Earlier this month, Michael Lind wrote an essay arguing that the realignment and populism have mostly been a mirage — it’s still the Bush GOP at heart. George W. Bush, and Donald Trump have all passed tax cuts that benefit top earners. Both Bushes and Trump launched wars in the Persian Gulf. All of them supported the expansion of guest-worker programs for industries like hospitality and agriculture. All of them increased the opportunities for wealthy foreigners to effectively purchase American citizenship. The coalition hasn’t changed. The party hasn’t changed. The policies haven’t changed much either, just the branding around them:
Constituent interests, not the theories of Curtis Yarvin or Patrick Deneen, explain the policies of the post-Nineties GOP, under Trump and the Bushes alike. In terms of counties rather than states, the American red-county economy is predominantly exurban and rural and dominated by three kinds of industries: extractive resource industries like oil and gas and coal; the federally funded defense industries and the local businesses and jobs that military spending supports; and low-wage industries, most notably agriculture and services. Republican economic policy reflects the economic interests of employers and investors in red counties across America.
I’m not sure I fully agree, but I was provoked. It’s behind a paywall at UnHerd.
Correction: I originally repeated Lind’s claim that George H.W. Bush lowered taxes. He famously raised them, breaking a pledge.