THE rIGHT IS THE lEFT:
Trump’s Challenge to Free Market Capitalism: Stakes in private companies. Handshake deals with chief executives. The president’s economic policy has drifted far from principles that long defined the Republican Party. Is it capitalism at all? (Ben Casselman, Feb. 22, 2026, NY Times)
Since returning to the White House last year, President Trump has gotten the government involved in the private sector in ways that Mr. Obama and other past presidents, of either major party, would never have considered.
The Trump administration has taken ownership stakes in corporations, intervened in business deals and negotiated a cut of the revenue of American companies’ overseas sales. Mr. Trump has unilaterally deployed tariffs and other policy levers to help industries he favors, like artificial intelligence and cryptocurrencies, and to punish those he dislikes, like wind power. He has wielded the powers of the federal bureaucracy to pressure executives, sometimes in ways that blur the lines between his policy objectives and his personal business interests. […]
So far, however, the public seems just as unhappy with Mr. Trump’s economy, which has not delivered the manufacturing jobs and lower prices that he promised on the campaign trail. It remains uncertain whether the Republican Party will continue down the path charted by Mr. Trump after he leaves office, or turn back toward the version of the party he left behind.
Democrats, in their own way, are engaged in a similar debate. President Joseph R. Biden Jr., too, embraced tools like tariffs and industrial subsidies, and while some moderate Democrats were unhappy with that shift, many of the party’s rising stars come from a progressive wing of the party that has long called for more government involvement in the economy.
Joe’s failure was a function of aping Donald.