(Seton Motley) – You can think the political birth of Donald Trump was spectacular. You can think it was catastrophic. Or anywhere in between.
But there is no denying that all things DC and its government – and all things political and policy – must be looked at through the prism of two epochs: Pre-Trump and Post-Trump.
For all of his very many flaws – Trump has been a revolutionary, transformational force. If America’s political landscape is an Etch-A-Sketch – NO ONE has shaken the excrement out of it more than has Trump.
Trump single-handedly finished realigning the voter landscape to its new normal. The Republican Party has finally, fully become the Party of the working and middle classes. (The DC GOP’s steadfast refusal to admit or adjust to it notwithstanding).
A brash, billionaire playboy from Queens, New York – effortlessly engendered the passionate support of blue collar and Christian Americans by the tens of millions. And Trump has Blacks and Hispanics – of all income levels – for the first time in many decades reconsidering their historic, mindless, mass support of the Democrat Party.
Thanks to Trump, the Democrat Party is now relegated to cobbling together a truly bizarre coalition of voters. Out-of-touch billionaires and millionaires too wealthy to be affected by the Party’s awful policies. And voters in dystopian big cities: People devastated for decades by the Party’s awful policies – but who bizarrely continue to vote for them anyway.
A key component of Trump’s popularity with Average Janes and Joes? His America First policies that protected what was left of our domestic production – and fostered its re-expansion.
Which is antithetical to DC’s decades-long, bipartisan, America Last approach.
DC Made ‘Protectionism’ a Bad Word – It Is Not:
“Domestic manufacturing was a key component in what had at that point made US the most prosperous and powerful country in the history of the planet. Nixon’s China visit began DC’s move to end all of that.
“DC pulled the plug on our economy. Millions of companies – and tens of millions of jobs – poured out. And DC did it – because they were paid to do it by the businesses looking to flee this country.
“There was no Rust Belt in 1972. DC did that. What were once prosperous manufacturing regions of our nation became hollowed-out husks of destitution and despair. DC likes to act as if this just accidentally happened. Absolutely not. Their awful, globalist, America Last policies actively did it.”
The Real Protectionism: Defending DC’s Crony Globalist Fake ‘Free Trade’:
“America’s small businesses – which can’t move overseas – have to stay here. And get pummeled by ever-expanding domestic government.
“And get pummeled by the relocated-globalist-big-business-robber-baron subsidized-and-protectionism-protected goods and services – being brought in unfettered to compete against them.
“These small domestic businesses very often can not endure the relentless pummelings – and succumb and go under. Thereby costing us millions of additional gigs.
“All of this has for decades – been DC’s definition of ‘free trade.’ It has absolutely nothing to do with actual free trade, free markets – or freedom of any sort.
“And this is what DC conservatives are in the midst of defending.”
Speaking of DC conservatives being on the wrong side of things – behold the Farm Bill. For the latest iteration of which – DC is currently gearing up.
Farm Bill Season Arrives: What’s the Outlook for 2023?
For out-of-touch DC conservatives (and the always annoying libertarians) still mired in Pre-Trump mindsets? It almost certainly means they will deliver more of the same wrong – in which they’ve been engaged for decades.
- The Case Against the Farm Bill – The Heritage Foundation
- No Farm Bill, No Problem – American Enterprise Institute
- Farm Bill Analysis: Conservatives Should Oppose – National Taxpayers Union
- Farm Bill Follies – Competitive Enterprise Institute
- The Next Farm Bill Will Probably Stink Worse and Cost More – Reason Magazine
Food production – is just another manufacturing sector. In fact, the most important one of all. Because before you do anything else – you gotta eat.
And we’ve been doing the exact same stupid things to food manufactures – that we’ve been doing to all other manufacturers.
Too many regulations. Too many, too high taxes. And idiotic trade policies. And almost inarguably, the most damaging thing to domestic producers – is imported government subsidies.
Importing Government Subsidies: The Worst of Fake ‘Free Trade’:
“Tariffs and import limits – reduce our foreign sales. Which of course damages our domestic producers…to a degree.
“But other countries’ subsidies – are stealth weapons killing us from within. They are an innumerable armada of Trojan Horses – which we have been willingly bringing inside our gates….
“I’m all for free trade. Right up until it hurts our nation.
“When the health of free trade and our nation are in conflict – the nation must prevail…
“Oh – and importing government subsidies…isn’t free trade.”
So, for example, when the entirety of the planet engages in a subsidy trade war….
- Brazil Sugar Industry Receives Massive Government Subsidies
- Thailand’s Cabinet Approves Subsidy Rates for Sugar Cane Farmers
- India to Maintain Sugar Export Subsidies
And we long ago unilateraly disarmed in this regard…:
“As Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.) noted, the 2014 (Farm) bill…’eliminated direct payments [to farmers]….’”
What we have been doing – is further undercutting and undermining our farmers.
It is through this prism – the Post-Trump prism – that we must look at what little is left of what will become the 2023 Farm Bill.
The Farm Bill must be considered – as an infinitesimally small part of a complex global matrix of anti-America trade, tax, regulatory and subsidy policies.
Except DC conservatives seem poised to steadfastly refuse to adjust their perspective. Old World thinking – in this, the New World.
So we now quote the Bible – specifically Matthew 7: 3-5:
“3) Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
“4) How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?
“5) You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
There are logs in eyes all over the world.
And DC conservatives – in response to a barely perceptible speck in ours – are looking to blind us.
And starve us out.
How inordinately Pre-Trump of them.
Mr. Motley is the founder and president of Less Government
