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Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
This small but influential think tank is charting a controversial course for Trump's populism
The Movement is a weekly newsletter tracking the influence and debates steering politics on the right. or in the box below. Controversial think tank American Compass is working to make sure President Trump's economic populism lasts well beyond his term — infuriating segments of the conservative establishment along the way. Oren Cass, the group's founder and chief economist, argues against 'market fundamentalism' while pushing for protectionist tariffs, tax hikes on the rich and a new 'conservative labor movement.' The efforts have angered the conservative free-market establishment. Americans for Tax Reform had interns hand out leaflets outside an American Compass Capitol Hill event last summer comparing it and Cass to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Club for Growth President David McIntosh fumed in a statement last year: 'Self-proclaimed 'conservative' Oren Cass and his American Compass is not, and will never be, viewed as a legitimate voice in Republican policy circles.' Yet American Compass policies look a lot like policies Trump has enacted or considered, and the group has punched above its weight in cultivating powerful GOP allies — including Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both of whom Trump has said could lead the MAGA movement after he is gone. Both Vance and Rubio are speaking at its fifth anniversary gala Tuesday evening. '[Trump] really opened up the space for people to recognize that the old Reagan-style consensus had expired, and certainly has validated that other approaches can be more successful,' Cass told me in an interview. And as for the critics, Cass puts them into two categories. Some, like those at the libertarian Cato Institute and conservative American Enterprise Institute, are 'thoughtful scholars who are working from their principles and have disagreements with us on all sorts of issues.' Others, Cass said, are simply activist groups who are 'not really ideas-oriented' and are 'closer to lobbying firms for some particular policy or point of view.' 'They don't use evidence. They just sort of assert an attack and belittle and try to enforce their point of view that way,' Cass said. 'I guess they're welcome to do it if they want. But I think the proof is in kind of how that's working out for them. It's not working out at all.' Take, for example, Trump and Republicans being willing to even consider tax hikes as part of the 'big, beautiful bill's' tax cuts and spending priorities — even though it did not make it in the final version. Cass, who was policy director for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, recalled every candidate in a 2011 GOP primary debate declining to support a legislative package that had $10 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. 'The tax debate has been a great illustration of the way that things have been shifting there. There was absolutely a time when people thought, 'Oh, you just can't say you would consider raising taxes, that's somehow not allowed,'' Cass said. Club for Growth's McIntosh, though, cast the rejection of the tax increase idea as a failure for American Compass: 'Despite his best efforts, Oren Cass and his far-left benefactors failed to enact a top rate tax increase,' McIntosh said in a statement to me. Now that it's 5 years old, the American Compass staff of around 10 recently moved from a converted yoga studio into a real office space. Today it is releasing 'The New Conservatives,' a book of essays and 'manifestos' detailing the group's orthodoxy-breaking positions. And earlier this year, it launched a new commentary magazine, Commonplace. Its budget only recently passed $2 million, Cass writes — a tiny fraction of the tens or hundreds of millions that other conservative Washington think tanks have to work with. But he told me that American Compass does not strive to be 'the biggest organization with the biggest marble building in Washington.' 'We kind of like being the special forces team,' Cass said. 'I would like to continue playing that role.' And while Cass certainly wants to see success during the Trump administration and support his populist instincts, he says the group tries to keep 'at least half our focus' on where conservatism and economic policy is going over the next 10 or 20 years. A core part of that endeavor is American Compass's membership group of more than 250 policy professionals, which include dozens of staffers who are working in the Trump administration, along with Capitol Hill staffers of all levels, according to Cass. 'People at the top of a party come and go, but in many ways, more importantly, as an entire new generation of people rises to be the core of the movement,' Cass said. Poking around in conservative circles and beyond, I found incredibly mixed opinions about the young think tank. But people with power are clearly listening — even if they're not fully embracing its populism. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) texted me this assessment of American Compass: 'I think they understand the line between corporate cronyism and free enterprise … the need to build our institutions. And civil society. I agree with that — even if I don't agree with some reflexive populist policies.' , a weekly newsletter looking at the influences and debates on the right in Washington. I'm Emily Brooks, House leadership reporter at The Hill. Tell me your thoughts about American Compass and the 'New Right': ebrooks@ Not already on the list? A House Freedom Caucus-affiliated nonprofit has flown under the radar since it formed — but is now making a splash as it pushes for Trump's tax cut and spending bill. The Freedom Caucus Foundation, classified as a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization, debuted its first ad that ran on Fox News and on digital last week giving credit to the hard-line conservatives for pushing the bill in a more conservative direction. 