The term RINO no longer makes any sense at all. 
From Tea Party Patriotism to Economic Nationalism
Please consider From Tea Party Patriotism to Economic Nationalism
The cascading events of the 2008 global recession, and a bipartisan $700 billion bailout of US banks, sparked a cultural backlash known as the Tea Party movement. This grassroots affiliation then swelled in opposition to more large‑scale government intervention, most notably the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.
Two years later, the 2010 midterm elections proved a turning point: Republicans, branded as Tea Party supporters, won back 63 House seats and six Senate seats, the largest shift in Congress since 1948. By 2016, then‑presidential candidate Donald Trump was praising the movement: “The tea party people are incredible people. These are people who work hard and love the country.”
Roughly a decade later, the Republican Party no longer champions small government or a laissez‑faire economy. Once the self‑proclaimed guardians of limited government, today’s GOP embraces state control across multiple fronts: steering corporate investment, micromanaging trade, spending without restraint, and ignoring entitlement insolvency. It is no isolated drift — it is a wholesale realignment toward big‑government nationalism.
Nowhere is the GOP’s break with small‑government ideals more visible than in its willingness to dictate where and how America’s largest companies invest.
Rather than trust markets to allocate capital, Washington now treats investment and ownership as matters for political control.
Tariff threats first targeted steel and automobiles; however since “Liberation Day,” imports have plunged nearly 20 percent. Deutsche Bank concluded that some American firms were eating the tariff costs and accepting smaller margins. But global head of FX research, George Saravelos, told Bloomberg, ‘The top-down macro evidence seems clear: Americans are mostly paying for the tariffs.’
In the classic pattern of political hubris — the government breaks your legs, then sells you crutches — lawmakers now want to hand you a check to offset these self‑inflicted costs.
Republican Senator Hawley, the architect behind the American Worker Rebate Act, desires to redistribute tariff revenues to taxpayers, a true fiscal mess in which government extracts money from consumers in order to give it back to them. Have we forgotten the failed Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) experiment that flooded households with stimulus checks during the draconian COVID‑19 lockdowns?
This appetite for intervention is matched only by the willingness to spend without restraint. At the turn of the millennium, America carried about $5.5 trillion in federal debt. By mid‑2025, that figure has exploded to roughly $37 trillion, more than a sixfold increase in just 25 years. Interest on that debt now swallows over $1 trillion annually, about 17 percent of all federal spending, and the government spends roughly 20 percent more than it collects in revenue. The recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill will only add fuel to the fire: the Congressional Budget Office projects $2.4 trillion in new deficits over the next decade, or $3.1 trillion once interest is factored in. At this pace, the United States will celebrate its 250th birthday burdened by a national debt exceeding $40 trillion. This is not just a failure of governance, it is the abandonment of the very fiscal discipline Republicans once claimed as their defining principle.
The Republican Party once sold itself as the last line of defense against an overreaching federal government. Today, it champions state control over private enterprise, embraces protectionist tariffs that raise consumer prices, and presides over record‑shattering spending that will burden future generations with mountains of debt.
In forsaking the creed of limited government, the GOP has not merely drifted from its roots, it has become the very Leviathan it once vowed to oppose.
Things a Typical MAGA Republican Supports
- Big government
- A slice of Apple and Nvdia profits
- An equity slice of Intel
- A government say in the operations of US Steel
- Monstrous tariffs (a huge tax on consumers and small businesses)
- Redistribution mechanisms (to redistribute tariff taxes collected from consumers and businesses)
- More deficit spending
- A more complex (less flat) tax code with no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and new deductions for auto interest
- Ten declared emergencies allowing government to meddle in nearly everything
- A new emergency on deck to address housing
- Sanctions for political reasons on Brazil and India
- Renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War
- Ability to tell the Smithsonian Institute what exhibits it can or cannot display
- Restraints on freedom of speech
- Extreme lawfare after campaigning to end it and railing against Democrats’ use of the tactic against him
- Radical interpretations of the Constitution
- Radical executive Orders after railing against Biden’s use of such maneuvers especially student loans
- Government access for sale to the highest donors
- Promotion of meme coins for personal and/or family profit
- Unprecedented political pressure on the Fed
- Unprecedented political pressure on the Supreme Court
- Dubious regulatory initiatives including Title IX sanctions against universities
- Non-enforcement of laws (TikTok)
- Threats and intimidation of Canada to make it the 51st state
- Uninvited intervention in the Greenland election
- Refusal to rule out a military takeover of Greenland
- Ad hoc presidential interference in business autonomy (Cracker Barrel, Coca- Cola, Major League Baseball)
- Threats to run a primary against any Republican who disagrees with any of the above
What Is a RINO?
