Who and What Does The Republican Party Represent?

In past presidential elections, the Republican party was clearly a friend and champion of business. During a campaign speech in 2012 delivered to the Chamber of Commerce, Romney coined the phrase “job creators” in reference to businesses. Throughout his 2012 presidential campaign, Romney drew a clear distinction between Obama and Democrats, and Republicans and himself. He pushed a narrative that Obama and his party were waging a war against business and that he and the Republicans had their best interest at heart. Ramesh Ponnuru from the National Review wrote post 2012 election analysis that went to the heart of the Republican party problem.

“Most Americans associated the party with big business and the country club, and did not agree with its impulses on the minimum wage, entitlement programs, and other forms of government activism designed to protect ordinary people from cold markets…And even when voters thought Republicans were better managers of the economy in general, they thought the GOP looked out for the rich rather than the common man“.

The 2016 Republican establishment candidates failed to tap into this discontent; all except Trump.

In response to news that the Ford Motor Company planned to build a plant in Mexico to shift its production of smaller lower margin vehicles there, Donald Trump stated that he planned to impose a 35% tax on those vehicles. What Trump’s populist rhetoric failed to acknowledge was two things. First, Ford plans to keep all its current plants open and retain all the employees. What they are doing is a strategic shift in production. They plan to ship off production of small vehicles with thin profit margins and retool to bring back production of larger SUVs and other vehicles with higher margins. The second is that a 35% tariff on Ford would devastate them and potentially lead to them layoff thousands. One could argue that they could avoid the tariffs, which by the way only Congress can levy, by keeping production in the country. However, if Ford deems their margins too thin to keep producing in the U.S., the is a good chance that they either increase the prices significantly or the cease production of those vehicles altogether. Another consideration is this, just because a car is being “produced” in Mexico does not mean it is all being made there. Many of the parts are still produced in the U.S. where the production capacity and infrastructure for production already exists.

Donald Trump seems to be using his populist rhetoric to take aim at the boogeyman in the closet, Mexico, and the one under the bed, China. The fact that Donald Trump jumped into Batman-like action at the news of Ford’s intended investment in a plant in Mexico while he seemed to have completely ignored news in April of a similar investment in a plant in South Africa is glaring. It appears that he is playing to the popular hatred of free trade by attacking its symbols of NAFTA (Mexico) and the TPP (China). It is this populist campaign that has so many people asking if Donald Trump really represents the Republican party values. And if so, does the party need to reintroduce itself to the nation…