This article was originally published in 2017 on my old blog, the Millennial Federalist.
Any honest observer who can convince themselves that Donald Trump maintains the high ground in political discourse, in any way, shape, or form, desperately needs a dentist appointment to examine their Kool-aid stained teeth. Nevertheless, whatever high ground many of his opponents may have enjoyed is being surrendered in the discourse over the GOP tax bill.
The GOP tax bill has kindled the ire of many in the anti-trump world (of which I’m actually a part of), ostensibly on ideological grounds but more because many have adopted the political stance that anything or anyone associated with Trump must be horrendously evil. But, this should not be how anyone looks at the world, and it definitely shouldn’t be how anyone should look at this tax bill.
The GOP tax bill is based on traditional fiscal conservative ideas, imperfectly yes, but the foundational principles are still there. The bill has nothing to do with the ideals of Trump’s quasi-conservative cheering section, and it is designed by Republicans who would have tried to pass something very similar even in a world where Donald Trump had stayed at the top of that escalator.
By trying to throw traditional conservatism under the bus by passing it off as a product of President Trump’s faux-conservatism, many critics are betraying their own hypocrisies and partisan directed gaming of the conversation. There is nothing radical about tax breaks from a party that has always stood for tax breaks. There is nothing extreme about trying to ween the government off of the tax payer’s hard-earned money when that has been part of American conservatism going back to the founding.
If Trump’s left-wing critics are not willing to discuss the actual ideological differences between their approach and conservatism’s approach to government, and instead engage in dishonest talking points designed to lead the uneducated by the nose through identity and resentment politics, then they betray themselves as no different than the “basketful of deplorables” they claim to resist.