RINO stands for Republican In Name Only.
A RINO used to be anyone who supported things on the above list.
Now a RINO is allegedly anyone who does not support everything on the above list.
Transformation Complete
Trump’s transformation of the Republican party to Big Government and Massive Budget deficits via coercion is complete.
Related Posts
June 21, 2025: Record Deficits as Far as the Eye Can See and Trump Begs for More
Let’s investigate CBO deficit projections vs what actually happened.
June 23, 2025: How Long Can the US Dollar Remain the Global Reserve Currency?
An article on the fundamental flaws with the euro triggered this post.
August 14, 2025: US Debt Now Grows by $1 Trillion Every 150 Days
US national debt just topped $37 trillion and is growing fast.
Finally, please see my September 2, 2025 post: Gold Surges Above $3,600 to New Record High Despite a Rising Dollar
Gold does not believe the Fed is under control, Congress is under control, budget deficits are under control, and Trump is under control.
And neither do I.
I added point 15-21 after a nice suggestion by B. T.
Now up to 28 points
How could I forget trying to make Canada the 51st state and Threatening force on Greenland, etc.
Renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War is the only truly honest thing in this list.
It was the War Department from 1789 to 1947.
Correct other than WW2 when was the last time America had to defend itself? Never, yet today we support Israel in genocide.
Trump replaced old swamp with new one. Cult member are too dense to even notice irony of it and praise him for ever one of above points. What was bad before is a newly found wisdom now. Dense indeed
GOP goal of dumbing down electorate through starving public education of its funding has worked miracles, we are about as dumb as Americans can get with all our access to information and knowledge that we purposefully spit at as a nation. Anti-Intellectualism is going to ruin our great nation.
I agree with everything Mike said, but your statement warrants some push back.
America spends more on education than probably anyone in the world, republicans or not
The answer isn’t always more money to spend.
Hell you are running Newark, St Louis, Chicago, DC, Baltimore for the last 60 years.
You want more money for that???
“America spends more on education than probably anyone in the world” not by percent of gdp we don’t. With the entire Internet at your fingers you shouldn’t make absolute claims without knowing.
Well I did say probably phil. But we do spend trillions of $s
Spending more without being accountable on where its going Isn’t going to solve anything.
The problem is our culture. Not the amount of money spent.
I have close Jamaican friends that have 2 Syracuse University graduate kids an now successful careers and theirs kids went 4 years to a high school with metal detectors and oh an annual lockdown for weapons discharge.
Its our culture, no amount of money is going to change that.
Thanks, Phil, for actually doing some (easy-to-do) research and calling out the hubris mongers.
People like David are full of ‘certainty’ but it’s all anecdotal. A lot of commenters here – like him – state opinion as fact. And then when called out with actual facts or links or research, re-state their hubris in slightly different but yet ultimately the same opinionated BS.
“Independent study, community service, adventures and experience, large doses of privacy and solitude, a thousand different apprenticeships — the one-day variety or longer — these are all powerful, cheap, and effective ways to start a real reform of schooling. But no large-scale reform is ever going to work to repair our damaged children and our damaged society until we force open the idea of “school” to include family as the main engine of education. If we use schooling to break children away from parents — and make no mistake, that has been the central function of schools since John Cotton announced it as the purpose of the Bay Colony schools in 1650 and Horace Mann announced it as the purpose of Massachusetts schools in 1850 — we’re going to continue to have the horror show we have right now.”
