Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: ek_hornbeck
Donald Trump is in the economic sense a reincarnation of the protectionist policies that characterized the Republican Party from Lincoln to Hoover. Lincoln himself began his political career as a Whig, a party that championed high tariffs. Lincoln was an admirer of Henry Clay, who like Lincoln was a Kentuckian. Clay in turn followed in the footsteps of Alexander Hamilton, who advocated for a strong central government, Federal encouragement of manufacturing, and high tariffs.

J.D. Vance seems to be following the beliefs of distributism, advocated by the British Catholic authors Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton. Distributism is not necessarily contradictory to protectionism, but the former line of thought favors decentralized economic power while the latter tends to favor economic concentration by reducing foreign competition.

Distributism is not confined to Catholic circles. The Social Credit Party of Canada, which was led by low church Protestants and was strongest in western Canada, advocated distributism, as did Huey Long of Louisiana, a Baptist.

57 posted on 07/23/2026 8:42:04 AM PDT by Wallace T.
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 53 | View Replies ]


To: Wallace T.
Your analysis is correct. Trump's economic views of tariffs, state support/investment in infrastructure and energy development, and by extension immigration restriction makes him heir to Federalists, Whigs, and early Republicans.

I get the impression that Vance is on board with the same program, perhaps combined with a stronger anti-trust line against corporate mergers and collusion. I don't see this as inconsistent with Federalism, since tariffs do nothing to stifle competition within a country - indeed they can aid the process by preventing outsourcing and favoring foreign investment into the US (i.e. other countries building their plants here).

59 posted on 07/23/2026 9:00:24 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies ]

To: Wallace T.

One could argue that William Jennings Bryan was also a distributist.


60 posted on 07/23/2026 9:01:16 AM PDT by ek_hornbeck
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 57 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson