Time for GOP to ditch Trump policies and 'go back' to the future

On the eve of World War II, the Republican Party was a shell of the one that had dominated presidential politics from the Civil War through the onset of the Great Depression.

Dwight Eisenhower ran on an internationalist platform in 1952, favoring foreign aid to Europe, the new military alliance called NATO and an aggressive stance against Soviet Communism, thereby asserting U.S. world leadership. He vanquished his isolationist foe, Sen. Robert Taft, for the GOP nomination in 1952 and then won the first Republican presidential victory in 20 years.

In 1980, Ronald Reagan sought to move the GOP beyond its narrow confines in the Northeast and Midwest. He built on Eisenhower’s internationalism, preaching limited government, free markets and supply-side economics – policies designed to bring prosperity to ALL Americans, not just the well-connected.

Two signature issues – restricting immigration and trade – have pushed back on 60 years of Republican orthodoxy and dramatically changed the party’s image and focus.

Trade policy is the first example. The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), designed to marginalize China, has been shelved. Speaking of China, we are on the verge of a full-blown trade war with no end in sight and no clear end game. Presidential adviser Peter Navarro is an unabashed admirer of tariffs and believes they have contributed to our strong economy.

“OK it was a monstrosity thought my socialist Keynes?”

Well Keynes wasn’t a socialist, so there’s that. He once quipped that he attended a meeting of ‘Keynesians’ and he was the only non-Keynesian there. What he is is the father of macroeconomics, a tool which supply-side economists use just like everybody else.

Keynes recommended that in a deflationary credit collapse aka Depression a government should stimulate the economy to break the self-reinforcing cycle. That stimulus could be spending or tax cuts or both. Reagan’s economists used it, along with deregulation that shifted the production possibility curve to the right.

But back to SDRs. Had they been used as the reserve currency at Bretton Woods instead of the dollar there would have been no Triffin Dilemma, the link of the dollar to gold would not have been broken, and we would not have had the inflation of the ‘70s. Doesn’t sound like a monstrosity to me.

No, your massively incorrect opinions aren't "too right wing" at all; they're uneducated, ill informed, and some just down right the antithesis of the actual FACTS!

Okay...full disclosure and a much needed suggestion for you... I actually voted in the fall of '64. I had been closely following Mr. Nixon since I was a little kid, and worked on both of his winning presidential campaigns. Having actually lived through those times, paid avid attention to the news ( radio, T.V., and newspapers and afterwards reading many different books about it as well ) I don't have a distorted view/opinion of any of this history; unlike you.

You need to talk to people you know, who were adults back then and also listen to people like me, who know and understand it. I don't know where you got your info from, upon which you've based your opinions ( unless you just made it all up in your fervid imagination ), but it's SO confused and wrong, that you need to keep quite until you l,earn some actual FACTS!

Growing up, I was fascinated by what things were like before I was born, so asked my grandparents and other family members about it and wanted to know even the smallest details. I was lucky enough to have a family who were more than happy to share this info with me, even though I was pretty little, when I began to ask such queries. And yes, I have also read and read and READ everything I could find about eras that have interested me...from books, to the newspapers, to magazines of those times.

The above isn't quite like actually living through past times, but it's as good as it's going to get, in understanding it all!

At least you agree with me and Trump, re China; that's a good beginning!

And what you have to understand is that Nixon and his team did NOT set anything up in a way that would have facilitated China in doing what it has done in the past 4+ decades, with NO president EVER trying to reign them in, until now!

It's one thing to be "pig headed" when you know what you're talking about; OTOH, when you don't and still dig your heels in, when 1) you're WRONG 2) discussing a topic with a person who DOES know the topic far better than you do, you need to give up with the dumb "opinion"/s, which aren't based on anything worth a damn.

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