― John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
What a straw man. We do not need to choose between schools that make us smarter and better people and civilians, and families that make us better people and civilians. To actualize our best society, both are necessary to create synergies, isn’t that obvious?
Great list Mike. We are in a mess.
Some of the responses are a little over the top and I have belly laughed at a few
My morning is off to a good start!
The whole reason for supporting Intel is if China attacks Taiwan, we’ll lose TSMC to the PRC and we will be out in the cold for 90% of the world’s advanced computing chips. That requires a strong foundation to produce semiconductors, which Intel, NVidia and AMD do not have. If we get on war footing with any country, we need those. He sees a problem coming and he deals with it. Something I can’t count on democrats to do.
Bringing TSMC here was the best and arguably only thing Biden did right.
Trump complained about it
Reading the Comments here makes me realize that even Mish readers are split down the Middle, buying off on the Narratives. WILL ANYONE EVER WAKE UP that we are FUCKED?
It is called the “Uniparty” for reasons that Mish is spelling out clearly here. THERE ARE NO FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES: ONLY NARRATIVES trying to CONVINCE us that there are differences in the parties.
What has fundamentally changed is that SOME of my friends and we are waking up and this WOKE moment is waking up to the hopelessness of voting and “Believing.”
1) “Department of Defense” is a classic euphemism. Euphemisms are dishonest.
2) Actual MAGA voters support less than half of what is on this very misleading list.
3) Attacking marxism in all its forms IS supported by MAGA; and at least four of the items on this list were actually about eradicating DEI; they were just intentionally not labeled that way to conceal and smear.
4) It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a list as dishonest as this one; solid propaganda piece!
5) We just endured a regime with an incapacitated president that forced experimental mRNA injections on everyone, imposed martial law, fired our first responders and military who refused clot shots, opened the borders and allowed an invasion to happen, suffered battlefield humiliations and immediately bogged us down in another unwinnable stupid proxy war, censored everyone to the right of Nancy Pelosi, turned political oppo research into a coup against a sitting president, openly discriminated against more than half the nation, ruined education for an entire generation, used the state to persecute political opponents, de-banked innocent people, targeted law-abiding citizens trying to stop marxists from harming their children at school, ran gargantuan slush funds for every marxist entity worldwide, and demonstrated ineptitude and incompetence on everything except corruption and evil. There is no forgiveness for any of that. Ever.
… but… Rando is not going to vote 3rd party, because all other people in the USA vote duopoly as well. Or am I wrong?
It doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong, just look at the commission for presidential debates’ requirements to get on their debate stage. Everything is set up to protect the blue and red pro wrestling matches.
And despite that list of “opinions”, I still feel WAY BETTER about America’s future than had Comrade Kamala won last Nov.
Again, the Dems have lurched the US so far left that some very drastic changes had to take place. However, I’m not suggesting that I think Mish is wrong on some of his points. It’s a compelling list and certainly shows how much the GOP has changed over the past 15 years.
Be that as it may, there’s a perfect storm approaching which includes mountains of debt, AI disruptions & escalating political / social clashes.
Here’s a GREAT EXAMPLE OF HOW FAR LEFT AMERICA HAS MOVED:
Dearborn Heights Police Department Unveils Police Patch with Arabic Writing | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila
Nice try, this is called “trying to save face” and nobody is buying it. Trump voters are easily fooled morons.
Tea Party was just a racist thing, they couldn’t stand a black President, and their overlords pushed their buttons to turn that into the “tea party”. Trumpites are the same. It was never really about over taxation, over spending, or big government. It was really about not liking “the other”. Still is for a lot of them
Tea Party was just about #EndTheFed #TermLimits #BalancedBudgetAmendment #Re-legalizingTheConstitution #EndingForeverWars #GrassrootsCandidates #Populism #HonestMoney #TotalRejectionOfThePoliticalClass.