'The House Freedom Caucus bargained hard, took the arrows, ignored the insults and didn't back down — improving President Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' to put deficit reduction first,' the ad said. It noted the group's push for at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts; bumping up the start date for Medicaid work requirements from 2026 to 2029; accelerating rollback of green energy tax credits; and barring Medicaid funds from being spent on gender-affirming care, among other provisions. Trump shared the video on Truth Social, praising the message: 'Congratulations to ALL on a job well done. Proud of you! Hopefully the Senate will be there with you!' Allison Weisenberger, who heads the Freedom Caucus Foundation, told me the video has been viewed 10 million times. 'We look forward to continuing to educate millions of Americans on the Freedom Agenda,' she said. The ad is also notable in showing the expanding web of organizations supporting the hard-line conservative group and its brand. The Freedom Caucus already has an affiliated PAC, called the House Freedom Fund, which is a good source for figuring out the candidates likely to be the caucus's next members. And it has launched the State Freedom Caucus Network, which focuses on building hard-line conservative factions in state legislatures. The Freedom Caucus is not alone in having allied outside groups. The Main Street Caucus of 'pragmatic' House Republicans, for instance, is allied with the Republican Main Street Partnership, an outside 501(c)4 activist group; Republican Main Street Partnership PAC; and Defending Main Street Super PAC. President Trump's fissure with the Federalist Society reached a new low point late last week when he went after Leonard Leo, a key architect of the group and Trump's judicial picks in his first term. 'I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real 'sleazebag' named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.' The comments came after the U.S. Court of International Trade — with a panel of three judges, one appointed by Trump — blocked the bulk of Trump's tariffs. An appeals court lifted the order later. Leo responded in a statement to my colleague Zach Schonfeld: 'I'm very grateful for President Trump transforming the Federal Courts, and it was a privilege being involved. There's more work to be done, for sure, but the Federal Judiciary is better than it's ever been in modern history, and that will be President Trump's most important legacy.'Tuesday, June 3: American Compass hosts 'The New World Gala' featuring Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the National Building Museum, 5:30 p.m. Thursday, June 5: The American Enterprise Institute hosts a conversation with Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.) on 'Emerging Technologies and Strategic Competition,' 2:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 17: The Federalist Society DC Young Lawyers Chapter hosts a reception with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Americans for Prosperity launched a $4 million June ad buy to boost support for extending the Trump tax cuts as the Senate takes up the 'big, beautiful bill,' urging swift passage. The ads are airing on digital, cable and TV, and they feature testimonials from small business owners, retirees, and veterans praising tax cuts. And in a nod to senators squeamish about the bill's deficit impact, one ad pushes for further elimination of Biden-era green tax credits. Tributes rolled in across MAGA World and beyond for Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who oversaw the response to 9/11, following his death last week. Trump pardoned Kerik in 2020 for tax evasion and making false statements that he pleaded guilty to in 2009. Richard Grenell, Matt Schlapp, Alina Habba, Lee Greenwood, and Rudy Giuliani were among those who posted memorials. Students for Life Action announced the 12 Republican senators it is targeting as it advocates for keeping the 'Defund Planned Parenthood' provision in the GOP's megabill. The senators range from the organization's friends to its sometime foes, running the gamut of scores on its 'pro-life generation report card,' who may not support the bill: Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia (B-); Susan Collins of Maine (F); Ron Johnson of Wisconsin (B); Mike Lee of Utah (A); Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (B+); Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (F); Rand Paul of Kentucky (B-); Rick Scott of Florida (A+); Dan Sullivan of Alaska (C); Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota (A); Thom Tillis of North Carolina (B+); and Todd Young of Indiana (C). WIRED's Jake Lahut: Trumpworld Is Getting Tired of Laura Loomer. They Hope the President Is Too New York Times's Robert Draper: How Butterworth's Became the New Scene in Trump's Washington Washington Post's Paul Kane: These Kentucky Republicans attempt an unlikely bulwark to Trump RealClearPolitics's Susan Crabtree: CA High School Could Test Trump's 'Anti-Indoctrination Order' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
03-06-2025
- Business
- The Hill
This small but influential think tank is charting a controversial course for Trump's populism
The Movement is a weekly newsletter tracking the influence and debates steering politics on the right. Sign up here or in the box below. Thank you for signing up! Subscribe to more newsletters here Controversial think tank American Compass is working to make sure President Trump's economic populism lasts well beyond his term — infuriating segments of the conservative establishment along the way. Oren Cass, the group's founder and chief economist, argues against 'market fundamentalism' while pushing for protectionist tariffs, tax hikes on the rich and a new 'conservative labor movement.' The efforts have angered the conservative free-market establishment. Americans for Tax Reform had interns hand out leaflets outside an American Compass Capitol Hill event last summer comparing it and Cass to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Club for Growth President David McIntosh fumed in a statement last year: 'Self-proclaimed 'conservative' Oren