Malcolm Gooderham is the founder of Elgin Advisory, and a former Conservative Party adviser.
Far being united behind Donald Trump as much of the media reported following the Republican National Committee (RNC) convention, the Republican Party is still split – not simply due to personality clashes, but over a MAGA policy platform that challenges conservative orthodoxies.
Three key areas reveal the divisions, weakening Trump’s position as he and Harris go head-to-head and he hopes to regain momentum.
Fiscal Policy
The MAGA Republican platform, issued for the convention, does not align with the views and values of economic conservatives. It deals only indirectly with fiscal deficits and debt, and is absent a clear commitment or agenda to reduce borrowing.
There is an ongoing commitment to supply-side reform, which represents a degree of continuity with previous Republican platforms and generates widespread support. So too do future tax cuts.
However, the scope and costs are controversial with some GOP members, as they threaten to swell the nation’s balance sheet without being offset by reforms to entitlements or other areas of high and rising expenditure.
Giving testimony on the Hill recently Philip Swagel, the Congressional Budget Office Director, declared that the first Trump tax cut package did not pay for itself and an extension would compound the deep fiscal problems facing the nation. Swagel cut his teeth on the Council of Economic Advisers under George W Bush.
Industrial Policy
Both parties have been supportive of re-shoring jobs and protecting key technologies for reasons of national security. Thereafter unity dissipates, and gives way to friction between the economic protectionists who want to deploy tariffs as a ‘go to’ policy tool to rebuild traditional manufacturing capacity, and free marketeers who want to pursue a more nuanced approach.
The agendas transcend party. The MAGA industrial agenda reflects that of the trades unions and their Democratic supporters in Congress (plus Bernie Sanders). It outflanks more centrist Congressmen and women, who see such policies as regressive – raising production costs, reducing innovation, and risking higher inflation.
The MAGA agenda on immigration goes beyond calling out deficiencies in managing the southern border and deporting undocumented immigrants, pledging to restore the ‘Travel Ban’ which Trump 1.0 introduced (and which generated as much chaos as it did controversy in 2017).
This package raises a range of legitimate policy questions. It will also raise concerns with big business about access to skilled labour. The decline in business leader support for the GOP has been marked since Trump took the healm and promoted populist positions on socio-economic issues – another source of friction within the Party.
Foreign Policy
Trump adapted foreign policy by using economic means to reach diplomatic goals, most notably through the application of tariffs and sanctions – evident with the ‘maximum pressure’ campaign on Iran and, in a different guise, with China. Equally, he indulges a need for America to retreat and retrench from obligations he sees as incompatible with ‘America First’ objectives.
As a party, the GOP does experience waves of scepticism towards multilateral institutions and international political and military engagement; sometimes far-sighted, sometimes not. At present, the sceptics appear to be in the ascendancy due to the man at the top of the Party giving their ideas house room.
However, Trump’s views on international relations do not fit into a neat policy box. He may be closely surrounded by sceptics and a few isolationists, but his worldview is not entirely rigid, nor his circle entirely closed.
On the one hand, once again, this serves to expose a division in the GOP. On the other, it gives internationalists – and allies – in the Senate, such as Lesley Graham, hope that they can influence policy in any Trump second term. These hopes would be compounded were Mike Pompeo to return to Cabinet: someone who personifies ‘America First’ and is a firm believer in the upside of extending American values across the world.
Whilst senior GOP figures can rally behind some foreign policy positions, such as tariffs on China and sanctions on Iran, they continue to balk at positions that may indulge autocratic leaders and aggression. They are also very concerned – some appalled and repelled – by Team Trump courting domestic figures who indulge conspiracy theories and extreme positions, such as Putin apologists.
The combination of discordant policies and personalities at the top of MAGA make it difficult for senior GOP figures to offer full-throated support for the nominee and JD Vance, his vice-presidential pick.
Ideological consistency may or may not be overrated, but the MAGA agenda often seems to reflect the worldview of one man more than anything else. It is thus somewhat bi-polar about the value of the Federal Government to intervene on public policy issues.
Again, it challenges the laissez-faire view of many Republicans about the merits of limited government, and scepticism about extending the power of the President and the Executive Branch. Tension on such issues surfaces often, as it did last week when Trump revived his view that the president should be more assertive in monetary policymaking at the Federal Reserve.
In summary, as the Democratic Party readies themselves to hand the torch to Kamala Harris at their convention, the populist nature of the MAGA/GOP platform weakens, as well serves the interests of, Team Trump.
‘The Donald’ needs allies. Yet he is without vocal support of many of his former Cabinet colleagues, including critical briefs such national security, defence, and State Department or former speakers such as Tim Ryan. He is also absent an endorsement from Mike Pence (his Vice-President!) or former George W Bush, whose own Veep, Dick Cheney, calls Trump a coward and a threat to democracy.
Trump remains a divisive figure within the US but also within the GOP; at the very time he needs friends to campaign for him, he finds his unique style of politics and policy positions a help and a hinderance to reelection.
Moreover his poll numbers seem to have hit a ceiling. This was fine when they appeared to be higher than Biden’s floor. But Harris is now disrupting the disruptor, making the presidential race too close to call (with a high degree of certainty) and congressional races much more competitive.
All eyes on November, then. But when it comes to national and international stability, it will be the decisions the GOP makes after November 6 – win or lose – that will really shape the next ten or twenty years.
