Will Donald Trump be Herbert Hoover all over again?

Hoover took over in a time of general prosperity but stagnant wages and vast income inequality. Populists in Congress proposed dramatic increases in tariffs to help the struggling agricultural sector, the equivalent of today’s beleaguered blue-collar workers.

.. The proposal divided Republicans in Congress and Hoover before they produced the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, setting off retaliation, freezing international trade, contributing to the Great Depression and accelerating a ruinous cycle of nationalism around the world.

Hoover’s ghost should haunt the GOP right now. A populist, protectionist president has come to power at a time of long-depressed wages and vast inequality. He threatens to implement a 45 percent tariff against China and 35 percent against Mexico, and he’s about to collide with free-traders and pro-business interests in his own party.

If they jettison Trump’s agenda and proceed with business as usual, they risk inflaming Trump’s already furious followers. If they do what Trump has promised, there will be chaos as they pursue what amounts to a mission impossible: enacting a huge tax cut, making enormous spending increases on infrastructure and the military and cutting the debt in half — all without touching Social Security and Medicare.

And they’ll be without a mutual foil to unite them.

.. Giuliani said prosecuting Clinton would be “a presidential decision” — an extraordinary departure from the American tradition of removing the president from prosecutorial decisions, particularly since President Nixon tried to block the Justice Department’s Watergate probe in 1973.

.. Trump surrogate Omarosa Manigault told a conservative website that Trump is keeping an enemies list.

Many of Trump’s sweeping promises will be hard, if not impossible, to fulfill

Two of Trump’s ideas could probably be realized as early as his first day in office: scrapping executive orders issued by Obama — including those that shielded from deportation some immigrants who are here illegally — and appointing a special prosecutor to investigate vanquished Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

.. “He certainly could do it, but it could have a major, devastating impact on her and would create a very bad precedent like we see in Third World countries” where election winners often imprison their rivals

.. He would have the authority to renegotiate trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement that he has long railed against — and to withdraw with six months’ notice if he wished — but such a move could be catastrophic for stock markets and the economy.

.. But Trump would probably have the ability to ban a narrower group of Muslims living in certain parts of some countries controlled by Islamic State terrorists because the immigration statutes afford some discretion on national security grounds.

Trump got a lot of things right

Consider the Trump themes that resonated deeply with tens of millions of Americans:

  • We don’t win anymore.
  • We have no strategy to fight our enemies.
  • Our allies aren’t paying enough freight.
  • Defense cuts and feckless leadership are projecting American weakness.
  • Trade deals help only some Americans.
  • Washington doesn’t work.

Separate the bill of particulars from Trump the person, and the reality is, these complaints make sense.

.. Congress can take on the hard challenge of getting workers the skills they need to compete in today’s economy. It can take on the special interests in universities, schools and unions that oppose these changes and the fancy pants who sneer at the need for vocational and technical skills, which could better prepare workers for advanced manufacturing. It can work with states to expand apprenticeship and other work-based learning programs. It can offer the long-term unemployed living in areas with limited job opportunities assistance to move to cities with tighter, stronger labor markets.