Cass and his American Compass is not, and will never be, viewed as a legitimate voice in Republican policy circles.' Yet American Compass policies look a lot like policies Trump has enacted or considered, and the group has punched above its weight in cultivating powerful GOP allies — including Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both of whom Trump has said could lead the MAGA movement after he is gone. Both Vance and Rubio are speaking at its fifth anniversary gala Tuesday evening. '[Trump] really opened up the space for people to recognize that the old Reagan-style consensus had expired, and certainly has validated that other approaches can be more successful,' Cass told me in an interview. And as for the critics, Cass puts them into two categories. Some, like those at the libertarian Cato Institute and conservative American Enterprise Institute, are 'thoughtful scholars who are working from their principles and have disagreements with us on all sorts of issues.' Others, Cass said, are simply activist groups who are 'not really ideas-oriented' and are 'closer to lobbying firms for some particular policy or point of view.' 'They don't use evidence. They just sort of assert an attack and belittle and try to enforce their point of view that way,' Cass said. 'I guess they're welcome to do it if they want. But I think the proof is in kind of how that's working out for them. It's not working out at all.' Take, for example, Trump and Republicans being willing to even consider tax hikes as part of the 'big, beautiful bill's' tax cuts and spending priorities — even though it did not make it in the final version. Cass, who was policy director for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, recalled every candidate in a 2011 GOP primary debate declining to support a legislative package that had $10 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases. 'The tax debate has been a great illustration of the way that things have been shifting there. There was absolutely a time when people thought, 'Oh, you just can't say you would consider raising taxes, that's somehow not allowed,'' Cass said. Club for Growth's McIntosh, though, cast the rejection of the tax increase idea as a failure for American Compass: 'Despite his best efforts, Oren Cass and his far-left benefactors failed to enact a top rate tax increase,' McIntosh said in a statement to me. Now that it's 5 years old, the American Compass staff of around 10 recently moved from a converted yoga studio into a real office space. Today it is releasing 'The New Conservatives,' a book of essays and 'manifestos' detailing the group's orthodoxy-breaking positions. And earlier this year, it launched a new commentary magazine, Commonplace. Its budget only recently passed $2 million, Cass writes — a tiny fraction of the tens or hundreds of millions that other conservative Washington think tanks have to work with. But he told me that American Compass does not strive to be 'the biggest organization with the biggest marble building in Washington.' 'We kind of like being the special forces team,' Cass said. 'I would like to continue playing that role.' And while Cass certainly wants to see success during the Trump administration and support his populist instincts, he says the group tries to keep 'at least half our focus' on where conservatism and economic policy is going over the next 10 or 20 years. A core part of that endeavor is American Compass's membership group of more than 250 policy professionals, which include dozens of staffers who are working in the Trump administration, along with Capitol Hill staffers of all levels, according to Cass. 'People at the top of a party come and go, but in many ways, more importantly, as an entire new generation of people rises to be the core of the movement,' Cass said. Poking around in conservative circles and beyond, I found incredibly mixed opinions about the young think tank. But people with power are clearly listening — even if they're not fully embracing its populism. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) texted me this assessment of American Compass: 'I think they understand the line between corporate cronyism and free enterprise … the need to build our institutions. And civil society. I agree with that — even if I don't agree with some reflexive populist policies.' Welcome to The Movement, a weekly newsletter looking at the influences and debates on the right in Washington. I'm Emily Brooks, House leadership reporter at The Hill. Tell me your thoughts about American Compass and the 'New Right': ebrooks@ Not already on the list? Subscribe here A House Freedom Caucus-affiliated nonprofit has flown under the radar since it formed — but is now making a splash as it pushes for Trump's tax cut and spending bill. The Freedom Caucus Foundation, classified as a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization, debuted its first ad that ran on Fox News and on digital last week giving credit to the hard-line conservatives for pushing the bill in a more conservative direction. 'The House Freedom Caucus bargained hard, took the arrows, ignored the insults and didn't back down — improving President Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' to put deficit reduction first,' the ad said. It noted the group's push for at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts; bumping up the start date for Medicaid work requirements from 2026 to 2029; accelerating rollback of green energy tax credits; and barring Medicaid funds from being spent on gender-affirming care, among other provisions. Trump shared the video on Truth Social, praising the message: 'Congratulations to ALL on a job well done. Proud of you! Hopefully the Senate will be there with you!' Allison Weisenberger, who heads the Freedom Caucus Foundation, told me the video has been viewed 10 million times. 