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Republicans will gather for their convention in Milwaukee next week united behind presidential candidate Donald Trump but divided on what the party stands for.
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Rubio’s views found a home in American Compass, a think tank founded the following year by Oren Cass, who was an adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. Cass has positioned American Compass as a counterweight to supply-side groups such as Americans for Tax Reform (keeper of the no-tax pledge Republicans are expected to sign) and the Club for Growth.
“A huge problem with the libertarian model is thinking the free market is the end unto itself, and we have no right to question its outcomes or what the common good might be,” said Cass. “The starting point is to define the ends here: human flourishing.”
A central tenet of this conservative view is that making things, i.e., manufacturing, is essential to balanced growth and national sovereignty. While supply-siders deride tariffs as taxes (except when imposed on China), Cass considers them essential to supporting manufacturing, a view shared by Robert Lighthizer, the former Trump trade ambassador, who is on American Compass’s advisory board.
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Oren Cass ’05 talks conservative realignment, economic policy, J.D. Vance
Oren Cass speaks with the Williams Record on American Compass and the political realignment.
A Manchin down under
After taking down the groups of the Right in the New York Times, Oren Cass faces pushback from market fundamentalists.
Trump Lost the Race. But Republicans Know It’s Still His Party.
Jeremy Peters highlights American Compass as a leader in building a post-Trump conservative movement by bringing together Capitol Hill staff and policy experts to debate the successes and failures of the past four years.
