Trump Just Curb-Stomped the Uniparty
Donald Trump just curb-stomped the uniparty.
Because the GOP is now on an irreversible path to populism.
Meaning the uniparty is no longer a done deal. Its schemes are now out in the open for democratic debate.
Where they will lose.
Libertarian economist Murray Rothbard actually dreamed of this 30 years ago: A pro-freedom firebrand populist who skips the elite and speaks directly to the people.
Donald Trump pulled it off.
Trump’s Revolution
Donald Trump has just pulled off one of the greatest upsets in American political history, facing an assembled army of nearly every institution, every corporation, every lever of power and public opinion from Big Tech to Hollywood to the news media.
He won because he masterfully converted an elite-dominated GOP into a grassroots populist movements that finally speaks to the American people.
In contrast, Dems stuck with the uniparty script, appealing to donors, corporations, the financial elite, and our ruling bureaucracy.
Voters were ready. Because when the pendulum swings a little bit and you've got controlled opposition, the reaction is regime apologists like Mitt Romney and John McCain.
But when the pendulum swings a lot and you've built a grassroots movement, you get Donald Trump.
Rothbard’s Grassroots Populism
My favorite economic historian Murray Rothbard actually dreamed of this 30 years ago in an essay called A Strategy for the Right.
Rothbard goes through the effete opposition of post-FDR establishment conservatives, who wasted decades doing cleanup for the left's revolution.
As Michael Malice put it, establishment conservatives were progressives going the speed limit.
This, of course, is the famous uniparty.
According to Rothbard, instead of cleanup, we need a populist firebrand who can unite small-government economic and social conservates to hack the federal government to oblivion -- what they take, what they spend, what they control.
For Rothbard, this means engagement in the culture wars, in kitchen-table economic issues, reaching out to form alliances with fellow travelers of either party.
Rothbard stressed intellectual guerilla warfare, talking directly to the people. Not using universities to influence the elite but going directly to voters on issues they actually care about, demystifying and delegitimizing state power.
Above all, talking to the working-class, who are both the most patriotic and the most skeptical of faculty-lounge leftism.
Trading the Bowtie for the McDonald’s Apron
In short, Rothbard advocated trading the pipe and bowtie of elite engagement for the McDonald's apron.
That is Trump.
The firebrand style. The war on woke. Alliances with fellow travelers from RFK to Tulsi to former Democrats Elon Musk and Joe Rogan.
Trump treated the universities -- indeed, the entire left-wing intellectual elite -- with utter disdain.
And they still hate him for it.
Contrast with a Mitt Romney who deeply cares about getting invited to the good cocktail parties.
Trump, instead, gave them the middle finger.
And he loved every minute of it.
Trump has converted Republicans forever into exactly what Rothbard dreamed of: A grassroots, people-first movement, not an errand-boy for the left-wing elite.
Republican *politicians, of course, are a work in progress: Congress rigs the rules so once you're in you stay in. So it's a slow process replacing obsolete RINO's with America-First Republicans.
Still, politics is the art of finding a parade and getting in front of it, and 95% of Republicans just chose Trump.
So the politicians will evolve or they'll be replaced
What’s Next
Donald Trump has vindicated Rothbard's dream of a grassroots populist movement speaking directly to both economic and cultural conservatives.
He has forever transformed the Republican electorate into populists who will, with time, transform the entire party.
Over time, that new populist GOP will cripple the elite uniparty that's spent a century crippling America.
This would transform our elections from uniparty play-fight into true contests of people versus elite. As they used to be before the Progressives seized both parties in the 1910’s.
Dare we dream, if the new populist GOP succeeds, even the Democrat party will question its loyalty to an elite rather than the people they serve.
That means we could be on the first steps towards liberating both parties — and therefore the nation — from the elites who have tried their best to gut this country.
Every week I write a newsletter on the top stories in economics with regular deep dives into history like the Fall of Rome, the Weimar hyperinflation, or FDR’s Great Depression.
Subscribe for free, or choose $5 monthly to help keep us on the air. And thank you!
I also make daily videos on economics and freedom, posted on X/Twitter, Youtube, and Rumble.
And a weekly podcast with interviews of key figures in liberty with a roundup of all the week’s videos.
I share your enthusiasm. But, ummm...
"Trump Just Curb-Stomped the Uniparty"
We'll see. He certainly connected to his constituents. But he's just one guy, and he has a lot of brain farts that dissipate into nothing. Mike Pompeo and other swamp creatures are reportedly being considered for WH positions, while RFK Jr is already being corralled. Yikes!
"Because the GOP is now on an irreversible path to populism."
But it's not on an irreversible path to success. Whatever the reasons Trump was permitted by TPTB to win, the Uniparty are very much still in the game, they are smart, and they are ruthless. They likely decided not to protest the vote simply because they would look like blazing hypocrites. This is a (very) long war, one that IMO will take at least a decade to undo, given the decades (or is it since 1848?) that they've had slowly shifting our institutions, and corrupting the youth to believe in a totalitarianism that is named "democracy".
"That means we could be on the first steps towards liberating both parties — and therefore the nation — from the elites who have tried their best to gut this country."
And then there is the Iron Law of Oligarchy, which transcends ideology...
If we've learned nothing else, now is the time to remain vigilant and willing to criticize Trump, especially remembering the many mistakes and/or hidden intentions of Trump's first term and its denizens.
I see Trump as a modern-day Yeltsin - an immensely brave man who has removed the communists but has no realistic prospect of remedying the damage they have caused.