'We look forward to continuing to educate millions of Americans on the Freedom Agenda,' she said. The ad is also notable in showing the expanding web of organizations supporting the hard-line conservative group and its brand. The Freedom Caucus already has an affiliated PAC, called the House Freedom Fund, which is a good source for figuring out the candidates likely to be the caucus's next members. And it has launched the State Freedom Caucus Network, which focuses on building hard-line conservative factions in state legislatures. The Freedom Caucus is not alone in having allied outside groups. The Main Street Caucus of 'pragmatic' House Republicans, for instance, is allied with the Republican Main Street Partnership, an outside 501(c)4 activist group; Republican Main Street Partnership PAC; and Defending Main Street Super PAC. President Trump's fissure with the Federalist Society reached a new low point late last week when he went after Leonard Leo, a key architect of the group and Trump's judicial picks in his first term. 'I was new to Washington, and it was suggested that I use The Federalist Society as a recommending source on Judges,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. 'I did so, openly and freely, but then realized that they were under the thumb of a real 'sleazebag' named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America, and obviously has his own separate ambitions.' The comments came after the U.S. Court of International Trade — with a panel of three judges, one appointed by Trump — blocked the bulk of Trump's tariffs. An appeals court lifted the order later. Leo responded in a statement to my colleague Zach Schonfeld: 'I'm very grateful for President Trump transforming the Federal Courts, and it was a privilege being involved. There's more work to be done, for sure, but the Federal Judiciary is better than it's ever been in modern history, and that will be President Trump's most important legacy.' Further reading: Inside the split between MAGA and the Federalist Society, by Politico's Hailey Fuchs and Daniel Barnes
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
4 Types of People Who Will Get Money Back From Trump's New Tax Initiatives
President Trump is floating the idea of increasing taxes on the ultra wealthy who make $2.5 million annually from 37% to 39.6% to cover areas like immigration and military without cutting Medicaid. On a call with House Speaker Mike Johnson on May 7, Fox News reported the president pushed the notion, but has since sent mixed messages. For You: Read Next: In a May 9 Truth Social post, Trump said he would be willing to accept a small tax hike for wealthy individuals if it would benefit lower- and middle-income workers. However, he criticized Democrats for opposing the idea. Trump also remarked that Republicans might be better off avoiding such a measure, though he indicated he would not object if they went ahead with unclear which way things will go, but Trump is considering the idea and experts weigh in how it could affect the economy, what millionaires really think about the tax increase, who will benefit and if it makes sense to tax the rich more. Trump has stated the tax increase on the wealthy would benefit lower-wage earners and finance expert Andrew Lokenauth said it would give middle class households an extra $2,000 to $3,000 a year. 'From my calculations and work with high-net-worth clients, the biggest winners would be middle-class workers and retirees,' he explained. 'The proposed elimination of taxes on tips, overtime wages and Social Security benefits would put real money back in working folks' pockets.' Check Out: While much of the middle class will only see a small savings, service workers will experience a big boost thanks to Trump's 'No Tax on Tips Act' which is a huge win for the service industry, according to Peter Diamond, licensed tax, accounting, real estate and structure and certified bankability tax initiative will allow 'tipped workers earning under $160,000 to exclude up to $25,000 in tips from federal income tax,' Diamond explained. 'That's real money back in the pockets of servers, bartenders, salon pros — people who actually make the economy move day to day.'But hospitality employees aren't the only ones who benefit. It's good for businesses too because the tax initiatives will 'bring back 100% bonus depreciation,' Diamond explained. 'That means construction companies, small businesses and real estate investors can write off qualifying assets in full the year they buy them — vehicles, equipment, even buildings,' he creation and growth could happen as a result, according to Diamond. While some predict a surge in jobs, not everyone believes that will happen if the tax rate hits 39.6% for the wealthy, which would only affect 0.1% of Americans.'Based on my experience working with high-net-worth individuals, the actual impact on job creation is way overblown,' Lokenauth said. 'Most business expansion decisions are driven by market demand, not personal tax rates.'Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform also doesn't believe job growth will happen if the tax hike goes into effect. Norquist told NBC News, that Trump spoke with him to ask his opinion of the proposal and that he pushed gave the outlet his reasons for believing that talking about raising rates was a bad idea, citing that it would lead to job losses, hurt small businesses and saying it was never considered as an option by anyone in the campaign. If the middle class spends the savings from the proposed tax hike and pumps it back into the economy, it could make a difference. 'When middle-class folks get extra cash, they tend to spend it locally,' Lokenauth said. 'That increased consumer spending typically generates more jobs than tax savings for the ultra-wealthy and the proposed changes could inject about $400 billion into local economies over five years. Many Republicans are not on board with raising taxes and have publicly spoken out against Trump's idea.'I don't want to see taxes go up on anyone. But the president, he's not a conventional president. People didn't vote for a conventional president and I think his policies reflect that,' said Senate Majority Leader John Thune on the May 9 episode of CNBC's 'Squawk Box.'Lokenauth is also hearing there is a 'clear split' from his discussions with Republican lawmakers.'The traditional wing — and I've worked with many of them — stick to the 'job creators' argument. But the populist wing sees the math differently. One lawmaker (keeping his name private) told me, 'A 2.6% increase on multimillionaires to fund middle-class tax cuts seems like a fair trade,' he said. The tax increase could give others a break while stimulating the economy and Diamond doesn't believe the jump in taxes would matter much to the ultra rich.'It's a headline grabber, but the impact is minimal in practice,' he said. 