Just when Republican elites thought they had co-opted, neutralized, and suppressed the Tea Party movement, Trump hijacked it all with a MAGA rebranding and used it to propel himself into the presidency.
100% – it seems the republicans gave Ron Paul’s movement the Microsoft treatment: embrace, extend, extinguish.
somewhere f.a. hayek is saying…. “I told you so”
this is the final chapter of the founding fathers great american experiment
one need to be over 55 years old today… to know what is lost forever
a shakesphearean tragedy doesn’t hold a candle
the greatest generation bought a few extra decades of liberty and had paid a great price in the war for them the boomers rode on the coat tails
We shouldn’t be surprised. We had Trump before and he didn’t balance the budget or cut spending. That’s not his political philosophy.
Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me a thousand times, must be a trump voter
This is how they start taking guns away:
https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-trump-doj-considering-gun-ban-for-transgenders
They came for the trans people’s guns, but I didn’t speak up, because I’m not trans…
Arm yourselves, while you still can. This is only the beginning.
One school shooter is trans, take away their guns…
Guess what almost EVERY school shooter has been…
White Male
So…
Why should anyone be surprised? Trump was a lifelong Democrat and friend of Bill and Hillary, a Roy Cohen mentored, Epstein compromised game show Host, snake oil salesman who somehow cozied up to and became owned by bankster billionaire globalists who helped bail him out of numerous bankruptcies. They chose and elected him to read a populist script to preempt and control the populist nationalistic movement that was occurring in both the US and in Europe at the time. Much of the MAGA crowd is too dumb and ignorant to figure out he has betrayed and/or transformed the entire original MAGA platform. I went to a MAGA rally in Dallas in 2016. Voted for him in 2016 and 2024 (reluctantly and with very low expectations) Listen to his tale of “The Snake” in his past MAGA rallies. He’s speaking about himself, but befuddled MAGA crowd cheered him on without any understanding that he was mocking them.
Trump is doing as ordered by his superiors. He is surrounded by handlers and idiots, with a few exceptions like RFK Jr and Tulsi. I am still hopeful he will do some good things and get some good results. If he does, it won’t be his doing, it will be the role of the Deep State that reelected him and controls him.
This is a great explanation; probably accurate. I would just add that Trump successfully hijacked the Tea Party movement, populism, and grassroots conservative support at the very moment Republican elites thought they had all that under control and suppressed.
Trump started off a Democrat.
He now occupies the policy space formerly run by Democrats.
Because the Dems have moved to extremist woke identity politics and crazy proposals.
As often happens politically, the conservatives enact things that the left could not have gotten away with (or vice versa). The pattern manifest in many countries.
The role of Trump and the Republicans is to counter the extreme radical left after they have enacted extreme, radical positions and then slow down the radicalization, repeal the most crazy, radical measures, and then essentially consolidate much of the gains the left made in the previous 4 years. So the Marxist left goes 3 steps forward, 2 steps back. Rinse and repeat.
Republicans also are installed to do what a Democrat Administration could never do while they were in power- like install nationwide Covid 19 lockdowns in 2020 and the war with Iran in 2025 and Gaza genocide that is ongoing. Only Trump could have pulled those off. Had Biden or Harris initiated those events, the Republican Right would have gone crazy in opposition. However with Trump in power the management and control of the MAGA base made it all possible.
Lol Republicans own this turd. Nice try.
And this too shall pass. It is all unsustainable.
As Herb Stein observed just over 50 years ago, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”
Mish. I find it strange that you find this particular path taken by MAGA/Trump as strange. This was very predictable. Every single authoritarian takes this path. 100% of the time.
Trump/MAGA are the purest form of authoritarians. I strongly believe that it will take 100% resources and efforts from the sincere citizens of this country to defeat this existential threat to our republic. Even then, I am not sure it is possible now.
I know Democrats are not pure either but this threat has to be confronted and defeated or we will completely lose the liberties that this country has fought hard to achieve in 200+ years.
