{"id":2461186,"date":"2025-08-12T02:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T06:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/?p=2461186"},"modified":"2025-08-12T06:53:31","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T10:53:31","slug":"from-tea-party-patriotism-to-economic-nationalism-how-the-right-gave-up-on-small-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/2025\/08\/12\/from-tea-party-patriotism-to-economic-nationalism-how-the-right-gave-up-on-small-government\/","title":{"rendered":"From Tea Party Patriotism to Economic Nationalism: How the Right Gave Up on Small Government"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cascading events of the 2008 global recession, and a bipartisan<\/a> $700 billion bailout<\/a> of US banks, sparked a cultural backlash known as the Tea Party movement<\/a>. This grassroots affiliation then swelled in opposition to more large\u2011scale government intervention, most notably the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two years later, the 2010 midterm elections proved a turning point: Republicans, branded as Tea Party supporters, won back<\/a> 63 House seats and six Senate seats, the largest shift in Congress since 1948. By 2016, then\u2011presidential candidate Donald Trump was praising<\/a> the movement: \u201cThe tea party people are incredible people. These are people who work hard and love the country.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Roughly a decade later, the Republican Party no longer champions small government or a laissez\u2011faire economy. Once the self\u2011proclaimed guardians of limited government, today\u2019s GOP embraces state control across multiple fronts: steering corporate investment, micromanaging trade, spending without restraint, and ignoring entitlement insolvency. It is no isolated drift \u2014 it is a wholesale realignment toward big\u2011government nationalism. As Star Wars<\/em> warned<\/a>: \u201cSo this is how liberty dies\u2026with thunderous applause.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nowhere is the GOP\u2019s break with small\u2011government ideals more visible than in its willingness to dictate where and how America\u2019s largest companies invest. Apple announced plans to invest $500\u202fbillion<\/a> to expand manufacturing and AI server production across the United States. The firm originally desired to expand its footprint in India<\/a>, avoiding the geopolitical squeeze of US\u2013China tensions. The President<\/a> responded to this news: \u201cI had a little problem with Tim Cook yesterday. \u2018You\u2019re coming here with $500 billion, but now I hear you\u2019re building all over India. I don\u2019t want you building in India.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Apple isn\u2019t alone; Google<\/a> and Nvidia<\/a> are making similar US\u2011focused investments. Alongside these investments came the AI Action Plan, declaring<\/a>, \u201cWinning the AI race will demand a new spirit of patriotism and national loyalty in Silicon Valley and long beyond Silicon Valley.\u201d But does AI truly need a patriotism push?<\/p>\n

As high\u2011tech firms show they can be corralled into government\u2011approved investment, the same heavy hand is now reaching into America\u2019s old\u2011line industries. Last year, the proposed US Steel\u2013Nippon Steel merger<\/a> became a political flashpoint<\/a> not because it threatened consumers or competition, but because the buyer was foreign. Instead of letting the merger proceed, the government prohibited the action and only let Nippon invest<\/a> in US Steel. Nippon also granted the US government a \u201cgolden share\u201d in the firm. As the Cato Institute\u2019s Scott Lincicome argues<\/a>, \u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s \u2018golden share\u2019 control of a wide array of US Steel\u2019s domestic business activities should be seen as a de facto nationalization of the company, given what we know about the new relationship and <\/em>the very standards pushed by the US government in related contexts.\u201d The loser in acquiring US Steel, Cleveland Cliffs<\/a>, applauded<\/a> Donald Trump\u2019s June 4 decision to raise steel tariffs from 25 percent to 50 percent, as their stock rose<\/a> 33 percent that same day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rather than trust markets to allocate capital, Washington now treats investment and ownership as matters for political control. It is one more example of the right abandoning free\u2011market principles in favor of economic nationalism.<\/p>\n

The same instinct to manage markets from Washington now drives US trade policy, with results just as costly and counter\u2011productive. The US government slapped<\/a> a sweeping 50-percent tariff on semi\u2011finished copper items, such as pipes, wires, rods, sheets, and high\u2011copper derivative goods like electrical cables, while cathodes, scrap, ores, and concentrates were explicitly exempted. This policy, justified under national security provisions, immediately roiled the copper market: US copper futures plunged<\/a> over 20 percent in a single day, erasing prior arbitrage premiums and revealing<\/a> that approximately 45 percent of US copper needs now fall under the new levy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tariff threats first targeted steel and automobiles; however since \u201cLiberation Day<\/a>,\u201d imports have plunged nearly 20 percent<\/a>. Deutsche Bank concluded<\/a> that some American firms were eating the tariff costs and accepting smaller margins. But global head of FX research, George Saravelos, told Bloomberg<\/a>, \u2018The top-down macro evidence seems clear: Americans are mostly paying for the tariffs.\u2019<\/p>\n