'Between business deductions, depreciation and smart structuring, most high earners won't feel it.'Lokenauth has had conversations with a few of his clients who would be affected and aren't opposed. 'One client worth $10 million plus told me, 'The rate increase would cost me about $75,000 annually — that's meaningful but won't change how I run my businesses.' Some even support it, viewing it as an investment in economic stability,' he explained. Trump's proposal could make a difference to lower-wage earners, but is a tax hike fair to the wealthy who create jobs?'This isn't a broad tax hike on entrepreneurs; it's a narrow one targeting ultra-high earners. At the same time, the plan loads up on pro-business incentives — bonus depreciation, expanded deductions and more,' Diamond believes the trade off of taxing a few to help the masses could work if the structure is right. If implemented correctly, the proposed tax increase could help several types of people. According to Diamond, here's who will reap the benefits. Tipped Workers: Up to $25,000 in tips stays untaxed. That's money back in people's pockets immediately. Construction and Trades: Bonus depreciation fuels projects, hiring and equipment upgrades. Small Business Owners: With new write-offs and incentives, they can scale and reinvest faster. Real Estate Investors: The return of full expensing and potential cost segregation boosts cash flow and return on investment (ROI). In order to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and pay for Trump's other initiatives like getting rid of taxes on tips and overtime wages, as well as protecting Medicaid and Social Security, money needs to come from somewhere to cover Trump's priorities. 'This isn't a one-lane linear tax cut. It's built to benefit working-class earners, builders, business owners and long-term investors — the people actually moving the economy forward,' Diamond also believes the numbers don't lie and the plan could work by 'reducing the deficit impact of the broader tax package by $150 to 200 billion over 10 years. That's significant savings while still delivering meaningful relief to working families.' Editor's note on political coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on More From GOBankingRates 6 Big Shakeups Coming to Social Security in 2025 This article originally appeared on 4 Types of People Who Will Get Money Back From Trump's New Tax Initiatives Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How 'conservatives' became radicals — and learned to love big government
Beneath and beyond the Trumpian populist surge that captured the White House and Congress in 2024, American conservative thinking is taking some confusing turns. Some conservatives are sidelining their familiar dogmas about free trade, small government and the free market and moving instead to use the formerly dreaded 'administrative state' to impose 'order' and virtue on Silicon Valley technocratic elites, 'radical lunatics' and other enemies within. Even Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency aren't really destroying the administrative state but rather reconfiguring it as a leaner, meaner tool for a dictator. This can only be confounding to old-line anti-government crusaders such as Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, who said years ago, to widespread conservative acclaim, 'I don't want to abolish government. I want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.' Such libertarian-sounding pronouncements may seem bizarre to non-Americans who've lived with authoritarian state capitalism for decades, as in Singapore and China. But now Trumpian populism seems to be edging closer to a statist (and Catholic-tinged, for some of its champions) 'common good constitutionalism,' as favored by Harvard Law professor Adrian Vermeule, or to an old-school Ivy League 'good shepherd' administration of the republic. But the Roman Catholic church itself is changing, and new Pope Leo XIV may seek to push American followers away from the ethno-nationalist welfare-state politics pioneered by Otto von Bismarck in the late 19th century, and then adapted by a well-known German political party under the label of 'national socialism.' America's conservative sea change is complicated, but let me try to make it comprehensible. I explained some of this for the History News Network in 2022, when a Republican 'red wave' seemed poised to win that year's midterm elections. It didn't quite happen that way, but, since Trump's return to power in 2024, that wave has been coming down hard upon all of us. People everywhere who need to deal with America as trading partners, visitors, immigrants or refugees need to know what they're getting into. 'We Need to Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives,' warns John Daniel Davidson, an editor of the Federalist, a conservative publication (not affiliated with the right-wing Federalist Society). Davidson praises an argument by Jon Askonas, a professor of politics at the Catholic University of America, who writes at Compact, another rightward site, that 'the conservative project failed' because it 'didn't take into account the revolutionary principle of technology, and its intrinsic connection to the telos [or over-determined trajectory], of sheer profit.' Davidson and Askonas want a conservative counterrevolution against a corporate technocracy whose fixation on maximizing profit has trapped Americans in a spiderweb of come-ons that grope, goose, track and indebt us, bypassing our brains and hearts on the way to our lower viscera and wallets. But are they truly rejecting 'free market' conservatism, or is this just a tactical shift in their strategy to support the