Michael R. Strain, Columnist

Republicans Battle Over ‘Socialism-Lite’

Luminaries like Marco Rubio are repudiating free markets and big business. Defenders like Nikki Haley are retaliating, in a clash that looks back at Trump and forward to 2024.

December 1, 2021 at 1:30 PM UTC

By Michael R. Strain

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

That was then.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

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Donald Trump took a sledgehammer to Republican economic policy. His trade war, lack of even a rhetorical commitment to fiscal responsibility and warm embrace of industrial policy and crony capitalism redefined the relationship between the GOP and free-market economics.

The former president’s political future is up in the air. But his party is sorting through Trumpism, trying to figure out what elements to keep and what to discard.