In the classic pattern of political hubris \u2014 the government breaks your legs, then sells you crutches \u2014 lawmakers now want to hand you a check to offset these self\u2011inflicted costs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Republican Senator Hawley, the architect behind the American Worker Rebate Act<\/a>, desires to redistribute tariff revenues to taxpayers, a true fiscal mess in which government extracts money from consumers in order to give it back to them.\u00a0 Have we forgotten the failed Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) experiment that flooded households with stimulus checks during the draconian COVID\u201119 lockdowns? According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, inflation in consumer prices<\/a> rose from 1.23 in 2020 to 8.0 percent in 2022, with government spending responsible for 42 percent of this inflation<\/a>. The Tax Foundation suggests<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

While tariffs have undoubtedly raised costs for American firms and consumers \u2014 since Americans and not foreigners ultimately pay the tariff \u2014 rebating the revenue to consumers would be fiscally irresponsible and also risk increasing inflation. Tariffs are a poor way to raise revenue generally, but the revenue that is collected should be used for deficit reduction rather than rebates.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This appetite for intervention is matched only by the willingness to spend without restraint. At the turn of the millennium, America carried<\/a> about $5.5\u202ftrillion in federal debt. By mid\u20112025, that figure has exploded to roughly $37\u202ftrillion, more than a sixfold increase in just 25 years. Interest on that debt now swallows over $1\u202ftrillion annually, about 17 percent of all federal spending<\/a>, and the government spends roughly 20 percent more<\/a> than it collects in revenue. The recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill<\/em> will only add fuel to the fire: the Congressional Budget Office projects<\/a> $2.4\u202ftrillion in new deficits over the next decade, or $3.1\u202ftrillion once interest is factored in. At this pace, the United States will celebrate its 250th birthday burdened by a national debt exceeding $40\u202ftrillion. This is not just a failure of governance, it is the abandonment of the very fiscal discipline Republicans once claimed as their defining principle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rather than confront this reality, Republican leaders preside over some of the largest peacetime budgets in US history. On the military side, the Pentagon\u2019s budget alone is $820\u202fbillion, more than the next ten countries combined<\/a>, and climbs to $1.2\u202ftrillion when veterans\u2019 benefits are included. In real terms, America spends more on defense today than it did during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.<\/p>\n

On the welfare side, Social Security and Medicare already consume<\/a> more than eight percent of GDP and their combined costs are projected to soar<\/a> from $1.4\u202ftrillion in 2023 to nearly $3\u202ftrillion by 2033. The Social Security trust fund is expected to be depleted by 2033<\/a>, after which incoming payroll taxes will cover only about 77 percent of promised benefits. Medicare\u2019s Hospital Insurance trust fund faces insolvency by 2036<\/a>, triggering automatic cuts unless Congress intervenes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Republican Party once sold itself as the last line of defense against an overreaching federal government. Today, it champions state control over private enterprise, embraces protectionist tariffs that raise consumer prices, and presides over record\u2011shattering spending that will burden future generations with mountains of debt.\u00a0What began as a movement to curb Washington\u2019s reach has morphed into a governing philosophy that wields government power to direct markets, pick winners, and paper over self\u2011inflicted economic wounds. In forsaking the creed of limited government, the GOP has not merely drifted from its roots, it has become the very Leviathan<\/a> it once vowed to oppose.<\/p>\n

The post From Tea Party Patriotism to Economic Nationalism: How the Right Gave Up on Small Government<\/a> was first published by the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)<\/a>, and is republished here with permission. Please support their efforts.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cascading events of the 2008 global recession, and a bipartisan $700 billion bailout of US banks, sparked a cultural backlash known as the Tea Party movement. This grassroots affiliation then swelled in opposition to more large\u2011scale government intervention, most notably the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Two years later, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":2324418,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2461186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2461186"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2461187,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2461186\/revisions\/2461187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2324418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2461186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2461186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monetizemail.com\/magatoon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2461186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}