‘Trumpism’ Without Trump? There’s No Such Thing – Bloomberg
For Senator Mario Rubio of Florida, Trumpism offers a chance to jettison the GOP s devotion to free markets and its association with big business. The free market exists to serve our people. Our people don t exist to serve the free market, he told the Wall Street Journal. Before Trump descended his famous escalator to enter the 2016 race, Rubio s so-called reform conservatism was the next big thing on the intellectual right. That was essentially a U.S. version of European-style Christian democracy, with policies favoring families, workers and stable communities. Protectionism and industrial policy are in. Free markets are out. Now it s supposed to be the kinder, gentler version of Trumpism.
There s some truth in all these interpretations, but they miss what makes Trumpism distinctive. I often tell new readers of my 1998 book, “The Future and Its Enemies,” that they can update the first chapter by replacing the words Pat Buchanan with Donald Trump. Buchanan a conservative columnist and TV host who got his start as a speechwriter for President Richard Nixon was a Republican presidential primary candidate in the 1990s. Like Trump, he advocated a return to a static ideal of mid-20th-century America, with heavy industry unthreatened by international competition or new technologies, and an apparently homogeneous culture unblemished by immigrants. Both men found fans among workers fearful of losing their jobs to outsiders or to unseen, barely understood market forces.
How about pro- free markets and *anti-* big business, duh.