scramble for sheer profit and accumulated wealth, glossed over with religious rhetoric? Davidson, Askonas and their ilk have been warning that conservatives undermine their own republican virtues and freedoms by conceding too much to 'woke' liberal efforts to redress income inequality, sexual and racial grievances, and markets' amoral reshaping of society. They warn that not only liberals but also libertarians and free-market conservatives have disfigured civic and institutional order. Once upon a time, Davidson explains, 'conservatism was about maintaining traditions and preserving Western civilization as a living and vibrant thing. Well, too late. Western civilization is dying. The traditions and practices that conservatives champion… do not form the basis of our common culture or civic life, as they did for most of our nation's history.' In this reading, conservatives must seize power to restore moral and social order, even if that requires using big government to break monopolies and redistribute income a bit to some of the Americans they've claimed to champion while feeding the plutocracies that leave them behind. Davidson and Askonas blame fellow conservatives for buying into 'woke' corporate capital's intrusive, subversive technologies, which treat citizens as impulse-buyers whose 'consumer sovereignty' suffocates deliberative, political sovereignty. Yet profit-crazed conservative media, like Fox News and the rest of Rupert Murdoch's empire, assemble audiences on any pretext — sensationalistic, erotic, bigoted, nihilistic — in order to keep us watching the ads and buying whatever they're pitching. Even worse, conservative jurisprudence has declared that corporations that accelerate such manipulative marketing are merely exercising the First Amendment-protected speech of self-governing citizens. That hands the loudest and largest megaphones to CEOs and their PR flacks and leaves actual citizens with laryngitis from straining to be heard above the profit-making din. Conservatives can't reconcile their claim to cherish traditional communal and family values with their knee-jerk obeisance to conglomerate marketing and private-equity financing. They've forgotten former Communist-turned-conservative prophet Whittaker Chambers' warning that 'You can't build a clear conservatism out of capitalism, because capitalism disrupts culture,' as Sam Tanenhaus, a biographer of Chambers, put it in a lecture to the American Enterprise Institute in 2007. Neoliberal Democrats often serve such conservatives as convenient scapegoats because they, too, stop short of challenging capitalism's relentless dissolution of civic-republican virtue. They celebrate breaking corporations' and public agencies' glass ceilings to install 'the first' Black, female or gay chairman, but do nothing to reconfigure those institutions' foundations and walls. Former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg urged women to 'lean in' against sexism in workplaces, but Donald Trump mocks such appeals by installing dubious leaners-in such as Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Education Secretary Linda McMahon. Neoliberal Dems who've broken glass ceilings have also repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a key New Deal law of the 1930s that blocked socially and economically destructive rampages by predatory investment banks, private equity barons and hedge fund operators against millions of Americans' equity and opportunities. And conservatives, instead of offering viable alternatives to liberals' failures, have devoted themselves almost exclusively to assailing 'wokeness' and 'diversity' protocols, offering no constructive agendas beyond Trump's whims. Some conservatives who've embraced Trump's demagoguery, only to find themselves soulless, have turned to religion for cover and perhaps succor, if not salvation. But the religious faithful should scourge them, as Jesus did when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, along with others who embrace religious doctrines to curb the telos of sheer profit in a fallen world, may well discover that if religion tries to seize political power, as some of Trump's crusaders long to do, it becomes intolerant and intolerable. Genuine religious faith is often indispensable to resisting concentrations of unjust power in a republic, as it was in America's civil rights movement. But when it overreaches, it undercuts what it claims to encourage. Striking that balance requires a different kind of faith and sound judgment that Bible-thumping Trump loyalists lack. Today's conservative convolutions are sometimes pathetic enough to make me almost sympathize with religious escapism. But none of that justifies Davidson's claim that 'if conservatives want to save the country, they are going to have to rebuild and in a sense re-found it, and that means getting used to the idea of wielding power, not despising it.' He continues, 'The left will only stop when conservatives stop them,' so 'conservatives will have to discard outdated and irrelevant notions about 'small government.'' Davidson concedes that 'those who worry that power corrupts and that once the right seizes power it too will be corrupted … have a point.' But when in history have conservatives shied away from wielding power, except when embarrassed or forced into relinquishing it by the civil disobedience of a Rosa Parks or by well-grounded progressive strikes, activist movements and electoral organizing?If conservatives really wanted to use power virtuously, they'd do more to enable American working people to resist the 'telos of sheer profit' that's stressing them out and displacing their anger and humiliation onto scapegoats thanks to the ministrations of Trump and Fox News. How about adopting Davidson's proposal that government offer 'generous subsidies to families of young children' — a heresy to small-government conservatives? How about banishing vicious demagoguery from their midst, as they pretend to do by opposing antisemitism? How about disassociating themselves from The Claremont Institute, the hard-right think tank devoted to creating intellectual rationalizations for Trump's 