Can Trump Unite by Going Light on Policy?

Trump called the skimpy policies of the GOP platform a feature, not a bug.

Can Donald Trump unite the country?

The former president's assertion on the final night of the Republican National Convention (RNC), where unity was the night's theme, was that yes, yes he can.

"We rise together or we fall apart. I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America," said Trump tonight in a speech that began with a heavy focus on the assassination attempt that very nearly took his life on Saturday.

The night's preceding speeches were exceedingly light on policy. Sen. Steve Daines (R–Mont.) mentioned several GOP priorities in a sentence or less. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hit Joe Biden for his weak foreign policy. Tax increases and porous borders got a few scattered mentions.

The skimpy policy discussion reflects changes to the 2024 Republican Party platform that greatly downplay many traditional GOP commitments when it doesn't explicitly contradict them. It barely mentions the right to bear arms, where once it offered full-throated support for the Second Amendment. It says that abortion policy should be left to the states, where once it called for a constitutional amendment to protect the unborn. Where once Republican Party platforms promised to reform Social Security and Medicare's looming insolvency, the current platform promises to "not cut one penny" from entitlements.

For Trump, this was a feature, not a bug. The new platform was "very short compared to the long, boring, meaningless agendas of the past," he said from the podium.

Tucker Carlson hit the nail on the head when he said during his Thursday speech that he's "never been to…a convention with better vibes." Hulk Hogan then smashed the nail through the board by ripping up his shirt to reveal a Trump-Vance singlet during his segment.

The one thing the platform, and Thursday night's convention speakers, were consistent on was their hawkishness to immigration.

"We've become a dumping ground for the rest of the world," said Trump, blaming the Biden administration for porous borders and South American countries for emptying their "jails," "mental institutions," and "insane asylums" and sending those people to the United States.

Trump connected immigration to everything: to rising deficits, saying immigrants take Social Security; to elections, saying Democrats want illegal immigrants to come in and vote blue; and even to his narrow escape from assassination. He said that looking at a chart about rising illegal immigration caused him to turn his head just in time to dodge the bullet aimed at his head.

Trump's promises of unity also did not stop him from taking numerous shots at the current administration—on crime, inflation, taxes, and more.

"Under the current administration, we are indeed a nation in decline. We have an inflation crisis that is making life harder, affordable, ravaging the incomes of working and low-income families and crushing," Trump said. "We also have an illegal immigration crisis and it's taking place right now as we sit here in this beautiful arena. It's a massive invasion on our southern border that has spread misery crime, poverty, disease and destruction." 

The only praise Trump had for Democrats was for their ability to "cheat" at elections. He made sure to call out the press in the room, prompting loud boos from the audience.

He denounced trade with Mexico and China ("They plunder our nation"), promising to bring manufacturing to America.

Over the course of a long speech, Trump did mention several more off-the-wall policies, including his support for right-to-try (which allows terminal patients to try experimental drugs) and his new idea to make tips tax-free.

In all, Trump's lengthy speech relayed the typical Trumpian message: Things are bad now, and things will be better under him. Whether that messaging will unite the country, or his shallow policies can improve it, remains to be seen.

Comments

[Don't look at me!]

Libertarians for heavy handed government regulations and interventions!

[JesseAz (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

No kidding. Thought we wanted government doing less.

[Stuck in California]

Hawkish on ILLEGAL immigration.

There’s a difference, you know there is, and this fucking magazine should stop pretending otherwise.

And, sounding hawkish is meant to discourage millions of people from making the trek to America, where they are not allowed to work legally, where illegal workers undermine any power that lower income and lower skilled workers might have to get better wages, working conditions, or other concessions from employers when labor markets get tight.

You know, the labor MARKET. You should understand how markets balance themselves out, finding the actual value of goods or services based on scarcity and demand. And how markets become distorted when outside forces are allowed to pervert them, causing inefficiencies. The least libertarian thing you can do for a market is to create government policies and incentives to distort them.

[Fire up the Woodchippers! (5-30 Banana Republic Day)]

Coming soon: ‘The Reason Case for Authoritarian Marxism’.

[Terry Anne Lieber (Don't Feed Tony)]

What a great speech!

In all, Trump’s lengthy speech relayed the typical Trumpian message: Things are bad now, and things will be better under him. Whether that messaging will unite the country, or his shallow policies can improve it, remains to be seen.

