What Republicans Promise

Terry Schwadron
4 min readJul 18, 2024

Terry H. Schwadron

July 18, 2024

Unlike in 2020 when Republican went ahead without a platform, this time, they have a platform of 16 pages that outlines in gauzy terms that this is a nation “IN SERIOUS DECLINE.”

Ignoring myriad governmental measures, the decline is ““rocked by Raging Inflation, Open Borders, Rampant Crime,” and the solutions draw heavily on quotes from Donald Trump’s campaign speeches and reflect some of the ideas in the now-notorious 900-page Project 2025 agenda prepared for an incoming Trump administration by the Heritage Foundation, written largely by people who served in senior roles for Trump last time around.

Because it is brief, it commits the party — to the extent that any mission statement commits an organization — only to some directional principles and not to too many directly practical legislation or rules.

Still, as with speakers at this week’s Republican National Convention, the document dwells on immigration, regulation rollbacks, higher defense spending and permanent tax cuts that have been foundational for MAGA campaigns, and a new attitude that eliminates any distance between the White House and agencies like Justice and the FBI. By contrast, the Project 2025 document is far more detailed and specific.

Critics suggest that the documents are neither conservative in outlook and uncaring in spirit, but rather the equivalent of a bull in a china shop bent on attacking the institutions of what Trump calls the “deep state.” So I was intrigued to see an analysis by Brian Riedl a writer who worked for six years as chief economist for former Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who for years reflected what we had known as conservatism in Congress.

‘Economically Incoherent’

Riedl writes in The Washington Post that the platform “hardly reflects the unifying message of his post-assassination-attempt rhetoric.” As a document, it is “economically incoherent and not remotely conservative,”

He finds it remarkable, for example, that the nation’s soaring budget deficit goes unmentioned, even as the platform endorses spending for a border wall, expanded funds for defense and veterans, oppositions to reforms of Social Security and Medicare (under attack in Project 2025) and making tax cuts permanent.

The GOP platform promises to “quickly bring down prices” or deflation at the same time new spending on the wall, mass deportation plans and tariffs would increase consumer prices.

Though the speech last night J.D. Vance criticized current economics as too pro-Wall Street, the Republican tax cuts have been shown to benefit the wealthy rather than working class Americans.

“Following a lengthy package of demands for Washington to micromanage America’s 100,000 public schools — regulating teacher tenure, salaries, the school curriculum, school discipline, even sports teams — the GOP platform calls for closing the very Education Department that would implement and manage these invasive federal controls,” he writes.

Republicans want to replicate Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system across our country, though these seems are meant low-flying missiles rather than long-range nuclear missiles that would come from China, Russia or North Korea. The document calls for support for Israel but does not mention Ukraine.

It has no details about implementing a door-to-door roundup of undocumented residents for deportation and accuses Democrats of plotting to “add tens of millions of new illegal immigrants to the rolls of Medicare.”

He notes that the GOP platform calls for using government power to “fire Radical Left accreditors” of colleges and would require the U.S. military to “get woke Leftwing Democrats fired as soon as possible.” The document pledges to “hold accountable those who have misused the power of Government to unjustly prosecute their Political Opponents.”

You get the idea.

Strike the State

The MAGA takeover of the Republican Party reflected in the policy documents say two things of note.

The first is that however non-binding these platforms and agendas are, the intent to strike savagely at the status quo is foremost, with a heavy lean on partisanship over whose interests are represented. The second is that it the document and the thinking it represents is not the product of thoughtfulness, but of winning slogans from a personality-oriented Trump candidacy.

By contrast, Riedl notes that the Republican platform issued 20 years ago was eight times longer, written in grammatical English, and substantively detailed on dozens of issues, including taxes, terrorism, medical liability, welfare reform and removing barriers for disabled Americans. It even dedicated 1,400 words to supporting democracy, human rights and HIV prevention in Africa.

Riedl rues that classic conservative values such as small government, spending restraint, free trade, federalism, American global leadership, pro-life principles, rule of law and especially character-driven leadership have all been abandoned or weakened.

The culture wars have replaced any useful discussion about tailoring government priorities.

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www.terryschwadron.wordpress.com

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Terry Schwadron
Terry Schwadron

Written by Terry Schwadron

Journalist, musician, community volunteer

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