2021 coup attempt and the imperial presidency? Davidson even proposes that 'to stop Big Tech… will require using antitrust powers to break up the largest Silicon Valley firms' and that 'to stop universities from spreading poisonous ideologies will require… legislatures to starve them of public funds.' (That part certainly sounds familiar right now.) Conservatives, he argues, 'need not shy away from [big-government policies] because they betray some cherished libertarian fantasy about free markets and small government. It is time to clear our minds of cant.' Conservatives need to look more carefully into the Pandora's box that they're opening. Those who crave a more-godly relation to power should ponder a warning from John Winthrop, first governor of the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, in 'A Modell of Christian Charity': 'It is a true rule, that particular estates cannot subsist in the ruin of the public.' They certainly can't subsist defensibly in a society that's being disintegrated by capitalism. 'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay,' warned the Anglo-Irish poet and novelist Oliver Goldsmith in 1777. Admonitions like his and Winthrop's made sense to conservatives such as Whittaker Chambers in the 1950s. Conservatives are now flouting them at their, and our, peril. The post How 'conservatives' became radicals — and learned to love big government appeared first on
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13-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How "conservatives" became radicals — and learned to love big government
Beneath and beyond the Trumpian populist surge that captured the White House and Congress in 2024, American conservative thinking is taking some confusing turns. Some conservatives are sidelining their familiar dogmas about free trade, small government and the free market and moving instead to use the formerly dreaded "administrative state" to impose "order" and virtue on Silicon Valley technocratic elites, "radical lunatics" and other enemies within. Even Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency aren't really destroying the administrative state but rather reconfiguring it as a leaner, meaner tool for a dictator. This can only be confounding to old-line anti-government crusaders such as Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, who said years ago, to widespread conservative acclaim, "I don't want to abolish government. I want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub." Such libertarian-sounding pronouncements may seem bizarre to non-Americans who've lived with authoritarian state capitalism for decades, as in Singapore and China. But now Trumpian populism seems to be edging closer to a statist (and Catholic-tinged, for some of its champions) 'common good constitutionalism,' as favored by Harvard Law professor Adrian Vermeule, or to an old-school Ivy League "good shepherd" administration of the republic. But the Roman Catholic church itself is changing, and new Pope Leo XIV may seek to push American followers away from the ethno-nationalist welfare-state politics pioneered by Otto von Bismarck in the late 19th century, and then adapted by a well-known German political party under the label of "national socialism." America's conservative sea change is complicated, but let me try to make it comprehensible. I explained some of this for the History News Network in 2022, when a Republican "red wave" seemed poised to win that year's midterm elections. It didn't quite happen that way, but, since Trump's return to power in 2024, that wave has been coming down hard upon all of us. People everywhere who need to deal with America as trading partners, visitors, immigrants or refugees need to know what they're getting into. 'We Need to Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives,' warns John Daniel Davidson, an editor of the Federalist, a conservative publication (not affiliated with the right-wing Federalist Society). Davidson praises an argument by Jon Askonas, a professor of politics at the Catholic University of America, who writes at Compact, another rightward site, that 'the conservative project failed' because it 'didn't take into account the revolutionary principle of technology, and its intrinsic connection to the telos [or over-determined trajectory], of sheer profit.' Davidson and Askonas want a conservative counterrevolution against a corporate technocracy whose fixation on maximizing profit has trapped Americans in a spiderweb of come-ons that grope, goose, track and indebt us, bypassing our brains and hearts on the way to our lower viscera and wallets. But are they truly rejecting 'free market' conservatism, or is this just a tactical shift in their strategy to support the scramble for sheer profit and accumulated wealth, glossed over with religious rhetoric? Davidson, Askonas and their ilk have been warning that conservatives undermine their own republican virtues and freedoms by conceding too much to 'woke' liberal efforts to redress income inequality, sexual and racial grievances, and markets' amoral reshaping of society. They warn that not only liberals but also libertarians and free-market conservatives have disfigured civic and institutional order. Once upon a time, Davidson explains, "conservatism was about maintaining traditions and preserving Western civilization as a living and vibrant thing. Well, too late. Western civilization is dying. The traditions and practices that conservatives champion… do not form the basis of our common culture or civic life, as they did for most of our nation's history.' In this reading, conservatives must seize power to restore moral and social order, even if that requires using big government to break monopolies and redistribute income a bit to some of the Americans they've claimed to champion while feeding the plutocracies that leave them behind. Davidson and Askonas blame fellow conservatives for buying into 'woke' corporate capital's intrusive, subversive technologies, which treat citizens as impulse-buyers whose 'consumer sovereignty' suffocates deliberative, political sovereignty. Yet profit-crazed