When work champion Theodore Roosevelt became chairman after William McKinley succumbed to an enemy’s guns, creation kingmakers such as Sen. Mark Hanna, R-Ohio, went into impact. Similarly threatened when Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016, the monied group suffered another cardiovascular after the previous leader named Sen. J. D. Vance, R-Ohio, his running mate three weeks ago, sealing his devotion to copy the GOP into a working-class partnership.
The Wall Street Journal readers joined Kamala Harris ‘ desperate battle to smear Ohio’s junior senator in the last two days, fearing that their influence will lose. The former two manufactured chattering-class outrage over his 2021 observation that particular high-profile Democratic politicians, whom he deemed” single cat ladies”, did not possess a strong real stake in the country, claiming the remark offended American women.
Even though the Marine’s admitted sarcasm was restricted to a few Democrats currently leading the nation, which was undoubtedly acceptable during election season, The Journal criticized him for disrespecting “people who make different life choices.” In fact, as Vance stated in a different context at the same time, he was not disparaging childless women in general, including those who may not long to wed and have children or those who struggle to conceive.
Vance’s real offense, per the Wall Street-K Street axis of power, is his assertion that young parents should be subject to less taxation while older parents should be, in contrast, being peers who are n’t raising the next generation of social capital, a position that free-market fundamentalists find abhorrent. Family considerations, the Journal fears, create” complications that add distortions” to the tax code. Steeped in discredited supply-side economic theories, Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper of record has for decades claimed the popular child tax credit, which Vance wants to expand and make permanent, also smacks of social engineering, and now adds the bipartisan provision is “bad politics”.
Family-Centered Economics
Longing for a return to pre-Trump days, these skeptics conveniently forget that the Midwesterner’s instincts find root in American policy. The bipartisan panel led by Sen. John Rockefeller IV, D-W. Va., was convinced that a Republican Congress had stepped back on the proposed$ 1, 000 per child tax credit for all children through the age of 18, but which Bill Clinton later resisted.
It also ignores that Theodore Roosevelt went beyond Vance’s family-centered economics, just as Beltway conservatives ignore the fact that the Party of Lincoln was founded on the tariffs and industrial policies that made America great. In his last book, The Foes of Our Own Household, the 26th president argued:” In taxation, the rate should be immensely heavier on the childless and on the families with one or two children, while an equally heavy discrimination should lie in favor of the family with over three children”.
The 1948 Congress changed the already progressive tax code to reflect both marital and parental status and reflect the father of six’s inspiration. Overriding President Harry S. Truman’s veto, the GOP delivered tax reforms for working- and middle-class families by favoring wedlock over divorce and singleness, fertility over childlessness, and married households over all other living arrangements via full-income splitting and generous personal and dependent exemptions. While the Journal recently criticized such statecraft as being cruel to the culture, TR and the GOP were successful in promoting winning policies that promoted the birth of Henry Luce’s American Century.
Party insiders ‘ destructive and perilous backbiting is not new. Vance’s accusations of slander began at least a month ago when Murdoch and his newspaper editors lobbied Trump to pick anyone other than the Buckeye native because they thought the veep choice would determine the party’s future. What surprises is how consistently the Journal and the Democrats address social and economic issues.
The Establishment’s Agenda
The Harris campaign has now effectively demanded that the child tax credit be repealed, while also gaining the backing of billionaires who want Harris to fire Lina Khan, chair of the Federal Trade Commission, to restore antitrust enforcement, and to stop the Biden administration’s continued use of Trump’s tariffs. Sounds strikingly similar to the GOP’s old-guard agenda.
It almost seems as though Murdoch and his associates are in a secret desire for Trump-Vance to flame. Their disregard for the national ticket suggests that they would rather not choose to lose an election in the name of Trump’s priorities. The party structure and conservative institutions must remain under control.
It’s no wonder the GOP continues to be called the” Stupid Party” like the Conservative Party in the opposite country. As former Trump speechwriter Frank Buckley laments, it’s “legal fiction” to think elected Republicans share” the same political party”. According to his accounting, the donor class is held captive to the donor class, with Trump’s national or presidential party ( broadcast from Milwaukee two weeks ago ) competing against congressional party factions, including the Main Street Partnership and Freedom Caucus and maverick senators trying to make a name for themselves.
The GOP is unsure of its position, with insiders clamoring on Vance afraid of being left in the dust heap of political history, unlike the unified Democrats, who quickly circled the wagons around a vulnerable Harris and whose raison d ‘être is social liberalism or cultural Marxism.
However, if the Trump-Vance team can defeat the GOP’s blatant media foes, the Republicans will not only win the White House but also guarantee a party and nation’s future that would be Theodore Roosevelt proud of.
Mr. Patterson was an associate commissioner for communications at the Social Security Administration, 2017–19. Under President George W. Bush, he also wrote for the Small Business Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services. Patterson was the Republican nominee for the first congressional district in New Jersey in 2016 and the GOP nominee for the second congressional district in 2020.
