Donald Trump is not exactly a traditional conservative politician. In fact, he’s not even a politician. That’s how confusing the age of Trump is to a lot of people. I’m not just talking about people on the right side of the spectrum. As much as they try to deny it or reduce Trump into some sort of devil or the second coming of Hitler, the left is also as stumped and stupefied by Donald Trump.
It’s easy to see why people are confused regarding this very enigmatic, yet loud political figure. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to get to the heart of the issue. What truly throws off people about Donald Trump is that he’s neither left nor right.
Although the argument could be made that he is more on the right side of the political spectrum, this is not entirely convincing because there are certain parts of his public record as well as his public statements that is definitely on the left side of things.
He’s on the record for same sex marriage. He’s on the record for some sort of amnesty for undocumented immigrants to the US. These are hardly conservative positions. He’s also very big on massive infrastructure spending. Does that sound familiar? Well, it should. That’s classic new deal policy.
A lot of people on the right infrastructure spending because everybody knows that it doesn’t work. In fact, economists, have been jumping up and down since forever that pumped prime spending is a corrupt and inefficient way to resuscitate any economy. It just doesn’t work. In fact, when you look at the new deal and the huge amount of money spent on public work programs, you’re stumped because they never created the kind of mass broad based employment they were supposed to produce.
But to this very day, you have a chorus of academics. These are people who are supposedly smart and know better who keep the refrain coming. They keep repeating over and over again that big spending leads to a more robust economy.
Unfortunately, Trump has drunk the Kool Aid in disrespect. It’s easy to see the conservative side of Trump because he actually pushed a new policy in the executive branch. For every new regulation the executive branch will come up with, they would have to eliminate two old regulations. This has worked wonders because the huge regulatory state is actually beginning to scale back.
Trump is also known for his tax cut. This is hardly a liberal position. Now do you see why there is such a tremendous amount of apprehension and confusion about Donald Trump? In fact, there is such confusion that a lot of people are making a claim that conservatism somehow, someway is dead because of Trump.
I wouldn’t go that far. It’s definitely being redefined because the new power base of the GOP is shifting to white working class voters. For the longest time, the GOP has been the party of business owners. This is the party of the business establishment.
Judging from Trumps re-trick regarding trade and trade protection, it’s definitely shifting to the working class. If you believe that conservatism is somehow tied to protecting only company owners, then you may have a case for conservatism being obsolete in the face of all these Trump policies. But if you believe that conservatism is really tied to a set of cultural values regardless of class, then the argument could be made that regardless of the age of Trump, conservatism is here to stay.
