J.D. Vance Hates Milton Friedman
Socialism is ascendant within both political parties.
At a time when the Democratic Party is being conquered from within by actual socialists—even outright communists—one might expect the Republican Party to capitalize on this strategic error and campaign against it. Unfortunately, President Donald Trump continues to espouse an economic policy that itself contains far too many concessions to socialism. Even worse, the most likely inheritor of Trump's throne is someone who is, if anything, considerably to the president's left on economics.
Vice President J.D. Vance rarely misses an opportunity to make crystal clear that his embrace of progressive economics is more ideological and deeply held than Trump's. In an interview this week with Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire, Vance took entirely unnecessary shots at the legendary economist Milton Friedman, whose laissez faire economic ideas were implemented by previous generations of conservatives to great success.
Vance begins by laughing at and defending Trump's previous comments about seizing the profits of AI companies. It seems clear that Vance is more committed to this idea than Trump is—even though it is well in keeping with proposals from democratic socialists like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.). Vance understands better than Trump that such a proposal contradicts long-held GOP economic dogma, and that's precisely what he likes about it. He likes that it's kind of socialist.
You think I'm being unfair? Vance goes on to advocate the shunning of Friedman, telling Knowles that the Republican Party of the future will enjoy spitting on his legacy. He specifically says that the party will consciously eschew Friedman-style economics in favor of centralized, government-controlled economic planning. He says this is necessary because: "It's fundamentally about the dignity of the human person. The economy is a tool to service the dignity of the human person. If a set of economic policies make it possible to raise a family, to earn a living wage, to give back to their community, to maybe go to church on Sunday, or to actually spend some leisure time building the kind of life that matters, that is the sort of thing we want to be supportive of."
JD Vance is so frustrating. Here he takes gratuitous shots at Milton Friedman as a bad model for Republican economic thinking.
With Friedman as the guiding light, Ronald Reagan won 49 states and ushered in a decade of unrivaled prosperity. pic.twitter.com/MX2MmY9Qta
— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) July 2, 2026
Positing that free markets are somehow antithetical to human dignity is explicitly progressive framing. Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.), and the new cadre of far-left radicals likely to join the House of Representatives next year would not have worded the statement any differently.
One can't help but wonder why Vance thinks this pivot to the left is a good idea for the party. Friedman was the lodestar of former President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, two political figures who ran on laissez faire ideas and enjoyed huge political success. Reagan won 49 states in the 1984 election, and the country experienced spectacular economic growth. By contrast, Americans seem to hate Trump's quasi-progressive economic policies: His approval rating on the economy is just 33 percent.
Instead of promising swift course-correction under a future Vance administration, he's vowing to move even further to the left. What could go wrong?
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