The combination of Trump’s announcement to run for the presidency in 2024, and what feels like the conservative movement’s understandable rallying all of a sudden around Florida governor Ron DeSantis, makes it tempting to think about what the administration of a President DeSantis might look like policy-wise.
I was initially going to wait for the dust to settle before writing this post. But after reading Jay Nordlinger’s post “The Agony of the GOP” this morning and Phil Klein’s excellent magazine piece making the conservative case for limited government, I have to ask whether today’s conservative movement has a deep policy problem, one that will endure even after Trump is gone.
I have heard many times that the governor is remarkably smart. I have heard many stories about his command of the Covid literature. His intelligence showed in most of his Covid policies, and it’s evident when you listen to him talk to reporters. His recent handling of the hurricane proved his leadership during a natural disaster. He also showed that, unlike many conservatives around the country, he was ready to act after the Dobbs decision, with a bill mostly in line with his state’s position on abortion. I am sure there are many more policies to praise.
Yet as good as his pandemic policies have been, hopefully they won’t be needed for another 100 years or more. Also, several other of his policies have been plainly misguided. These include prohibition of private companies from requiring proof of vaccination, his “Big Tech” bill (another attempt to use the power of government to constrain private companies), and his vindictive and revenge-driven anti-Disney policy.
So I do hope that in the coming weeks and months we find out more about just what the governor stands for and what we could expect if he becomes president. What’s his position on the federal government’s runaway spending and debt accumulation? Every politician should have to answer this one, especially now that they can’t hide behind the low interest of the last decades. Is he more protectionist or free-trader? Is he sympathetic or not to the calls issued by many conservatives for using industrial policy to boost manufacturing jobs and achieve other strategic national goals, whatever that means? Might he wish for the government to override the innovativeness and efficiency of the market in order to pursue some fantasy of the “common good”? Does DeSantis think it’s the role of the federal government to provide or to mandate paid leave? How about his position on the extended child tax credit? Does he favor handing out subsidies, tax credits, and other preferential treatments to big corporations? Would he support another airline bailout (basically handouts to shareholders and creditors)? What are his deregulation priorities?
I am not expecting answers to these questions today. The governor has Florida policy priorities, and it isn’t his job to address national policy issues. But at some point, we need to know. Am I right to recall that Reagan’s general economic dispositions were known long before he entered the national stage?
Conservatives have overlooked or put up with Trump’s statist policies for too long. Some of them have even rejected the idea that the best populist policies are those of the free market — the pursuit of economic freedom and of an energy-abundance agenda on the way to delivering an everything-abundance agenda. These policies don’t just deliver more stuff to ordinary men, women, and children, they also improve our social attitudes and political institutions by promoting tolerance and democracy and so much more (sounds like the common good to me!).
I hope this time around conservatives don’t unite behind some candidate just because he or she is thought to have great electoral prospects or exudes an entertaining persona. Although of course such traits matter, such a candidate would not serve to further the conservative cause — the one that motivated Bill Buckley — if he or she doesn’t also endorse a transformative free-market economic agenda.