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Washing Post Op-Ed On the disasters provided by Trump's economic "theories." [1]

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Date: 2025-04-11

I know that we have vast reasons to hate WaPo, but they still get one right every so often, particularly in the opinion writers that haven’t quit yet. This is from an Op-Ed by Dana Milbank:

Be cool! Trump knows what he is doing! Trump’s tariffs crashed the market — and crushed the Republican Party’s fear of him. Who’s afraid of Donald Trump? Fewer and fewer people, it appears. After the president waved a white flag this week in the trade war, his aides and allies claimed the surrender was all part of the plan. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters “this was his strategy all along.” House Speaker Mike Johnson gushed: “Behold the ‘Art of the Deal.’” But Trump, for once, was candid in explaining why he had suspended his “reciprocal tariffs” for 90 days. “Well, I thought that people were jumping a little bit out of line,” he said. “They were getting yippy, you know?” I do know. There has been so much yipping and yapping of late that Republicans risk being rounded up by animal control. Bill Ackman, a pro-Trump billionaire, had warned that “we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter” and that “the global economy is being taken down because of bad math.” On Capitol Hill, seven Senate Republicans and a dozen House Republicans had signaled that they would try to wrest tariff power from the president. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina asked Trump’s trade representative about the strategy: “Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?” Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky said the tariffs were based on “a fallacy that is going to make us lose our wealth.” MAGA Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told The Post: “I don’t quite understand the strategy, and I’m not sure anybody else does.” A group funded by Charles Koch and Leonard Leo had filed a lawsuit against Trump’s tariffs. And on, and on. The yipping wasn’t just over the tariffs. Even as Trump retreated on trade on Wednesday, he faced a rebellion in the House GOP against the Senate GOP’s budget — briefly jeopardizing Trump’s entire legislative agenda.

And Then there was Milton Friedman, as noted on LinkedIn:

Milton Friedman is rolling over in his grave.

“The gain from foreign trade is what we import. What we export is a cost of getting those imports... The proper objective... is to get as large a volume of imports as possible, for as small a volume of exports as possible.”

—Milton Friedman, Free to Choose (1980)

Friedman wasn’t just an economist—he was the architect of modern economic conservatism.

He shaped the Republican Party’s economic spine—from Reagan to Ryan.

Cut taxes. Kill inflation. Embrace trade. Let markets allocate.

This was doctrine—not debate.

And yet in 2025, the same party that once canonized Friedman is now pushing a 10% blanket tariff on all imports, wrapped in “economic strength” and “America First.”

Let’s not kid ourselves.

That’s not strength. That’s mercantilism in a suit—a betrayal of the principles that built conservative economic thought.

The party of Friedman now taxes the very imports he called our greatest gain.

The party of Reagan now rejects the trade logic that anchored U.S. postwar power.

The free-market right has become the command-economy right—with a flag on top.

What would Friedman say?

We don’t have to guess. He spent his life warning us:

“Retaliatory tariffs are like shooting yourself in the foot because someone else shot themselves in the foot.”

Then, of course there is the evidence being provided by the stock market. And, there are all of the threats to SS, Medicare and Medicaid. And Trump’s ongoing war against science and the functioning of the Federal government. So, if the Democrats are even marginally effective, 10/26 could well be a full-blown route in Federal Elections. Many groups that voted aggressively for Trump are being decimated by his policies (e.g., farmers). Dems picked up 41 House seats in 2018. The gap certainly could be even bigger this mid-term, given Trump’s ongoing messes, and connections to the “Musketeer.” And, as Milbank noted, some Republicans may no longer vote mainly based upon fear of Trump, even where they maintain their seats.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/11/2315957/-Washing-Post-Op-Ed-On-the-disasters-provided-by-Trump-s-economic-theories?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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