Take a look at this plan by the Heritage Foundation. It looks like from the Onion but it is real. These people are pure fascists. They will say all the things about limited government but in reality look at what they are doing and proposing, it is all about big government of the most intrusive type.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/09/03/heritage-foundation-parents-children-birth/
Free version: https://archive.is/1bv75
This is the truly the gravest threat that this republic has ever witnessed.
I wouldn’t worry too much about them.
Trump is key to any “power” they may seem to have.
And without him, they have nothing.
Got Popcorn?
What A Show!
Got Puts?
Looks like Republicans are doing away with anything that might keep more people alive. Looks like Thiel’s grand vision is now in charge of policy. Time to leave the country.
The Republican party was the larger spender over the last 46 years since Reagan was President. Most of the debt was accumulated under Republican presidents. Clinton left office with the best debt situation in 2 decades but Bush blew a hole through that. Deregulation amd covid are mostly to blame for today’s debt along with defense spending that is entirely too much. The tax incentives need to based on something other than nebulous tax policy that ends up giving billions to billionaires.
9/11 blew the hole in the debt situation with the twin invasions of Iraq/Afghanistan combined with the absurd TSA creation. Things would look a lot different if 9/11 never happened or our response wasn’t over the top (which was one of the few partisan things this century that both sides supported close to 100%).
Every time a republican even hints at dealing with the Social Security/Medicare issue, Democrats claim Republicans are trying to kill granny. Fixing those issues is a political career ender.
California sent me a Covid relief check and gas tax relief card. Never cashed the check or activated the card. Maybe that makes me a fool.
They say there are no atheists in foxholes and no libertarians in financial crisis.
Mish, I truly enjoy your economic output. You are detail oriented and drill down better than the mainstream media (including the Journal, Economist, or the FT). While I stipulate that many of your political views are correct, I disagree with others. It might be better to restrict the politics to the political section and not over ride in to economics and I think that at the margin, it damages the sense that your economic analysis is objective and factual. A loyal reader.
republic of plato laid it all out very succinctly. democracy works. people elect themselves in representative democracy. if you have idiots and con men and grifters in the majority you will get them as your potus and senators. simple. everyone hates this simple truth. democracy works.
it’s all BS. voters don’t have principles, they just want their side to win. A party that wants to cut back spending really just wants to cut it for things they don’t believe in.
both sides do it, but Republicans do it much more, applauding things they should hate based on supposed ideals– like Federal takeover of cities for law enfircement purposes, using emergencies to give more power to the federal executive. State’s rights’s was a GOP thing when the federal government was leaning liberal. no that it’s not, they want an imperial POTUS.
Now a Democratic president may be empowered to seize stakes in health insurance companies. I would suggest a 100% stake in all health insurance companies, followed by massive consolidation with the Medicare system.
Joe Lonsdale was on CNBC this AM. He is supposedly a Libertarian, but he is a special class Libertarian, he is a Peter Thiel tech bro Libertarian. He was asked about the Trump administration’s very aggressive industrial policy, which included taking a stake in Intel and getting a kickback of 15% on Nvidia’s chip sales in China. Did Joe stick to his Libertarian ideals? No, he twisted himself into a pretzel to justify what the administration is doing. I thought to myself, as a free market Democrat, would I do the same if Bernie Sanders were President and doing the same type of things? The answer is, hell no!
They arent even pretending anymore
there is a disconnect between an admin that promotes a 1 trillion “defense” (err, now “war”) budget and:
a military that has not won for 80 years
a military struggling with concepts like drone warfare
a military run by a drunken goofball who doesn’t understand flag protocol (wears flag bits)
a commander in chief who evaded service in order to whore around
a commander in chief who regards those who served and died as losers
a commander in chief who thinks proper use of the military is spreading mulch in DC
a commander in chief who acts like a whipped puppy desperately seeking approval every time he meets with his main adversaries
a commander in chief who has turned our allies against the US and it’s goals
a commander in chief who has brought China, Russia and India together
But hey
“they’re the real patriots”
What a country of suckers and fools
“a military that has not won for 80 years”
South Korea still exists. The U.S. military was never allowed to invade North Vietnam. However, the U.S. military defeated North Vietnam on the battlefield. NV lost the TET offensive. Cronkite then turned against the war. Kuait is no longer a part of Iraq and Saddam is no longer running Iraq.
