But one thing we do know is that none of Donald Trump’s actual rivals for the nomination bore any resemblance to their imaginary candidate, a sensible, moderate conservative with good ideas.
.. Let’s not forget, for example, what Marco Rubio was doing in the memorized sentence he famously couldn’t stop repeating: namely, insinuating that President Obama is deliberately undermining America.
.. potential G.D.P. — what the economy could produce at full employment — has declined from around 3.5 percent per year in the late 1990s to around 1.5 percent now.
.. Meanwhile, I don’t think enough people appreciate the courage involved in focusing on things we actually know how to do, as opposed to happy talk about wondrous growth.
.. they don’t want to admit how much they would have to cut popular programs to pay for their tax cuts.
Donald Trump Sells Out to Trickle-Down Economics
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
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.
A Cure for Trumpism
The case for a conservative politics that stresses the national interest abroad and national solidarity at home.
.. We didn’t see Trump’s apotheosis coming. But in our 2008 book, “Grand New Party,” we pointed out that despite its “party of the rich” reputation, the Republican Party increasingly depended on mostly white working-class support, even as its policy agenda was increasingly unresponsive to working-class voters’ problems and concerns.
.. America’s wars are disproportionately fought by volunteers from downscale Red America.. So what should the Republican Party offer them instead? The best answer is a conservative politics that stresses the national interest abroad and national solidarity at home... With the exception of Rand Paul and the partial exception of Ted Cruz, the consensus critique of President Obama from not-Trump Republicans often seemed to be that he should have kept more troops in Iraq and kept more troops in Afghanistan and sent more troops to Libya and intervened in Syria andsent more arms to Ukraine and expanded NATO’s presence in the Baltics and been more willing to bomb Iran and ….. And the ease with which Trump crushed Jeb Bush, in particular, suggests that it will continue to resonate until Republican leaders become more selective in their hawkishness, more comfortable with five simple words: Invading Iraq was a mistake... But when you dig into survey data, immigration skepticism seems to be rooted as much in concerns about how quickly immigrants assimilate, whether they rely on welfare programs and whether they compete for American jobs as it is in racial or cultural anxiety... should explicitly try to attract immigrants who will be in a strong position to provide for their families in a difficult economic environment. It should encourage a market in which employers have to compete more for less-skilled labor, to slow the alarming retreat from paying work among native-born working-class men... Nothing unites elite conservatives more than their support for bringing entitlement spending under control. But by frequently insisting that he’d never cut Social Security and Medicare benefits, and basically endorsing universal health care, Trump has put himself on the side of millions of grass-roots Republicans... The party will still back tax cuts for the middle class and revenue-neutral tax reforms. But there should be no new income tax cuts for households earning $250,000 or more... A politics that stresses national solidarity isn’t just the best way to keep Trump voters from tearing down the party’s tent. It’s also the most plausible path up from white identity politics to a one-nation, pan-ethnic conservatism... Some liberals believe that this kind of shift is basically impossible — that racism and right-wing politics are so deeply intertwined that any Republican populism will just end up defending welfare for white people, that any “immigration in the national interest” proposals will descend into “Mexican rapists” one-liners on the campaign trail.Sadly, Donald Trump has offered powerful evidence for the liberals’ perspective. But if the Republican Party hopes to recover from his destructive rise, it has no alternative except to try to prove them wrong.