In the last post, I stated people should back the person most closely aligned with their principles and goals that can get elected. People have pointed out that former President Trump is leading Biden in several polls, so why am I not supporting him? The simple reason is that we disagree on important issues, precisely his stance on capitalism vs. state-directed economies and his subservience to bureaucratic elites. 

That doesn’t mean I didn’t applaud his tax cuts, opposing more regulations, and solid court appointments. Support for Israel while containing Iran led to the Abraham Accords. Providing real weapons to Ukraine kept Russia at bay. 

Trump’s stance on Capitalism vs. State-directed economies, as characterized by protectionism, debt, and immigration, however, revealed Trump’s less attractive side. Subservience to bureaucratic elites, Trump clashed with my fundamental values. 

A bedrock belief in markets allocating resources rather than self-serving elites makes me hostile to industrial policies. These policies, characterized by state intervention in the economy, have historically proven ineffective and often disastrous. 

After freeing up markets and achieving remarkable growth, China is reverting to the state direction of the economy with the expected results; growth is decelerating. Soon, it will join the old Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, and Argentina as countries that could be rich but choose to move backward.

Speaking of Argentina, the new president, Javier Milie, explains the differences between capitalism’s successes and the failures of statism in his address before the World Economic Forum. I only wish I had his passionate ability to make the case for markets and the people rather than the state making decisions. One can only hope he will get the support to return Argentina to its place among wealthy nations.

A state-directed economy is only possible by separating a nation from competing goods and ideas. Protectionism through tariffs is a primary tool. Trump loves tariffs. He imposed them to protect our steel and washing machine industries. While he saved some jobs in the protected sectors, the data shows he lost more jobs among the users of tariff-protected products such as autos and washing machines using the now higher price steel, making them less competitive.

Worse, he has never understood that Americans, not foreigners, pay this tax, and American consumers suffer from the resulting inflated prices. Rather than seeing the errors of his way, Trump now proposes a 10% tariff on all imports—just what we need: a high inflationary Tax. Biden retained most of the Trump tariffs. As evidenced by tariffs, Trump and Biden are in the same camp on industrial policy. 

A functioning capitalistic economy needs relatively stable money. This requirement means avoiding debt beyond what it can repay without debasing its currency. Trump’s attitude towards debt is dangerous. Depending on how calculated, he added between $7.8 and $8.4 billion to our debt in only four years. Yes, that’s the figure proving he’s no fiscal conservative.

Worse, entitlements are significant drivers of our increasing debt, and Trump has put any changes off limits. This position leaves a future president seeing everyone’s social security reduced by over 20%.

Capitalism thrives on the free movement of goods and people. However, Milton Frieman pointed out that welfare states can’t sustain unlimited illegal immigration. Trump did an admirable job of stemming the flow of migrants crossing our southern borders. But the United States still needs immigrants. We’re barely replacing our present population when we need more people to support our increasingly elderly population. 

While unskilled immigrants can be a negative, at least in the shorter term, skilled immigrants are immediately positive. It stands to reason to encourage Doctors and welders to join us. Trump and his supporters have often evidenced a negative attitude toward even skilled migrants. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand strongly favor admitting the proficient to strengthen their economies, and considering our needs, we’d be foolish not to emulate them.

During COVID, Trump caved to Dr. Fauci and the medical bureaucracy instead of ordering a deep dive into the available data to do a cost-benefit analysis of his options. The lockdowns and the Trillions of debt followed. One has only to check my series here on COVID-19 to acknowledge the lockdowns were unjustified by the available data. If I could access the data with nothing but Google, the Trump administration could. 

Rather than a government bureaucracy skeptic, Trump never fired Dr. Fauci even though he had to know his and N.I.H. head Dr. Collins’s involvement with the Wuhan Lab. If Trump failed in this crisis with the deep state, why would we think he’d do better a second time around?

Many people would never associate capitalism with Morality, but we don’t teach much about it. A paramount point of Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” is the invisible hand of the marketplace is impartial and, therefore, of more excellent moral value than government elites and their cronies making decisions.

While people think of Smith as an economist, at the time of the book’s publication, no one thought of him as such. That’s because classical liberal economics began with him. Smith, instead, was regarded as a moral philosopher based on his first book, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments.” 

Joining Morality and how we conduct ourselves is a necessity. The shunning of untrustworthy, once revealed, is essential if you want to stay in business. Narcissism is a personality disorder that makes people especially treacherous. That’s because they put themselves above everything else.

Donald Trump has all the indications of narcissism. Everything is about him. Loyalty is a one-way street. From experience, narcissists are among the last people I would want to deal with. You can’t associate with them for long unless you accept their self-worship over all else. This situation limits a second Trump administration to morally bankrupt sycophants. That might describe much in our political classes, but they are not the best, and with today’s problems, we need the top-notch.

The estrangement between Trump and many in his administration and legislative leaders that were crucial to his successes exposes the effect of his personality flaws.

 His opposition to the Border Bill illustrates Trump’s narcissism. Before even knowing the terms of the legislation, he demanded Republicans deep-six it so he could still have the immigration issue for his reelection campaign. Even though the Border Patrol Union, the Wall Street Journal, and the Chamber of Commerce see the bill’s value in stemming the invasion now, Trump put his needs first. The crisis continued when lessening it was possible.

These are my reasons for not finding Trump aligned with my principles and goals. Further, there is little reason to assume he can win. He might if up against old, hapless Joe, but a younger, attractive Democrat will clean his clock. That’s what’s on the horizon.