Without principles, Trump can’t stop flip-flopping
For all of his talk about fighting socialism, President Donald Trump seems to have an affinity for socialist policies.
Trump is going after Marxism in universities. He wants to rip out the roots in the military. He’s even against Marxists entering the country.
But when he’s the Marxist, it’s just “The Art of the Deal.”
Socialism is generally considered to be a Marxist utopia where the people, meaning the government, control the means of production. I don’t know a more fitting description for America’s new ownership interest, known as a “Golden share,” in U.S. Steel, as a condition to allow its merger with the Japanese company Nippon Steel to move forward.
While the ownership interest doesn’t come with a financial benefit, it gives the U.S. government and Trump significant decision making authority in the company, like blocking a name change, moving jobs overseas or sourcing internationally.
You might say: “Hey, it sounds like he’s putting America first!”
Ok, but it sounds more like socialism.
I bring it up first because socialist policies are bad policies, whether enacted by a Democrat or a Republican. But second, it highlights a broader trend of Trump saying one thing and doing another.
Trump’s most passionate supporters don’t seem to care if he says one thing and does another, they support the man more than the policies. But others who were hoping he’d accomplish certain policy goals, are now soaking in regret seeing as Trump is in the midst of a betrayal tour.
Isolationists are mad. Comedian Dave Smith recently called for Trump’s impeachment for the president’s role in what looks like the U.S. and Israel lurching towards war with Iran.
Trump’s positions have been all over the place – he was first publicly opposed to Israel’s bombing last week of sites important to Iran’s nuclear program, and he campaigned often against “stupid” “forever wars” and for pulling out of the Middle East. But now Trump is flirting with U.S. military intervention in Iran. He called for unconditional surrender a few days ago and is now negotiating for two weeks.
“This is an absolute betrayal of everything that he ran and campaigned on—and everything he has stood for,” Smith told podcaster Joe Rogan.
In some respects, Trump should be praised. The country would be a better place if more politicians changed their minds with new information. Getting the U.S. sucked into another war would be terrible, but Israel is our ally and Iran is a bad actor that definitely should not have nuclear weapons. It wouldn’t be so terrible if this was as flip-floppy as Trump got.
But it’s not.
Trump has backpedaled so much that a new term entered our lexicon: TACO, which means Trump Always Chickens Out.
The reference was first applied to his positions on tariffs, which constantly change (at least cosmetically). Traders were buying into the dips caused by his announcements of steep tariffs that spooked the stock market, knowing there’d be money to be made when he inevitably backtracked and the market rebounded.
When asked about it by a reporter, Trump said it was a “nasty” question and said “it’s called negotiation.” Being unreliable is a negotiation strategy, I guess, but not an effective one in the long run. It might produce immediate victories (maybe), but it erodes trust. In that sense, unreliability as a negotiation tactic is perfectly paired with tariffs, which are also a bad long-term strategy. Being unreliable is basically the tariffs of negotiations.
Trump recently backpedaled on illegal immigration. He campaigned on deporting hardened criminals first but then very quickly started deporting anyone here illegally. In recent days, however, he’s indicated that maybe deporting everyone was a bad idea and that ICE raids should avoid workers in hotels, farms, meatpacking plants and restaurants because of the negative effect it was having on key industries.
I’m surprised he was surprised. Obviously this would have a negative effect, especially on top of all of the tariffs. Even if he believes deporting millions of workers is the right move because Americans will eventually take those jobs, he can’t believe everything would work out within a few months. Right?
Wrong. Within a few days he backtracked again and resumed the workplace deportations.
And then there was his public feud with the world’s richest man and government program-slashing enthusiast Elon Musk. Musk campaigned with Trump on several issues, including forming a federal Department of Government Efficiency, which was pitched as a way to cut $2 trillion annually in spending.
Musk and DOGE never got close to that number, ultimately finding savings of only around $63 billion. Of course, it’s a moot point since Trump’s “Big, Beautiful” spending bill is projected to increase the federal deficit by nearly $3 trillion a year.
This led to an entertaining breakup on social media between the two men, with Musk calling Trump’s bill an “abomination.”
Indeed.
Unfortunately, the tariffs are what seem most impervious to Trump’s whims. Sure, Trump has jumped up and down with the rate of the tariffs imposed, but we’re still stuck with all these tariffs to drive up prices on consumers.
But taking a step back, Trump ran on a core message of fighting socialism, bringing down prices, boosting blue collar jobs, getting America’s finances in order, staying out of wars and taking a hard line on immigration.
He has undeniably taken a hard line on immigration (even his backpedaling was a harder line than his predecessors), but the rest of those policy goals are nowhere near materializing. In fact, many of Trump’s policies are making them worse.
There’s a fine line between being a bit mysterious in negotiations and just being wishy washy. While it’s admirable that Trump will occasionally change his mind with new information, America would thrive most with more consistency from its leadership and policy positions proven to work.
Matt Fleming is a columnist for the Southern California News Group.