Talk about the “pot calling the kettle black.” At the UN General Assembly, Donald Trump, with a straight face, said that “the problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented but that socialism has been faithfully implemented.”
And he said that with a straight face not because he’s an actor but because he really believes he’s being critical of socialism, while at the same time he himself is a diehard socialist. And I’ve been saying this for a long time now.
Trump also declared: “From the Soviet Union to Cuba, Venezuela — wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish, devastation, and failure.”
How ironic, given that he is presiding over a federal government which implements one failed or failing socialist program after another, and he himself loves the welfare state and the warfare state. And he’s shyster and a con man to boot.
So after Trump’s failed effort to repeal ObamaCare and liberate the people and their medical matters, now it’s Trump’s so-called tax reform scam-shell game. The feds probably will lower taxes for the higher income people, but they will raise taxes on the lower and middle classes. Read Ron Paul’s commentary on the Trump tax proposals. And David Stockman’s analyses of the Trump tax plan proposals here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Also Veronique de Rugy, Tax Policy Center, Rand Paul, and Jeff Deist at the Mises Institute.
And on health care issue and other issues, Trump has expressed the need for compromise with Democrats. He is now with Sen. Chuck Schumer who says that repealing ObamaCare is “off the table.”
Why do those who say they favor free-market capitalism and freedom continue to believe this guy?
But all this is no surprise to those of us who could see early on that Trump has always been a Big Government tax-and-spend socialist, certainly not a conservative, and certainly not a free-market capitalist.
For example, in my November 20, 2016 post asserting that Trump is a central-planning socialist, I wrote:
Donald Trump is also against free markets in the medical care and insurance industries. For many years he has been advocating nationalized, universal health care. And this past year in interviews he has promoted an expanded medicaid-for-all scheme, but says he wants “competition,” and so forth. Here he is with Scott Pelley:
However, even though Trump says he wants private competition, when he says that he still wants the government to take care of those who can’t take care of themselves, he is really advocating a public option, which, as the leftist schemers know well, will eventually put the free-market insurers out of business, because the government insurer need not worry about competing.
And a while ago, I could already see that “businessman” Donald Trump was against free-market capitalism. For example, on April 30, 2011, I wrote:
Along with all the obscenities that show how much class he really has, Trump proclaimed his lack of knowledge of economics and understanding of basic principles, including,
“They (Saudi Arabia) go in and raise the price of oil, because we have nobody in Washington that sits back and say, ‘You’re not gonna raise that f—— price. You understand me?”
So he wants U.S. government bureaucrats to order the Saudis not to raise prices? Do U.S. officials have that kind of authority over others in other countries? Why doesn’t he look further into the situation as far as why the price or oil and gas is so high now? Has Trump addressed the fact that the U.S. government — with all its wacky, destructive environmental laws and energy regulations — is restricting Americans’ right to explore for and make use of energy resources on their own lands? Could he possibly consider the idea that the people of the states actually have more of a right to control their own lands and resources than the U.S. government has?
If Trump were truly “pro-America,” he would advocate that the people of the states nullify and ignore all federal environmental and energy-related laws and regulations, and drill for oil and gas anyway, and build and use nuclear power plants anyway, regardless of what federal bureaucrats say. Trump could make better use of the f-bomb by telling the U.S. government to go f itself.
And in his fascist stand against American consumers and their right to make choices on a free market, Trump said that he would tell the Chinese, “Listen you motherf——, we’re going to tax you 25%.” Trump has already stated in the past that he “would love to have a trade war with China.”
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Trump supports the strong-arm, union-like tactics of Big Government to protect Big Business at the expense of small business, to protect union workers at the expense of non-union workers and American consumers. In other words, the socialist, central planning power of governments to trespass into Americans’ private economic matters (and for political reasons).
And on July 16, 2015, I wrote:
So besides being anti-immigration, Trump also supports trade wars with Mexico and China, and believes that the U.S. government should continue to impose restrictions on Americans’ freedom of trade with foreigners.
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It’s yet another disappointment from a businessman turning to the political world, joining the graveyard of businessmen turning to politics Willard Romney, Steve Forbes, Ross Perot, Pete DuPont, and on and on.
