Posted on 04/06/2025 12:59:05 AM PDT by RandFan
Republicans who are evidently not too comfortable with President Donald Trump’s decision to announce large new global tariffs have tried plenty of hints to push him in a different direction. And one of Trump’s most vocal tariff critics on the GOP side, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, tried a relatively novel one on Wednesday.
He pointed to electoral peril for the GOP.
“Tariffs have also led to political decimation,” Paul told reporters. “When [William] McKinley most famously put tariffs on in 1890, they lost 50 percent of their seats in the next election. When [Sens. Reed Smoot and Willis C. Hawley] put on their tariff in the early 1930s, we lost the House and the Senate for 60 years.
“So they’re not only bad economically; they’re bad politically.”
This is a good point.
Whatever the theoretical economic benefits of major tariffs, history shows they have coincided with huge losses for the Republicans — and it has almost always been Republicans — who pursue them.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Rand needs to be primaried. I wish Elon would financially back a pro-American primary candidate for Paul’s Senate seat.
I don’t know if this is one of the points you were making. But one reason manufacturers moved overseas is that other countries set up tariffs on American made products. We’re supposed to learn from history, not keep letting ourselves be backhanded by our “allies”.
Rand appears to only see a fraction of the picture here.
Wake up. Tariffs are a bargaining chip. It’s time the US uses ALL the resources it can use before the the blood sucking one world morons destroy us.
I never liked the Paultard.
>> It’s great to know, you really know.
Yeah, I recall someone pointed out the incorrectness of “could care less” right here on FR, years ago, and I thought I had broken myself of the habit but I back-slid. Guess I’ll have to attend a couple Inappropriate Cliche Anonymous meetings, I’ve been skipping them lately. :-) FRegards.
The 10% baseline tariff is permanant. That is a great thing.
Seriously?
That kind of limp-wristed thinking is exactly what already did decimate the GOP. It’s why voters turned to Trump in the first place—because they were tired of so-called Republicans who preach free markets while letting China, Mexico, and half the globe loot our industrial base.
If the GOP can’t support defending American jobs and industries with reciprocal tariffs, then maybe it deserves to be decimated.
Trump didn’t break the party. He revealed how broken it already was.
And he's fixing it.
I’d like to both parties decimated and a party of common sense emerge.
Elon Musk learned his lesson in Wisconsin. He is political kryptonite.
Are you kidding me? You are using one possibly rigged election to guage Musk's political heft?
Fixed it.
Economic comparisons about terrifs uswd in the past are limited. Thats the point. Conditions are not the same. What is nonsense is saying, terrifs ensure you wont have a good economy.
Only bourbon.
1) The GOP and the GOPe are two completely entities, the GOPe is more commonly referred to as: RINOs, uniparty, deep state, swamp, elites, back stabbers, establishment, surrender monkeys, turncoats, maoists, assistant democrats, traitors, liars, swamp dwellers, debt junkies, crooks, thieves, scumbags, republicrats, democrat lite and many others. These are the people that have begged, borrowed, and stole from us citizens especially the last few generations and put the country in near death. These enemies of freedom may very well be kicked out next year like they often do for not doing anything except spend and bankroll fraud.
2) The GOP, the right-of-center if they ever become the majority of the party will last longer than 60 years.
3) The point of reciprocal tariffs is NOT to fund gummit like so many believe and the left/MSM/uniparty likes to monger but to advance free trade like it is supposed to be, like Mexico and soon to be Canada. It’s going to be a ‘domino effect’ rather quickly.
Agreed
Thank you and your family for their service to America.
No income tax in the 1890’s and a Depression in the 1930’s. And no 30 something trillion dollar debt in either case. So what does Paul propose?
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