conservative media, like Fox News and the rest of Rupert Murdoch's empire, assemble audiences on any pretext — sensationalistic, erotic, bigoted, nihilistic — in order to keep us watching the ads and buying whatever they're pitching. Even worse, conservative jurisprudence has declared that corporations that accelerate such manipulative marketing are merely exercising the First Amendment-protected speech of self-governing citizens. That hands the loudest and largest megaphones to CEOs and their PR flacks and leaves actual citizens with laryngitis from straining to be heard above the profit-making din. Conservatives can't reconcile their claim to cherish traditional communal and family values with their knee-jerk obeisance to conglomerate marketing and private-equity financing. They've forgotten former Communist-turned-conservative prophet Whittaker Chambers' warning that "You can't build a clear conservatism out of capitalism, because capitalism disrupts culture," as Sam Tanenhaus, a biographer of Chambers, put it in a lecture to the American Enterprise Institute in 2007. Neoliberal Democrats often serve such conservatives as convenient scapegoats because they, too, stop short of challenging capitalism's relentless dissolution of civic-republican virtue. They celebrate breaking corporations' and public agencies' glass ceilings to install 'the first' Black, female or gay chairman, but do nothing to reconfigure those institutions' foundations and walls. Former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg urged women to 'lean in' against sexism in workplaces, but Donald Trump mocks such appeals by installing dubious leaners-in such as Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and Education Secretary Linda McMahon. Neoliberal Dems who've broken glass ceilings have also repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, a key New Deal law of the 1930s that blocked socially and economically destructive rampages by predatory investment banks, private equity barons and hedge fund operators against millions of Americans' equity and opportunities. And conservatives, instead of offering viable alternatives to liberals' failures, have devoted themselves almost exclusively to assailing 'wokeness' and 'diversity' protocols, offering no constructive agendas beyond Trump's whims. Some conservatives who've embraced Trump's demagoguery, only to find themselves soulless, have turned to religion for cover and perhaps succor, if not salvation. But the religious faithful should scourge them, as Jesus did when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple. New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, along with others who embrace religious doctrines to curb the telos of sheer profit in a fallen world, may well discover that if religion tries to seize political power, as some of Trump's crusaders long to do, it becomes intolerant and intolerable. Genuine religious faith is often indispensable to resisting concentrations of unjust power in a republic, as it was in America's civil rights movement. But when it overreaches, it undercuts what it claims to encourage. Striking that balance requires a different kind of faith and sound judgment that Bible-thumping Trump loyalists lack. Today's conservative convolutions are sometimes pathetic enough to make me almost sympathize with religious escapism. But none of that justifies Davidson's claim that "if conservatives want to save the country, they are going to have to rebuild and in a sense re-found it, and that means getting used to the idea of wielding power, not despising it." He continues, "The left will only stop when conservatives stop them," so "conservatives will have to discard outdated and irrelevant notions about 'small government.'" Davidson concedes that 'those who worry that power corrupts and that once the right seizes power it too will be corrupted … have a point.' But when in history have conservatives shied away from wielding power, except when embarrassed or forced into relinquishing it by the civil disobedience of a Rosa Parks or by well-grounded progressive strikes, activist movements and electoral organizing?If conservatives really wanted to use power virtuously, they'd do more to enable American working people to resist the 'telos of sheer profit' that's stressing them out and displacing their anger and humiliation onto scapegoats thanks to the ministrations of Trump and Fox News. How about adopting Davidson's proposal that government offer 'generous subsidies to families of young children' — a heresy to small-government conservatives? How about banishing vicious demagoguery from their midst, as they pretend to do by opposing antisemitism? How about disassociating themselves from The Claremont Institute, the hard-right think tank devoted to creating intellectual rationalizations for Trump's 2021 coup attempt and the imperial presidency? Davidson even proposes that 'to stop Big Tech… will require using antitrust powers to break up the largest Silicon Valley firms' and that 'to stop universities from spreading poisonous ideologies will require… legislatures to starve them of public funds.' (That part certainly sounds familiar right now.) Conservatives, he argues, 'need not shy away from [big-government policies] because they betray some cherished libertarian fantasy about free markets and small government. It is time to clear our minds of cant.' Conservatives need to look more carefully into the Pandora's box that they're opening. Those who crave a more-godly relation to power should ponder a warning from John Winthrop, first governor of the Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1630, in "A Modell of Christian Charity": "It is a true rule, that particular estates cannot subsist in the ruin of the public.' They certainly can't subsist defensibly in a society that's being disintegrated by capitalism. 'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay,' warned the Anglo-Irish poet and novelist Oliver Goldsmith in 1777. Admonitions like his and Winthrop's made sense to conservatives such as Whittaker Chambers in the 1950s. Conservatives are now flouting them at their, and our, peril.
