Dan Mitchell: Socialism From Republicans Is Just as Bad as Socialism From Democrats

“When Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic nomination in the New York City Mayor’s race, many Republicans warned that his plan for government-run grocery stores was socialism.

Since Mamdani wasn’t threatening (at least not yet) to shut down private supermarkets, his plan would not lead to the usual consequences of socialism, such as bread lines and food rationing.

But it is a given that his plan would be a money-losing boondoggle.

So Republicans were correct to mock and criticize his vote-buying scheme.

Yet I wonder if those same Republicans will also condemn Donald Trump’s far more expensive and far more damaging plan to have the government become a dominant shareholder in Intel.

For more information on this depressing development, let’s start with the Wall Street Journal‘s editorial about Intel last week. Here are some excerpts…

Source:Dan Mitchell is no one's Socialist.

From Dan Mitchell

FOX News anchor Jesse Watters from last night arguing in favor of Socialism. Conservatives, where have you gone? We miss you: 

“Prices are still high. Can’t Trump just bring in some corporate executives and just say guys, there’s going to be a socialist revolution in this country if you don’t do something, please do something?”

From Barbara Sobel

Being a Gen-Xer who came of age during the early 1990s, I’m old enough to remember when the Republican Party was the party of economic freedom, private enterprise, keep the government out of the economy, taxes and regulations down, let the “free market” and mother nature take it’s course, etc. That’s why Conservatives became Republicans in the late 1960s, especially after the emergence of the New-Left in the Democratic Party, along with the Cold War as well. 

But go up 20 plus years with the emergence of Donald John Trump and his political takeover of the Republican Party… the Department of Defense might no longer be the Department of Defense… maybe it’s the “Department of War” now, but the Republican Party is no longer the Republican Party.

I know hearing “the Republican Party is no longer the Republican Party”, sounds like “fish are no longer fish”, “prison inmates are no longer prison inmates. They’re now institutional guests.” But my point here is what’s called the Republican Party today, is at the very least no longer a conservative party. This is no longer the Republican Party of fiscal and economic conservatism, or even of national security conservatism. This is now just Donald Trump’s party and whoever is there, are only his guests and are only allowed to stay, as long as they’re 100% loyal to The Donald. 

The New Democrat has been talking about Donald Trump being a Socialist, since back in May when I wrote a counter-post to conservative columnist Kevin Williamson’s piece arguing that Donald Trump is-in-fact a Socialist. And here is some of what I wrote about that: 

“And The White House is out of believable, positive spin, The Donald himself has even run out of decent lies in how to spin his bad economy, (I guess the Trump tariffs have even hurt TrumpLies.Inc) so they’re desperate and are trying to come up with anything that they can think of at the time, to try to justify (because they can’t spin) the weaknesses in the American economy right now.

So Donald John Trump: the Manhattan real estate mogul, the self-proclaimed billionaire, the “king of reality TV”, sounding like a Socialist, because he’s talking about sacrifice and the need for Americans to cut back. When no one in his White House, including himself, would ever even consider cutting back anything that they enjoy in life, to benefit someone else who isn’t doing as well… I don’t think there’s anything more to it then what I just laid out. Donald Trump is not a Socialist… but he’s a desperate politician, to the point if sounding like a Socialist is what he needs to do to improve his political fortune, that’s exactly what he will do.” 

From The New Democrat

And even Larry Kudlow who gets down on his knees to pray to his Dear Leader Donald every day on his show… even Kudlow didn’t like the President’s socialist proposal for the U.S. Government to become part of Intel a couple weeks ago. Here is some of what I wrote about that: 

“As I’ve said before, (or something close to this) Larry Kudlow, Erick Erickson, and Steve Moore, are no one’s radical Hippies or flaming Socialists. Pre-Trump, both Kudlow and Moore would be what you would describe as Northeastern, country club, neoconservative, supply-side, Republicans. They were people who believed that government should be out of the private sector and just let companies operate freely in what they would call a free market.

Erick Erickson, perhaps a little to the left (key word being little) but he’s basically the Gen-X, male version of someone like a Phyllis Schlafly from the 1960s and 70s. Very radical as a right-wing culture warrior, but not a racist or an ethnic bigot. But someone you could describe as a true believer when it comes to what has been called Christian Nationalism. But someone who combined his radical, right-wing cultural war politics, with a more conservative-libertarian view of government when it comes to economic policy.

So when you even have people who are true Conservatives when it comes to economic policy, tell you that state socialism is a really bad idea and you are also on the Right, you should at least listen to them. Unless you are not a Conservative, and more of a State Socialist and someone who thinks… 

From The New Democrat

But I think my colleague Erik Schneider made the key point about Donald J. Trump back in August as far as how The Donald governs and does his own business: 

“If you know anything about Donald John Trump, you know that the only 2 things that he believes in, are himself and absolute power for himself. He’s not interested in political philosophy and doesn’t really practice any particular political philosophy. I’ve made this point before but if he thought acing and talking like a Socialist… hell, a Communist, would guarantee himself absolute power over anyone who even tries to confront him and challenge his power, that’s what he would talk and act like.

Donald Trump chose American, Anglo-Saxon nationalism, 10 years ago, because he saw a group of Americans who thought America wasn’t just going to hell (to paraphrase Eric Schnurer) but has been there at least since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

And DJT rightly calculated that if he became their leader, (cult hero or icon, god even, would be more accurate) he could use these people (which is exactly what he’s been doing) to not just become President of the United States, (which is something he thought about doing since his early 40s) but obtain absolute power for himself and be untouchable for the rest of his life. If you think about it, his “MAGA” movement, is the best con he’s ever pulled and probably the best political con ever pulled in American history, as far as how successful he’s been with it politically… 

From The New Democrat

To put it another way: Donald Trump is the Nihilist of American politics. He believes in nothing, at least philosophically. For you Seinfeld fans, if your show is the show about nothing, Donald J. Trump would be the perfect character for your show, because he’s about nothing other than himself. That’s why we have a President who is a registered Republican, but who is sort of governing like a Socialist on economic policy, because he thinks that personally benefits him, which is the only thing that he’s ever interested in.

Source:The New Democrat

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