For example, instead of threatening to impose further tax burdens on Ford Motor Company for moving manufacturing plants to Mexico, burdens which are then handed down to American consumers, why doesn’t Trump insist that the U.S. government remove the existing tax-thefts, regulatory nightmares, and wage and price controls which are motivating American companies to move out in the first place?
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Even worse than Trump’s views on trade (if they can get any worse), he actually supports nationalized health care. In his own words, Trump has stated, “We must have universal healthcare … We should not hear so many stories of families ruined by healthcare expenses.”
So the Donald agrees with Obama on health care. But wouldn’t you think a real capitalist would call for repealing all the regulations, taxes, licensure requirements and mandates already imposed by the government which are the real causes of skyrocketing medical expenses?
In my March 15, 2016 American Thinker article on free trade and “making America great again,” I wrote:
Some Presidential candidates such as Donald Trump want to “make America great again.” But how can someone make America “great” when he wants to empower the government to intrude itself into the people’s economic matters? Government-imposed managed trade (a.k.a. “fair” trade) rules, governments imposing punishments on companies locating abroad, etc. — those kinds of intrusions have contributed to making America less great over the past century.
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NAFTA (The Orwellian North American “Free Trade” Agreement) and other such agreements do not involve free trade. Those are government agreements which create anti-market bureaucracies, arcane rules and regulations, corporate cartels. Such schemes cause economic distortions resulting in higher prices for consumers and job losses for workers. Donald Trump can no better concoct such deals to “work for Americans” than can Barack Obama come up with an “affordable care act” that works for medical patients.
In my July 10, 2016 Economic Policy Journal article “Libertarians for Socialism,” I wrote:
Sorry. Trump is not a boat-rocker. He is a deal-maker. A cahooter.
Trump believes strongly in making deals, which is fine in the private sector. But government deals are political deals. If conservatives and libertarians think that Trump will not sign bills with more anti-discrimination amendments, tax-raising amendments and on and on, they are kidding themselves.
And:
On healthcare Trump states on his official campaign website that the government must “make sure that no one slips through the cracks simply because they cannot afford insurance. We must review basic options for Medicaid and work with states to ensure that those who want healthcare coverage can have it.”
As Trump made clear in his interview last September with Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes, Trump is “going to take care of everybody,” and that “the government’s gonna pay for it.” And he promised to fund all that by raising taxes on the wealthy. In his February appearance on a CNN Town Hall with Anderson Cooper, Trump stated that while he wants to repeal ObamaCare he nevertheless likes the mandate because he doesn’t want “people dying on the streets.” In reference to his Medicaid expansion proposal (which he referred to as “Medicare” in the CNN interview), Trump stated, “That’s not single payer, by the way. That’s called heart. We gotta take care of people that can’t take care of themselves.”
And by “we” he doesn’t mean private charities or businesses, which is the free-market way, but government, which is the failed socialist way.
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In my October 2, 2016 American Thinker article on conservatives’ acceptance of progressive government, I wrote:
All the increased spending Trump wants to impose is the opposite of what the country needs to restore our freedom. Unfortunately, Trump does not seem to understand that the government is not a business. It’s government, a forced monopoly on the people. And regardless of his purported tax-cut plan, the money with which he wants to spend in the trillions is other people‘s money, taken from them involuntarily. Like most politicians, Trump seems to show contempt for free markets, private property and privacy.
And in this January 28, 2016 post, I wrote:
when I hear the delirious Trump-supporting talk radio crowd, yikes, and their sheeple callers. In Trump they are supporting a liberal Democrat who, besides his love for eminent domain, still defends nationalized health care and single payer because he thinks the government should take care of the people, who believes in “fair trade not free trade,” who supports ethanol mandates and subsidies, who supported bailing out Wall Street banks and nationalizing them, and who supported Obama’s shovel-ready stimulus package.
No, not Bernie Sanders, I’m talking about Trump!
And in that same post, as we can now see from Trump’s compromising with Democrats on healthcare, I wrote:
No, sorry to burst your bubble, but Donald Trump will not “shake things up.” If he is so good at deal-making, he will make deals with Congress, he will agree to that dreaded “bipartisan consensus” that has already taken America down economically and morally.
