? Well, not any more. Consider our new vice-president, Mike Pence, the supposedly safe, establishment running mate who was going to be a balance against Trump’s wild-eyed populism. Here’s a little scene from the Republican Party in the Era of Trump.


“

This is the way it’s going to be,” Mr. Trump said…. “Corporate America is going to have to understand that we have to take care of our workers also.”

Mr. Trump was accompanied by his vice president-elect, Mike Pence, who is currently Indiana’s governor. He was in the room at Trump Tower when the president-elect placed his initial call to Mr. Hayes, and he was the one who sealed the deal with the chief executive with a handshake in the building on Monday.

“I don’t want them moving out of the country without consequences,” Mr. Trump said, even if that means angering the free-market-oriented Republicans he beat in the primaries but will have to work with on Capitol Hill. “The free market has been sorting it out and America’s been losing,” Mr. Pence added, as Mr. Trump interjected, “Every time, every time.”

Get that last part? The message is not just, as some have put it, that “the free market has failed.” Trump’s message is that the free market fails every time. So what is it that is going to succeed every time? Why, the personal deal-making prowess of Donald J. Trump, that’s what! Haven’t you read his book?

<..snip..>

http://thefederalist.com/2016/12/09/donald-trumps-ideological-gutting-of-the-republican-party/

[corbe]

These are all scenes from the ideological gutting of the Republican Party. As an experienced reality TV performer, Trump has an instinctive skill at emotional manipulation, a sense for how to appeal to people’s thoughtless impulses and play them off against one another. So he is harnessing the brute tribalism of partisan politics to get the rank and file of the party to back everything he says, simply because they like hearing the howls of outrage from their traditional tribal rivals, the Democrats.

He’s appealing to the sense that the enemy of our enemy must be our friend. But they’re all wrong. Sometimes the enemy of our enemy is just another enemy.

[Cripplecreek]

Behave as the left, become the left.

Its that simple.

[Night Hides Not]

Behave as the left, become the left.

Its that simple.

Can't do it, I'm not throwing away my two degrees, 8 years of military experience, and 30+ years in the civilian workforce, and all that I've learned, just to get on the Trump Train.

The cognitive dissonance in Trump World is pervasive.

[Cripplecreek]

Can't do it, I'm not throwing away my two degrees, 8 years of military experience, and 30+ years in the civilian workforce, and all that I've learned, just to get on the Trump Train.

The cognitive dissonance in Trump World is pervasive.

We see Trump supporters attack conservatism only to turn right around and declare Trump to be the great conservative hope.

[Right_in_Virginia]

Donald Trump Is Ideologically Gutting The Republican Party

How so?   

[corbe]

How so?   

   Also from the Article:



“I don’t want them moving out of the country without consequences,” Mr. Trump said, even if that means angering the free-market-oriented Republicans he beat in the primaries but will have to work with on Capitol Hill. “The free market has been sorting it out and America’s been losing,” Mr. Pence added, as Mr. Trump interjected, “Every time, every time.”



Get that last part? The message is not just, as some have put it, that “the free market has failed.” Trump’s message is that the free market fails every time. So what is it that is going to succeed every time? Why, the personal deal-making prowess of Donald J. Trump, that’s what! Haven’t you read his book?

   This is the premise of the article, Trump as head of the Republican Party, by actions and words, seems to have abandoned Free Market Principles.

   The absolute proof will be in January when Congress reconvenes and Trump's Stimulus Bill is addressed, If Congress acquiesces only a blind man could not see the results.

[Mesaclone]

Ronald Reagan's Republican Party is no more.  Consequently I am no longer a Republican.

You mean THIS Reagan:

But he advocated protectionism early in his 1980 campaign, saying to the U.S. auto industry: "Japan is part of the problem. This is where government can be legitimately involved. That is, to convince the Japanese in one way or another that, in their own interests, that deluge of cars must be slowed while our industry gets back on its feet..."

"...imposed a 100% tariff on selected Japanese electronic products for allegedly "dumping" computer memory chips, he said he did it "to enforce the principles of free and fair trade."

