It might be too late. Trump’s anti-trade actions are hurting Americans at this very moment. Estimates show the economy has already lost hundreds of thousands of jobs because of his trade war. If Trump continues down this path, the prices on everything from phones to furniture will go up further. Every industry will ultimately be impacted by the ripple effects. Farmers, manufacturers, you name it. Other countries are retaliating already with their own tariffs, which magnifies the problem. Working-class and poor Americans will be hit hardest. They are the ones who rely on low prices to run households where there is little margin for financial error. If Trump continues to live in an economic Twilight Zone, these people will be forced to work longer hours and extra jobs just to make ends meet.
Trade should not be used as a weapon of war in times of peace. It’s a war that everyone loses. It’s time for the GOP to see the light. The president’s economic policies are bad for Americans, contrary to conservative principles, and cruel—not unlike their architect.
Party’s Over
After Mitt Romney’s failure to unseat President Obama in 2012, the Republican Party had a come-to-Jesus moment. How could we have lost the election? It seemed so obvious to the GOP leadership that Barack Obama was out of touch with mainstream America. In their eyes, the election should have been a cakewalk. But Romney got walloped 332–206 in the Electoral College. It was clear that the Republicans were the ones who were out of touch. Those who know Mitt believed he would have been a capable leader, but he was unable to connect with the broader swath of the electorate that he needed.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) commissioned an election “autopsy report.” The results were stark. Released four months after voting day, the hundred-page document highlighted the party’s problems with minorities, women, and young people. It said conservative policies had strong foundations but needed to be recast for new audiences. Republicans should bring more people under the tent, the authors wrote, but instead they were ostracizing them.
“Young voters are increasingly rolling their eyes at what the Party represents, and many minorities wrongly think that Republicans do not like them or want them in the country,” the document declared. “If Hispanic Americans hear that the GOP doesn’t want them in the United States, they won’t pay attention to our next sentence.” The report urged Republicans to focus on “broadening the base of the Party,” especially being more inclusive of “Hispanic, black, Asian, and gay Americans”—and especially female voters, whom the party was failing to recruit. The findings were released at a press conference by RNC chairman Reince Priebus. Three years later, Reince, of course, would become Trump’s first White House chief of staff.
If you’ve been at least half-conscious during the Trump presidency, you probably know the president has followed virtually none of this advice. In fact, it seems as if he’s deliberately written a counter-playbook, flagrantly dismissing the RNC’s recommendations and alienating the populations the GOP needs to reach. On Donald Trump’s watch, the party has become less fiscally conservative, more divisive, less diverse, more anti-immigrant, and less relevant. In the meantime, he has saddled the Republican brand with uniquely noxious baggage, leaving others to manage a “big-tent” party that will eventually have few people left under its canopy.
How did this happen, you ask? Well, if there’s a theme to Trump’s life—in politics, business, or family—it’s that he’s disloyal. Republicans gave the keys to the kingdom to a man who paid hush money to shut up a porn star he’d been sleeping with while married to his third wife, who’d recently given birth to their son. Are we surprised he’s run afoul of the party’s most cherished ideals? If elected to a second term, he will cheat on naive Republicans over and over again. When asked about whether he might end the disastrous tariffs to which he has wedded himself, the president unintentionally summed up his entire political philosophy: “Yeah, sure. Why not?… Might as well. I have second thoughts about everything.” Could it get more ironic than that? It did, when Trump backtracked on the comment itself.
Conservatives dreaming that Donald Trump is our savior need to wake up. Not only is he not a conservative, he represents a long-term threat to the Republican Party and what it purports to stand for. He is redefining us to a degree that makes our platform incoherent. Those cheering him on to a second term—with foaming-at-the-mouth excitement that he is “totally owning” the Left—are unknowingly nailing coffins into the GOP, cementing an end to the party as we know it and taking us into inhospitable territory.
Let me put a finer point on it. If Republicans believe the president’s handling of their core issues is acceptable, then there is nothing left of the party but its name. Yes, there are still lone-ranger conservatives trying to advance traditional GOP causes from inside the administration, but Trump’s leadership of the party (or lack thereof) will be what’s remembered, not the cleanup job of his lieutenants.
The president’s betrayal of the conservative faith may not be problematic for some reading this book. You might be comfortable with larger bureaucracies, debt spending, or protectionist economics. That’s your prerogative. But the president has transformed the long arm of government into a wrecking ball to go after something else much more fundamental than the GOP agenda. Every American, regardless of political affiliation, should pay attention.
CHAPTER 4
Assault on Democracy
“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all His laws.”
It didn’t take long for President Trump to start turning the powers of his office against the foundations of our democracy. The White House culture was primed for abuses of executive authority from the start, given that Trump spent most of his pre-government life in positions where he had almost total control. These organizations didn’t require a collaborative, democratic approach to governance. He didn’t have to build bipartisan coalitions or respect a sprawling bureaucracy. It was his show, and it was all about his victories, his ratings, and his name atop big buildings. Following the 2016 election, in which he expressed the customary words of political unity and solidarity, Donald Trump quickly pivoted, eyeing ways to use his White House and taxpayer-funded federal investigators—whom he thinks of as his investigators—to go after political enemies.
Most Americans shrug at Trump’s bombast. Surely he doesn’t really want to investigate and jail Democrats who opposed him. This is just another feature of his outlandish entertainment persona. He can’t put Hillary Clinton behind bars because he doesn’t like her. Right? Donald Trump thinks he can. He is serious about his commands to prosecute and persecute anyone who challenges him. Many of us have come to learn the hard way how angry he gets when the law and his lawyers in the administration do not bend to presidential dictates.