I thought at the time that adopting trickle-down economics represented a strategic error for a candidate who was promoting himself as a new type of Republican. Instead of saying he’d slash business taxes and bring the top rate of income tax down to twenty-five per cent, Trump could have promised tax cuts and tax credits targeted specifically at middle-class Americans, citing the fact that wealthy Americans were doing fine and didn’t need another handout.
.. A plan aimed at the middle class, however, could have complemented Trump’s populist line on immigration and trade, wrong-footed the Democrats, and allowed him to claim he had a three-pronged approach to raising wages and living standards. In short, it would have made him a much more formidable candidate.
.. The proposal to eliminate the estate tax, which the Bush Administration suspended for ten years, also mimics Ryan’s plan, as does the call to slash the corporate tax rate, which currently stands at thirty-five per cent. In this instance, though, Trump outdid the House Speaker is his largesse toward the business class. Ryan would cut the corporate tax rate to twenty per cent; Trump to fifteen per cent. About the only residue of populism related to taxes in Trump’s presentation on Monday was a reiteration of his pledge to eliminate the notorious carried-interest deduction
.. many poor families don’t pay much federal income tax: social security is their main burden. Secondly, the fact that it would be a tax deduction rather than a tax credit means that wealthy families would get a much bigger break. “Making child care fully tax deductible is just about the worst possible way to help subsidize the cost of child care,”
.. What made Trump attractive to many Republican voters was his eagerness to move away from the standard narrative about blaming big government and high taxes for everything, and his stated willingness to challenge the vested interests that had dominated the Party for so long.
.. During the primaries, his claim that he was beholden to no one was one of his biggest assets. Since he got the nomination, however, it has become very clear that he’s far from an independent operator. Unable or reluctant to finance and organize his own Presidential campaign, he has been forced to come to terms with the G.O.P. establishment, the wealthy interests that finance it, and the anti-government, anti-tax economic philosophy
Why Conservatives and Progressives Share an Interest in a Huge Trump Loss
the candidate challenging Speaker Paul Ryan in a Wisconsin Republican primary, Paul Nehlen, declared in a radio interview that the United States should consider deporting all Muslims. “I’m suggesting we have a discussion about it, that’s for sure,” he said. “I am absolutely suggesting we figure out—here’s what we should be doing. We should be monitoring every mosque. We should be monitoring social media. We’ve got about three million Muslims in the United States.”
.. This is the GOP’s future if Donald Trump wins.
.. In Republican primaries, opportunists will try to mimic Trump’s ugly brand of identity politics and actual white nationalists will be emboldened to vie for power in the GOP. They will win in some regions and transform the tenor of local politics in many more
.. If Trump fails––especially if he loses in a humiliating landslide––the defeat will go a long way toward discrediting that same brand of right-wing identity politics, putting the GOP on a trajectory that would benefit conservatives and progressives alike.
They Want Trump to Make the G.O.P. a Workers’ Party
Ronald Reagan’s notions that policies that benefit the rich and big business lift all incomes now appear outmoded in an era of rising wealth inequality and stagnant wages.
.. “The biggest thing that Trump offers these voters is finally somebody paying attention,” said Henry Olsen, a scholar at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center.
“Imagine that they’re the wallflowers at the high school dance and they’re sitting off, ignored by everybody. Suddenly, the football hero comes up and says, ‘Come dance with me.’ That’s intoxicating.”
.. But he acknowledged differences in tactics and substance. His group and its allies favor conflict, like government shutdowns, for instance. And they still want to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut taxes for everyone.
How the ‘Stupid Party’ Created Donald Trump
George W. Bush joked at a Yale commencement: “To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students I say, you, too, can be president of the United States.”
.. The Republican embrace of anti-intellectualism was, to a large extent, a put-on. At least until now.
.. During the Reagan years, the G.O.P. briefly became known as the “party of ideas,” because it harvested so effectively the intellectual labor of conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation and publications like The Wall Street Journal editorial page and Commentary.
.. In recent years, however, the Republicans’ relationship to the realm of ideas has become more and more attenuated as talk-radio hosts and television personalities have taken over the role of defining the conservative movement that once belonged to thinkers like Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and George F. Will.
.. The trend has now culminated in the nomination of Donald J. Trump, a presidential candidate who truly is the know-nothing his Republican predecessors only pretended to be.
.. It is hardly surprising to read Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter for Mr. Trump’s best seller “The Art of the Deal,” say, “I seriously doubt that Trump has ever read a book straight through in his adult life.”
.. What little Mr. Trump does know seems to come from television: Asked where he got military advice, he replied, “I watch the shows.”
.. He claimed that Mexican immigrants were “bringing crime” even though research consistently shows that immigrants have a lower crime rate than the native-born.
.. Mr. Trump also proposed barring Muslims from entering the country despite terrorism researchers, myself included, warning that his plan would likely backfire, feeding the Islamic State’s narrative that the war on terrorism is really a war on Islam.
.. The Trump acolytes claim it doesn’t matter; he can hire experts to advise him. But experts always disagree with one another and it is the president alone who must make the most difficult decisions in the world.