Oren Cass has been a vocal proponent of Trump’s tariff and deportation regime. He insisted, against all of the evidence, that a kindly and constructive Uncle Donald would pop out of nowhere and work with Congress to give his new economic scheme a permanent and reliable foundation. Now that Trump has been repudiated by the electorate, however, Cass is singing a different tune. He insists that Trumpism is a purely personal phenomenon with no consistent ideological content, that nothing new has actually been created after all of the destruction, and that the choice between Reaganite tax cutting and deregulation and New Right protectionism and interventionism will be made from scratch over the next few years.
This argument ignores two important facts. First of all, while it is certainly true that the most important component of Trumpism is the vicious and vindictive personality of the man on golf cart, mercantilism plays a significant part in it, as well. It was not for nothing that Cass steadfastly supported him until the electorate turned against him. Second, J.D., the leader of the Godly Society element of the administration, relies heavily on Trumpian anger and capriciousness to keep all of the factions in line; he also supported Trump’s “Reaganite” line of cutting taxes for the rich and deregulating AI.
In short, the battle lines between the New Right and the Reaganites are not as clear in the real world as Cass makes them out to be, and Trump’s failures are partially attributable to the New Right policies that Cass espouses.