Politics

Why Liberal Darlings Krugman and Warren Are Praising Trump's Dumb Economics

Wanting to raise taxes on the rich is good enough.

|

Tim Pierce / Flickr

Add Sen. Elizabeth Warren to the list of notable leftists with some (very measured) kind words for Donald Trump's economic platform. As Warren said on The View:

There are a lot of places where he gets out and talks about important things," Warren said of the celebrity real estate tycoon on ABC's "The View."

"Donald Trump and I both agree that there ought to be more taxation of the billionaires, the people who are making their money on Wall Street," she said.

Warren's comments followed a hilariously trolling column by Nobel Prize-winning New York Times economist Paul Krugman, who wrote "Trump Is Right on Economics":

Instead, Mr. Bush has chosen to attack Mr. Trump as a false conservative, a proposition that is supposedly demonstrated by his deviations from current Republican economic orthodoxy: his willingness to raise taxes on the rich, his positive words about universal health care. And that tells you a lot about the dire state of the G.O.P. For the issues the Bush campaign is using to attack its unexpected nemesis are precisely the issues on which Mr. Trump happens to be right, and the Republican establishment has been proved utterly wrong.

Warren and Krugman both stipulated that they were only praising Trump's economic platform—his attitude toward taxes, specifically—not his desire to eject all illegal immigrants from the country. Of course, immigration policy is itself an aspect of economic policy, as is trade policy. It would be heartening if either Krugman or Warren signaled recognition that a candidate cannot be both "right on economics" and vigorously nativist in his immigration and trade views. But for them, it seems, wanting to raise taxes on the rich is good enough.