Nikki Haley wants the Reagan vision for America–the current condition, but with a larger military and a smaller welfare state. DeSantis supported the status quo, with wokeness ripped from our institutions. What is Trump’s vision?
Trump has the entire reactionary dream. In his America, industry and resource extraction drive the economy, not tech and services. Big burly men do jobs requiring lots of physical strength and make lots of money; women stay at home and take care of the children. White Christians have a monopoly on political power. Questions of sex, gender, and race go underground. Environmentalists and members of the woke left simply don’t exist.
The problem with the dream, of course, is that Trump has to uninvent the wheel. The social and economic changes of the last 50 years have to disappear. He can’t accomplish that even with huge tariffs and autocratic rule.
He’s King Lear for the 21st century.