Regarding Trump’s authenticity in being an “anti-Establishment” shaker-upper of The System, I wrote on April 28, 2016:
Trump was a registered Democrat from 2001 to 2009, and has gone back and forth between Republican and independent at other times. He has also contributed thousands and thousands of dollars to Democrat hacks, particularly during the mid-2000s to help bring back the Democrat majority in Congress. It is probably not because Trump wants some kind of “quid pro quo,” as he has maintained, but because he agrees with Democrats on many issues. And for those reasons I have asked in the past whether Trump is really a straw candidate and on behalf of Democrats or more specifically Hillary. I have also noted that in this interview (at a little after 11:00) with Hannity, Trump makes a possible Freudian slip when he says, “I want to beat the Republicans,” and he wasn’t referring to the primaries but the general election. But whatever. You can have him.
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Justin Raimondo has said he’s not supporting, only “rooting for” Donald Trump. Raimondo points to this article by Murray Rothbard, who gives three reasons to defend demagogues. One is because “they disrupt the body politic and stir things up.” So far so good. Trump is doing that. But the other reasons are that the demagogue appeals directly to the masses’ base emotions and goes over the heads of the State’s “bodyguards,” the “intellectuals” and the mainstream media who traditionally mold public opinion. However, Rothbard notes that the reason to support this kind of demagogue is because that demagogue is bringing “the truth” directly to the people. That is clearly not what Trump is doing. Trump is merely mirroring the anti-free market masses’ authoritarian-statist impulses, Build a government wall, restrict the rights of businesses and laborers to sell their products, services and labor as they see fit, restrict the rights of American consumers, and so forth. Trump’s message is, in other words, nothing any actual libertarians should support. Trump is anti-liberty, anti-private property, and anti-free markets if anyone ever was.
So Trump appeals to authoritarians and collectivists, those conservatives and nationalists who love central planning as the answer to “America’s problems,” whatever they might be.
And I then wrote on April 30, 2016:
there have been plenty of wake-ups and rising up, such as with the 2011-2012 Occupy movement, the 2009-2011 Tea Party movement, and, in earlier times, the 1994 “Republican Revolution,” the 1980 “Reagan Revolution,” and so on. I don’t think this Trumpist nationalist populism is going to result in any kind of revolution as Raimondo seems to be hoping for. That is because many amongst the masses support an even further expansion of the federal government’s power and control: many of them are very anti-foreigner, anti-immigrant and they want a government wall on the border. Many of them are being bamboozled into accepting the post-9/11 police state, because they believe the FedGov’s exaggerations of threats by radical Islamic extremists. And many of them are just very easily romanced by Trump’s foul-mouthed, degenerate mindset. No, these people don’t want true change, they don’t want to dismantle much of the government, they want it expanded, they are not particularly supportive of restoring our freedom. If they were, they would have supported Ron Paul in 2012.
Regarding Trump’s recent threats to make use of tax laws to force NFL players to stand for the national anthem, I had written on my December 14, 2016 post:
If you think that just because Donald Trump has spoken out against political correctness and therefore he is for freedom of speech, think again. I think that freedom of speech, freedom of thought and conscience and freedom of expression, freedom of the Press, and the right to express criticism of the ruling bureaucrats, are such fundamentally important rights, that that is probably why the writers of the Bill of Rights made all that a part of their very first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I am not sure just how devoted Trump will be to tolerating the freedom of the Press, protests, and dissent, when in the past he has taken people to court to sue them for libel or to otherwise shut them up.
And in this September 10, 2015 post, I wrote:
Donald Trump’s arrogant personality has for years been out there for all to see. So there’s nothing new during the current Presidential clownfest in that regard. However, in an interview with the author of a new biography on him, Trump is quoted, stating: “For the most part, you can’t respect people because most people aren’t worthy of respect.” And it sounds like that isn’t even taken out of context, because how could you do that? I think that one statement tells us about what Donald Trump really thinks of other people. (Not much.) …
So I can see why Trump is such an economic ignoramus and an arrogant buffoon. I hope that by now the group “Libertarians for Trump” has disbanded. Please. (Hmm, and I also hope that Trump doesn’t send one of his CIA drones over my home for writing these things.)
Finally, to get a sense of who the real Donald Trump is, watch as Donald Trump contradicts and disagrees with Donald Trump (NB: some foul language):
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