Remember the Alamo! Remember the Maine!
Remember Stephen Moore.
Moore is the founder of the Club For Growth, an economist who made his reputation promoting the value of free markets. He was viewed as a man whose values stood firmly in the camp with Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. It was in this guise that he stepped on board the Trump Train while it was still in the station, and helped to bolster Donald Trump’s image as a man with sound economic views.
Trump had a great public image as a businessman, bolstered by his time on The Apprentice. Any close examination of his personal finances were likely to reveal a disaster, however. While never personally declaring bankruptcy, many of his businesses had failed. Associates who bought failing properties from him often complained about the properties being misrepresented or overvalued, such as the Trump Shuttle. (Washington Post)
Prominent businessmen and politicians were likely to give Trump such a close examination. Moore’s reputation and personality provided cover. He was available to explain exactly what Trump meant when he said something, or what his policy was going to be. Potential supporters weren’t buying the Trump brand for President, they were buying Trump-Moore.
Moore loved this arrangement. After Trump’s election, he crowed about it. From The Hill, 2016:
Moore surprised some of the Republican lawmakers assembled at their closed-door whip meeting last Tuesday when he told them they should no longer think of themselves as belonging to the conservative party of Ronald Reagan.
They now belong to Trump’s populist working-class party, he said.
Moore moved on after being Trump’s key economic spokesman during the campaign. He was not made an official member of the Administration, instead shifting to the Heritage Foundation, Wall Street Journal, National Review, National Journal, CNN and other locations as a prominent contributor. He continues to be an avid supporter of President Trump. His recent Twitter feed seems to indicate that he is thrilled with Trump’s economy but that he has abandoned his previous negativity about tariffs, and that the relationship between Trump and other world leaders is far, far better than most media sources report. (Twitter)
Contrary to appearances, this article is not designed to expose Stephen Moore as a duplicitous fraud. He has done that to himself. This article is to remind people to remember him, as he oozes into the background, Washington influence intact.
Because what he represents, as well as anyone and better than most, is the complete and willing subordination of principle to Trump, even as a person pretends to maintain those principles. The illusion is strengthened because others who have similarly capitulated also insist they are holding the same line they always held. They’re as conservative (or, on the democrat side, liberal) as they have ever been… except that they aren’t. Both sides are demanding the abandonment of any connections their parties once held to the Constitution and an embrace of the dictates of party leaders.
“They should no longer think of themselves as belonging to the conservative party of Ronald Reagan. They now belong to Trump’s populist working-class party.”
Republicans have been praising the diminution of a strangling regulatory web, and they should praise that. But the reason regulations are terrible is because they steal the ability of people to act according to their wishes. After regulations are removed, the power must be then transferred back to the people. If all that happens is that the power is now consolidated at the top, the people are no more free than they were when regulated, they merely have fewer, and more directly powerful, masters.
This was exemplified this week as members of the House scrambled first to praise Trump for a meeting with Kim Jong Un which, under Obama or most other leaders, including Republican leaders, would have been described as calamitous; to cover for obvious lies and half-truths gifted to the press by the President; to attack the FBI and other law enforcement in a stark reversal of their historic positions and finally to recover from a threatened veto of a compromise immigration bill that Trump’s administration officials had helped write. (Fox News)
The reason why the Republicans are not standing up to the Trump administration is simple. They recognize that the party is no longer Constitutional in its basis, but rather an organization designed to follow and obey the leader… the same valid criticism they voiced under Obama and Clinton. Fealty to the Constitution, to individual freedom, to the military, to the police, to the family unit, etc… is to be pledged at every opportunity, but the true fealty must always be to Trump.
Should anyone begin to believe that either of the two main parties still care about them, personally, or their messages as anything other than a voter bloc to be manipulated… Remember Stephen Moore.
