In an interview with Ezra Klein in yesterday’s NYT, Ramaswamy tells us that Trump is threatening to impose universal tariffs solely as a temporary expedient to force our friends to lower theirs. He also advises us that, after the border is under control, Trump will support efforts to liberalize the immigration system to bring in hordes of foreign talent. Finally, Trump will put a torch to the welfare state, reduce the national debt, and drive our workers out of the hammock of dependency. In short, Trump isn’t a Reactionary; he’s a secret Conservative Libertarian. He may have personal issues with Paul Ryan, but his hidden ideology is Ryan on steroids.
You may interject at this point that Ramaswamy is deluded, and that his version of “Trump” belongs in a libertarian comic book. Trump wants to bring back the economy of the 1950s and force people to suck up to him, not create Galt’s Gulch. I agree, but there is a larger point here; Trump has convinced an extremely wide range of extremists with very different dreams that he is on their side even though he has an extensive record that proves them wrong. The first step in creating the new shining city on the hill, whether it be the Godly Society or the techno-aristocracy, is to pull down the corrupt bureaucrat-ridden system we have today. Trump’s powers of destruction are an indispensable phase of the revolution.