The military has won in the last 80 years.
NK still exists and threatens SK every week
Vietnam–coulda, woulda, shoulda–nice game
Kuwait–if we won, how come we ended up fighting him again?
but hey, we sure won Grenada, so one for you!
If you research the Vietnam ware more thoroughly you will find that
RonJ is correct. The NV military/poltical records showed that the Tet offensive was a military failure. When the US military left in 1973, the south was pushing NV back, leading the NV government to the Paris peace talks. The South regime fell after Congress (spurred by the Pentagon Papers release) in the 1973 Case-Church Amendment cut funding in mid-1973 and again in 1974 and 1975 with the 1974 defense appropriations act. despite pleas from President Ford. Without the financial support from the US the ARVN could not deploy. This is not to argue that the US was right to be there, rather that the US military was on the upper hand when they withdrew.
Vietnam–coulda, woulda, shoulda–nice game
OK, could America have won the Vietnam War
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/vietnam-war-america-could-have-won-208311
I don’t think simply deriding RonJ’s (or my own) comment with out laying outing out a rebuttal is either helpful or convincing. I realize that is the normal state of the internet, but would hope that readers of a serious forum might be a bit more mature and try to marshal facts for a productive argument (that is, a formal argument). Perhaps you could share your rebuttal to the thesis that the US won the war, abandoned its ally (whether any of us believe the US should have been involved) but lost the peace. A similar case in Iraq. Also, to say to RonJ that we ‘lost’ in the first gulf war but 11 years later were back, seems akin to saying the allies didn’t win WWI because they were back in that theatre 21 years later.
Dear anonymous internet guy (who has no internet credentials like everyone else here)
try reading the article from a non-anonymous guy
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/vietnam-war-america-could-have-won-208311
And who exactly on the face of the earth has won a war since the big one?
Two easy answers
Vietnam
Taliban
I’ll take that. The 2nd is a better example.
But, there’s not been a superpower that has won a war.
No worries.
Dear NJBR,
Please quit expounding NPR / CBS / ABC narrative; It’s OK to be critical of anyone
but a bit of originality makes for better reading.
>narrative
That’s called reality anon, you should try living in it after you’re done pretending we could have simply occupied Vietnam forever with no pushback while China watched and did nothing. If you actually knew military history, you’d know we tried that in Korea and then met China’s bad side. By the late 60s China absolutely could have pushed us out of Vietnam thanks to the joke we called “search and destroy” doctrine, which involved aimless combat patrols to intimidate the enemy lying in ambush. The only reason they didn’t is because Vietnam had it handled and didn’t like Beijing (they had a brief war after we left even, Vietnam won that too).
The military never gets better because instead of learning lessons from conflicts lost people like RonJ cope with the loss by pretending we’re unbeatable, meaning we never change the doctrine that gets us beat. Here’s a fun question: Why are we still doctrinally and materially centered around fighting a country that stopped existing 35 years ago when the wall fell?
“MAGA” is a “perfect” term for the establishment (including Trump) to manipulate. It means anything the user wants at the moment they use it.
Want to say it’s racist? Unfalsifiable. Want to say it’s inclusive? Unfalsifiable. Etc.
We should stay away from vague terms. “Support peaceful win-win international relationships”. “Stop genocide.” “Support a balanced budget.” “Support a UBI.” “Oppose a UBI.” “End the Fed.” Whatever. Just be specific.
Remember back in 2009 or 2010 when Sarah Palin, the 2008 R VP candidate, was the first speaker of the first TP conference?
For me, that already proved the TP was hijacked if not conceived as an R operation to reinvigorate the base that lost faith after Dubya’s disastrous 2nd term.
There are no legitimate organized people’s representatives in USA.