Yes, the typical Trumpian message: stating the truth, as it is. Things are bad now, cause the utterly incompetent and malevolent Team Blue fucked everything up. They FUBARed the economy, inflation/prices, oil production, immigration and this time around we are literally approaching WW3 in Europe, Asia and the Middle-East too (i.e. a WW3 will not be a single even, at a single place, it will look something like this: many different wars, battles and conflicts going on simultaneously at different parts of the world). The only reasonable conclusion is that you can’t hate these radical far-leftist Marxist idiots enough.

Even on his worst day, even if his policies were indeed “shallow”, President Trump cannot possibly do more harm to the country, or to the world, than the illegitimate demented figurehead shitting in the WH.

[CountmontyC]

And the Democratic message will be that things will be bad under Trump and better under Biden ( or whomever the Democrats ultimately choose). In other words pretty standard fare for a political speech at a nominating convention. What does Reason expect from a nominating convention speech? Do they expect the speaker to say the opposition is great and the speaker will make things worse?
The criticism was asinine.

[TJJ2000]

I think self-projection pretty much sums up all “the Democrat Messages”

“Things SUCK … but, but, but … It’s not our fault.”
“It’s all Trump and Republicans fault.”
“Never-mind we have a [D]-trifecta”

[WE] Democrats support [Na]tional So[zi]al[ism] but, but Trump is a Nazi.
[WE] Democrats had the Great Depression, Recession, Inflation but, but its all Trumps fault.
[WE] Democrats propose racist/sexist legislation but, but the right is racist and sexist.
[WE] Democrats fought a civil-war to keep slavery but, but the right is the oppressors.

On and on and on and on… Day-in and Day-out… Self-projecting everything they believe and do onto anyone else they can find.

[Ersatz]

Its true that is their message projected to anyone they can find but they wouldnt find many buyers if the press (a wholly owned subsiduary of the D party) didnt uncritically parrot and amplify this message to the public.

It is fine for this to be their message – it should be the job of the press to look into their claims … much like the (D) owned fact-check industry claims to do.

As many have said before – you cant hate the press enough. I’d add that you cant hate the fact-check industry enough.

[EdG]

Wow, what fabulous lies!! US oil production is exceeding the level ever produced under Trump!! The US is energy independent for the 4th year in a row!! But you liars gotta lie!!

[MasterThief]

Yes, he’s thin on policy. That’s not a shock because the man isn’t an ideologue. The tone of the article is strange in making it sound like the accurate claims and reasonable proposals are somehow crazy lies.
I’ll take a Trump administration that at least seeks to serve American citizens over the policies of the current administration which seem intended to cause harm.

[Brett Bellmore]

I actually rather like the current platform. Yes, it’s short on detail, that’s because it’s short. It’s a list of goals, not ways of achieving them.

[Uomo Del Ghiaccio]

This article is complaining that there are not enough details of potential policies to pick apart and attack. The hypocrisy is that democrat policies are not held under the same level of scrutiny.

The corporate media is even promoting the narrative that a Political Think-Tank publication is the Trump plan. Never mind that Political Think-Tanks have published agendas which are really just a wish-list.

Could Trump take ideas from the publication, sure however history shows other presidents getting ideas from other Think-Tanks. Interesting that all Think-Tanks are non-partisan (unless of course they are conservative).

I don’t want a detailed policy paper with minute details bloating the document into something that the voters will not read. I want the bullet points that list out the goals. How the goal is achieved can be worked out once they are in a position to actually implement something.

I’m much more interested is who Trump will surround himself with. Eliminate the Neo-Cons and add a bunch of libertarian minded people.

[MasterThief]

I would like to see the cliffs notes version from Heritage for their Project 2025 document. I’ve almost exclusively seen the bullet points version of it from left-wing sources. That said, if what I saw is remotely accurate (including their Twitter factcheck) then I disagree with more than half of it.
It’s a shame we don’t have a libertarian magazine willing to deep-dive into the document to give a brief explanation of it and then evaluate points of agreement and disagreement from a libertarian perspective

[Brett Bellmore]

The thing is nearly 1000 pages, I’m sure there’s things in it almost anybody would love or hate.

But it’s key to remember that it IS Heritage’s proposal, not the GOP platform or Trump’s agenda. It’s what THEY want him to do, not what he’s announced any intention to do. He’s already rejected parts of it.

