RECOMMENDED READING
The first Trump presidency shattered conservative economic ideology on the Republican Party’s approach to free markets and tariffs.
A second Trump presidency could shatter it on everything else in economic policy.
That’s because the 2024 presidential election is playing out across a dramatically different economic and political landscape than previous Trump campaigns.
Conservative economic thinkers have now had at least eight years to construct an intellectual and policy framework around Trump’s instinctive economic populist message.
What they have come up with is a set of worker-first, anti-corporate elite policy proposals, which are increasingly popular within the party, and in Trump’s economic circles.
Taken together, the plans amount to a vastly different approach to the economy than the Reaganomic tax, regulatory and trade consensus that dominated the GOP from the late 1970s right up to Trump’s first election in 2016.
Recommended Reading
Conservative Analysts Release First Comprehensive Review of Trump Administration, Drawing Lessons for Post-Trump Agenda
PRESS RELEASE—American Compass’s December collection, in partnership with The American Conservative, provides a retrospective analysis of the Trump administration.
The GOP After Trump
An exposé on the future of the Republican Party features American Compass’s efforts to lead a return to traditional, family-first values.
Can There Ever Be a Working-Class Republican Party?
Christopher Caldwell highlights American Compass’s Oren Cass in a discussion of working-class conservatism and the future of the GOP.