So find an honest hard-working person in your neighborhood and work to elect him or her to the House. We need to stack the house with honest regular people.
> Now a RINO is allegedly anyone who does not support everything on the above list.
I started realizing this about both parties.
AFAIK, Massie is a RINO. Maybe Kucinich was a “DINO”.
All the others are thieves, liars, and warlords.
Anyone who thinks Lindsay or Hillary or [pick your favorite shyster] are “xINO’s” hasn’t lived long enough yet. They are the party.
And Rand Paul!
I trusted his dad.
Sadly, I’m a Rand doubter. In Rand, I see a guy toeing the line and being used as uniparty marketing. Example: Demanding auditors for what went to Ukraine, when he knows enough about McCain and Nuland such that he should’ve opposed sending anything, except maybe for reparations to ordinary Ukrainians paid for by Lockheed, Raytheon, etc….
What a mess !
Government doesn’t create wealth they spend the plumbers truck drivers tech workers public tax payers millions.
raygun tripled the debt and doubled the military in peacetime. anyone who thinks the Rs are conservative are morons for past 45 years. watch “face in the crowd” to see trump in an old film starring andy griffith’s first movie. a funny and insightful movie. Rs and Ds are the same. arrogant and ignorant. only a tiny 2% vote libertarian or green.
In early August 2025, reports revealed that the Trump administration had included a provision in FEMA grant notices. This rule would have required states and cities seeking disaster relief funds to certify that they would not engage in “discriminatory” boycotts of Israeli companies.
I don’t think it’s too complicated. The Republicans party has transformed itself into a typical populist Latin American party with a loudmouth and unpredictable leader, irresponsible fiscal and monetary policies, and a jingoistic foreign policy. Anybody who has worked on Latin American countries will know the movie. The only thing that is hilarious is that the media keeps calling the Republican Party a conservative party when it has become exactly the opposite of conservative.
The continous shift to the right since the 1980s so that at the end it s no longer about the economy anymore🙄
Might add:
Military invasion of major cities to suppress opposition and intimidate local government officials.
Establishment of Private Army
Pardoning and hiring of insurrectionists and thugs into a private army
Leave it to you, a so called Reaganite to go over the top.
The first “Military Invasion” was in DC and the African American Mayor thanked Trump.
She is on record for thanking him in bringing down crime.
Please Frosty, we have enough white liberal’s virtue signalling from their lilly white neighborhood. We don’t need anymore.
I like you better when you’re hanging out with your farmer friends.
Stop lying. Mayor Bowser did no such thing: https://www.nbcwashington.com/video/news/local/news4-rundown/bowser-tries-to-set-record-straight-on-federal-surge-the-news4-rundown/3983756/
Renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War would be refreshingly honest. The US Dept of Defense has engaged in repeated and continual offensive acts of war since Iraq I…in each case the US was entirely unthreatened. Wars that left well over a million dead [entirely innocent] civilians dead in the Middle East, Serbia, & Libya.
“Trump’s transformation of the Republican party to Big Government and Massive Budget deficits via coercion is complete.”
We’ve also seen the far left advocate for censorship, warfare, and domestic internment camps in the recent past (while praising John McCain along the way) so the collapse of the U.S. political spectrum to a singularity seems complete.
The tea partiers were a bit irrational. The real ones. The tea they tossed into the Boston harbor was cheaper, even with the tax, than the contraband tea with no tax that they were buying. In dollars and cents, it made no cents.So basically, the movement has been dumb as hell cents the very beginning. It was the cheapest tea. They threw it away to the lobsters. So the British passed these laws that actually sound like a good idea today: laws against Intolerable Acts by Americans.
Very much like Swamp. If you play with it long enough, you are bound to get some on you.
Trump has always been a Yankee blowhard. Are there caveats to the list? Sure there are but truthful. The previous regime just had a diff strategy to do similar things.