[shadydave]

The Democratic party platform:

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1604880031/reasonmagazinea-20/

[markm23]

The real Democratic platform is not the Communist Manifesto, it is worse!
1. A senile idiot is fit to be President, just like the collection of kleptomaniacs and proven incompetents that the idiot appointed to the cabinet.
2. Feelings matter over facts, logic, and results.
3. Racial and sexual discrimination is good or bad depending on who is discriminating against whom.
4. Opposing actions that mirror Mussolini and Hitler is “fascism”, and political violence like the Brownshirts is “antifascism”.
5. Anything Trump does in furtherance of his campaign is “election interference”, while government agents lying massively to the public about “Russian Collusion” and Hunter’s laptop to influence a campaign wasn’t.
6. Suppressing discussion of those government lies, and the ones about Covid is “freedom of speech” – but the economic depression caused by mostly-Democrats overreacting to COVID was Trump’s fault.

[Set Us Up The Chipper]

1. Rollback the EV mandates
2. In shore manufacturing
3. No tax on tips
4, Energy independence
5. More border security
6. Increase tariffs (not in favor of this either)

Seems specific enough to me. I think he also mentioned lower interest rates…something I am not in favor of.

[Supply Side]

Ah… we have energy independence – the US produces more oil and gas in its history under Biden and more than any country ever.

There is no EV mandate to remove. There are incentives to buy them.

And if you want to slow immigration you don’t stop Mexico’s economy from growing— you help them grow their job opportunities so people immigrate there.

Trump can state problems when he is not lying but he always has the wrong solutions.

By the way, Trump let the Taliban out of jail – that is why and how they retook Afghanistan.

[Roberta]

Why do you group the libertarian policies as “off the wall”?

Anyway, what’s wrong with a governing party’s trying to confine policies to those on which there’s broad consensus, rather than reveling in lording it over those who disagree, as some other political party might?

[shadydave]

We currently have subsidized black market immigration. That’s not a good idea from any ideology (including libertarianism), except one that values the electoral success of the Democratic Party above all else. It’s not even directly a good idea from a strictly communist ideology. I suspect the Democrats think of the Marxists in their ranks as “useful idiots.” They should be more careful.

I don’t much care for the Republican approach to this problem, but pretending like there isn’t a major problem is willful idiocy.

[Supply Side]

That is it- dismantle the rail roads and electrical grid cause it was built by black market Chinese and Irish labor.

[Supply Side]

Reagan would walk out on this Party. Trump didn’t say government was the problem, he said he should be the government the whole government and his Trump state should rule over the rest of us. His alignment with crypto foretells his attempt with Musk and Thiel’s help to seize the capital and financial markets for their pockets, soak the state treasury to enrich themselves and force all of us to give up our savings and become their slaves.

[markm23]

That sounds like a leftist doing a whole lot of projection. Don’t believe what the media says Trump says, look it up for yourself.

[car-keynes]

Trump’s agenda looks a lot like attempting to correct some of the most ubiquitous of changes that people have witnessed since the Kennedy assassination era challenged the spirit of Americans to find a proper correctness to guide them through clear and present danger of constitutional crisis in federal elections (that Americans consequently invest the most assets in, or so I would surmise).

Economic thinkers can readily reason through the power to vote with their missiles (be it a gun fire, a lucky horseshoe, or a close shave to the ears). It’s not the sort of swing that invites the right sort of unity. And, reading into realness, the median lack of assassination attempts over the years ultimately suggests that even assassins would prefer to be engaged otherly rather than go Santa-like all-in with their final bag of pitch before Heaven & Hell or Boom & Bust to assure Damnation that its cause were the more correct One.

That right sort of unity rests upon justice done but upon reasonable assurance of fairness, as well, whilst fairness depends upon an equity of rules knowably available and in-common for all to discover but — necessarily or inevitably — representatively applied.

Exaggeration can benefit only from needful regulation. Disaster shapes the form that progress must take. Dirt roads of the past were exaggerated by the rains of less sun-filled times to become impossibly rutty to cross with the wheel. Figures do not lie when they present to yesterday’s emigration an exponential proposition of want (demand) to cross that same terrain regardless of prevailing exaggeration, be it weather or sun-fill. There is no need to deny demand nor supply; but there (always) must be need of regulation, even if it that be the bolt on your barn or shed holding back a curious hand or nudging paw looking for abandoned lodging. The two, demand and supply, might unite like lovers as it should be when people choose to trade with each other. But it needs to be under the right (i.e., regulated) sort of conditions. What regulations differ by venue. But you always want to have trade to your liking whilst likewise for the other man. Regulation must, therefore, be to a trading partner’s liking enough so to appear fair or reasonable for its very circumstances.