Remember, these companies are and were leaving for the equivalent of attaining slave labor to operate their factories....and so we are not facing "free and fair trade" but rather grossly unfair trade practices. THAT justifies Trumps use of tariffs and his actions in general vis-a-vis US companies...just as it was justified under Reagan.

Defenders of the Reagan policies will say that he has engaged in protectionism to open foreign markets. But they cannot deny that one-quarter of all imports are today restricted, a 100% increase over 1980. (From an article dated 1988)


Finally, here is listing of some of the "protectionist" acts of the Reagan administration...an administration that was arguably the most pro-Capitalist US administration of the 20th century. A president can be deeply pro-capitalist, but understand that free trade doesn't simply mean opening all our markets and letting all of our company's labor needs be met through unfair practices in other nations.

The Reagan administration:

Forced Japan to accept restraints on auto exports;
Tightened considerably the quotas on imported sugar;
Negotiated to increase the restrictiveness of the Multi­fiber Arrangement governing trade in textiles and apparel;
Required 18 countries, including Brazil, Spain, South
Korea, Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Finland, Australia, and the European Community, to accept "voluntary re­straint agreements" that reduce their steel imports to the United States;
Imposed a 45% duty on Japanese motorcycles for the ben­efit of Harley Davidson, which admitted that superior Japanese management was the cause of its problems;
Raised tariffs on Canadian lumber and cedar shingles;
Forced the Japanese into an agreement to control the price of computer memory chips;
Removed third-world countries on several occasions from the duty-free import program for developing nations;
Pressed Japan to force its automakers to buy more Ameri­can-made parts;
Demanded that Taiwan, West Germany, Japan, and Switzerland restrain their exports of machine tools;
Accused the Japanese of dumping roller bearings on grounds so that the price did not rise to cover a fall in the value of the yen;
Accused the Japanese of dumping forklift trucks and color picture tubes;
Extended quotas on imported clothes pins;
Failed to ask Congress to end the ban on the export of Alaskan oil and timber cut from federal lands;
Redefined dumping so domestic firms can more easily charge foreign competitors with unfair trade practices;
Beefed-up the Export-Import Bank, an institution dedicated to distorting the American economy at the ex­pense of the American people in order to artificially pro­mote exports of eight large corporations.


So, in many ways President Reagan was a mercantilist...as is Presdient-elect Trump. The two men were uncannily similar on trade issues. Free and fair trade involves retaliating against practices that are NOT free and fair...and there is a need to balance that unfairness with government policies that either encourage and/or restrain practices that are counter to US economic interests IF that unfairness stems from the policies of other nations.

[HonestJohn]

We see Trump supporters attack conservatism only to turn right around and declare Trump to be the great conservative hope.

Trump's now the head of the GOP (Presidents and President-elects tend to hold that figurative place).  What he does IS the policy of the GOP, period.

And to his supporters, he is the embodiment of their view of conservatism.

I used to argue that much of the GOP's support came not from conservatives, but from 'anti-liberals'.  People happy with liberal policy and governance... when it was working *FOR* them.

This election very much proved me right.  And I'm not happy to be right on this.  I argued that as a warning for the GOP to change.  To increase their educational efforts.

Instead, the anti-liberal parasites have consumed the host.

[Right_in_Virginia]

   This is the premise of the article, Trump as head of the Republican Party, by actions and words, seems to have abandoned Free Market Principles.     

In your own words @corbe,  convince me the "free market" we are captive to is actually "free" and beneficial for Americans.

[Cripplecreek]

Trump's now the head of the GOP (Presidents and President-elects tend to hold that figurative place).  What he does IS the policy of the GOP, period.

And to his supporters, he is the embodiment of their view of conservatism.

I used to argue that much of the GOP's support came not from conservatives, but from 'anti-liberals'.  People happy with liberal policy and governance... when it was working *FOR* them.

This election very much proved me right.  And I'm not happy to be right on this.  I argued that as a warning for the GOP to change.  To increase their educational efforts.

Instead, the anti-liberal parasites have consumed the host.

They're progressives which is not a left or right thing. Progressivism is anti constitutionalism.

[Doug Loss]

In your own words @corbe,  convince me the "free market" we are captive to is actually "free" and beneficial for Americans.

That is a profoundly anti-conservative view you have there.  Just so you know.