Tag: ideology

“The transformation is clearest in the GOP, thanks to the elevation of Vance to the GOP presidential ticket. Vance, according to most accounts, was selected in a moment of confidence, as an heir apparent meant to extend and intensify Donald Trump’s core appeal rather than as a counterweight to the former president’s electoral weaknesses.
Vance spent the last half-decade transforming himself into one of the GOP’s most prominent neopopulists. He’s an advocate of tariffs and trade restrictions, a walker of auto-worker picket lines, and a harsh critic of foreign labor. He’s even complimented Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission chair who has helped lead the Biden administration’s newly aggressive (if mostly unsuccessful) approach to antitrust enforcement. Vance, who is among those who have a habit of taking swipes at libertarians, combines a rejection of individual liberty with a rejection of economic liberty—and he’s Trump’s newly anointed successor.”

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“What’s striking about this particular political moment is that on both the left and the right, a new elite consensus appears to be forming, one that is skeptical of, and in some cases quite hostile to, free market ideals and principles.

The neopopulist consensus is still rough, but in broad terms, it favors propping up domestic labor, cracking down on immigration, using taxes and spending incentives to carry out industrial policy, and implementing tariffs and trade restrictions for reasons of national security, job creation, or international competitiveness. Notably, the Biden administration left most of Trump’s tariffs in place—and in some cases increased them.

Whatever their other disagreements, the leaders and rising intellectuals in both parties seem to agree that the important thing is to leave out classical liberals, libertarians, and believers in economic liberty.

It’s true that the parties have never fully embraced these values, and at times have distanced themselves from them. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.), a self-described socialist, has long helped pull Democrats to the left on economics. Former President George W. Bush implemented tariffs on imported steel, and his brand of “compassionate conservatism” was partly an attempt to dampen the party’s libertarian tendencies.

Until recently, there was a place for those who prized individual freedom and markets. They were seen as valuable, or at least necessary, partners: As recently as 2012, none other than Democratic stalwart Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) pitched herself to libertarians. That same year, former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R–Wisc.), who was probably most well-known for proposals to reform entitlements, appeared on the GOP ticket. Trump’s first vice president, Mike Pence, was similarly a link to the GOP’s Reaganite past.

There may be some holdouts in the party who still embrace a more orthodox pro-market economics. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s Republican National Convention speech paid homage to the “core principles of American conservatism,” which included “fiscal responsibility,” “free markets,” and “limited government.” But with Trump and Vance as the party’s reigning avatars, it seems likely that these values will remain only as limp, legacy platitudes.

That’s a shame. Personal liberty and market freedom are bedrock American political and economic values: That synthesis is explicit in the American founding, and it has long been deeply embedded in American life. In the 1830s, when America was still a young nation, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that “boldness of enterprise is the foremost cause of its rapid progress, its strength, and its greatness.” That boldness has made America wealthy on a scale that is almost taken for granted: Today, the vast majority of American states are richer than most European countries. The neopopulists take this wealth for granted, and then propose policies—tariffs, labor regulations, vast new spending programs—that would make America poorer, that would slow its progress, that would deplete its strength and greatness.”

https://reason.com/2024/08/21/economic-liberty-now-has-no-place-in-either-party/