THE CONSERVATIVE SILENCE ON TRUMP'S HEAVY HAND OF GOVERNMENT
THE COWARDLY ACQUIESCENCE
Imagine:
President Bill Clinton, after a rough campaign, goes after the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page savaged him, by limiting access to government securities for the parent company's data processing subsidiary. He also is eyeing the tax exemption of a few conservative colleges.
Outraged right-wingers would decry the heavy hand of government intrusion. Congressman Newt Gingrich, showing off his history bona fides, charges it's the most indefensible executive action since Caligula made his horse a consul.
Then in 2009, President Barack Obama, penalizes firms that employ lawyers who helped "steal" the 2000 Presidential election for George W. Bush. He also rescinds several billion dollars of congressionally approved military funds, zeroing in on projects in Republican districts.
Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan, starting his second term, files an impeachment resolution.
Of course neither Clinton nor Obama did anything like that.
Trump has gone much further in an insidious use of government power. He punishes law firms who had associates who opposed him, gone after private Universities under the pretense of combating antisemitism, used the levers of government to intimidate major media venues, unilaterally abolished congressionally-approved agencies and personnel, is using tariffs as political and industrial policy weapons, and demanded a government share of a major tech company.
Most of the political right has been strikingly silent on this vast federal intrusion. There are exceptions: former conservative federal judge Michael Luttig consistently and powerfully assails Trump's disdain for the rule of law; on the media front the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page has stood up against his economic and trade policies; and some of the best analysis is in the Bulwark, staffed chiefly by former Republicans. A handful of congressional right-wingers, like Congressman Tom Massie and Sen. Rand Paul -- usually I'd refer to them as the Kentucky crazies -- criticize the government interference in the private sector.
If there has been any criticism from Gingrich or Jordan, two men who thrive on making headlines, I've missed it.
This isn't about the near universal GOP and business support for the "big beautiful" spending and tax cut bill. I think it's a policy and political disaster. But it's the sort of measure that Presidents, in their first year, try to pass; it's not out of the mainstream of conservative Republican views.
To an extent neither are some of the President's trade and tariff policies. But the way he's doing them certainly is. Threatening Apple with bigger levies on iPhones unless they are made in America is an industrial policy which Republicans used to hate. Reports that he's hitting India with bigger tariffs because Prime Minister Modi won't give Trump credit for ending a India-Pakistan conflict -- he doesn't deserve it -- or endorse him for a Nobel peace prize, are, if true, putting his own interests above his country's.
Modi, in reaction, recently attended a summit with the Chinese, Russian and Iranian leaders and other American adversaries.
Trump orchestrated the federal government getting a 10% piece of Intel, the country's largest semiconductor company. Bernie Sanders applauded; Bill Buckley and Barry Goldwater are rolling over in their graves.
On abusing the powers of government, conservatives went ballistic for years accusing the Internal Revenue Service of targeting conservatives, charges that proved largely bogus. Yet now, Trump explicitly calls on the IRS to go after Harvard's tax exemption and his Housing administrator apparently reaches into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which he runs, to find any mortgage dirt on Trump's enemies. Again, silence on the right.
This double standard also applies, to an extent, to the mainstream news media which routinely is accused of a "liberal" bias. Yet suppose that Obama lied with anywhere near the regularity of Trump or if Clinton used his Presidency for personal enrichment as Trump blatantly does. (See investigative reporter Judd Legum's account of his lucrative cryptocurrency racket.) The mainstream press would rake them over the coals repeatedly. Trump's illicit/illegal acts are covered and then moved on from. Again, this all is accepted without complaint from most all conservatives.
The parallels to modern day Hungary and to the 1920s Italy or Germany in the early 1930s are unmistakable.
This is as much a threat to conservative Republicans as it is to liberal Democrats. If they don't speak out soon, it will be too late.
Thank you, Al. It is telling that the WSJ’s apparent exclusive concern is not that there is a dictator, but rather that the dictator is not coercing the economic policies it prefers. The WSJ opinion page has always been rabid right wing and still is. The “pushback” from it is on a small issue of policy, not the larger issue of dictatorship.
If there are cowards in politics it’s the Democrats. They could have codified abortion years ago. Gave us Medicare for all. They didn’t. Their precious public employees did want Medicare for all and they were scared (read cowardly) abortion would cost them seats. Screw them and screw you Al.