Seems a lot of MAGA got hosed and human nature is prideful and rather keep riding than feel duped. Too, hard types probably don’t mind some perceived retribution to the other side. Both sides play the game to pick pockets to keep themselves in the place they are. The love of money (and power) is the root of all evil.
Still, at this point, he was/is the lesser of two evils.
As always, the lesser of two evils crowd embraces the one who is the most evil.
tea party was hijacked by koch bros early on.
The GOP norm is what is. Indeed, RINO is not a compliment enjoyed by the likes of Rand Paul and Thomas Massie.
RINO IS a compliment enjoyed by only the likes of Rand Paul and Thomas Massie.
That is because republicans have changed it from policy to my side vs your side.
Fixed it for you Mish. And on the other end of the political spectrum, we have socialist leading in New York. The two new political parties are now communism or socialism. Take your pick for the next election.
Got exit strategy?
National Socialism is probably a better choice. Nationalist, America First, “culture” first, and Socialist business policies.
Caribbean tax havens FTW
I don’t know what a MAGA Republican is. I guess if you define it as a Trump Supporter, or someone who supports everything he does, then yeah – that’s a tautology. What he promised in 2016 he’s turned his back on – like taxing carried interest at regular rates. He’s become indistinguishable from the neocons. He’s still promising weapons to Ukraine (dragging out their destruction) though he’s pretending Europe will pay with money they don’t have. He’s bombed Iran once so far, He’s still supporting the Israeli holocaust in Gaza. Trump ditched MAGA for MIGA.
The Tea Party/MAGA movement was always about white nationalism, never about economics.
Was/is it about “white” racism? I figured it was just another iteration of the uniparty’s marketing old wine in new bottles.
ZH comments include a lot of racism. But I know non-racist trump voters. Pro peace. Pro balanced budget. Anti excess immigration. (Is it racist to want to help struggling current Americans of all colors ahead of encouraging the entry of new Americans?). Other things.
Of course, Trump betrayed my friends, like I knew he would. I ask them if they’re embarrassed yet. Unfortunately, no answer. I’ve stopped asking.
They don’t enjoy being asked why they were so stupid. You shouldn’t stop asking them.
I’ll give them more time before I ask again.
It’s depressing to ask. It’s depressing to be asked.
We’re in our 60’s. If we haven’t learned to see through bullshit yet, at some point it doesn’t matter.
They are responsible for their choice. Of course those of us who knew what trump was all along will be responsible for cleaning up after them.
Mish, you assume there is some intellectual coherence to the Tea Party/MAGA populist right wing.
Big government is OK for these people because their guy is in office.
When a Democrat gains the office, they’ll want all the shackles put back on proclaiming “freedom” and “minimal government.”
Sadly, I haven’t heard much coherence from the Democratic side either. I surmise they are staying quiet while Trump digs himself and Republicans into a deeper hole.
I fear the uniparty has learned they can trick us into electing anyone they want so long as they direct their incumbent to behave worse and worse to make us desperate for any kind of change.
The tea party was overrun with stupid, obnoxious, ignoramuses almost from the beginning. It has since flowered in to the pedophile-defending MAGA cult.
Can they get any dumber? Let’s watch…
Occupy Wallstreet had a similar problem being overrun with those types, tho it took a little longer.
Stupid knows no political boundaries.
Uh, Rick Santelli is a stupid, obnoxious, ignoramus and he was the beginning.
I can guarantee you no MAGA is going to accept being called a RINO!
No MAGA is allowed to admit being wrong ever, or Trump will excommunicate him from the tribe
Things an Originalist supports
1) End central banking, fiat currency, govt bailouts of banks etc
2) End income taxes
3) End property taxes
4) Kick the federal govt out of anything not explicitly granted to them in the Constitution (leaves fedgov with borders, interstate commerce, national defense a few other things etc yawn)
5) End public schools
6) Restore original interpretation of individual sovereignty and require all govts to respect it
7) Immediately auction off all govt businesses not explicitly authorized in the Constitution (Only post office and mints remain, bye bye education crap, national parks, FDA, Social Security, medicare, unemployment insurance and trillions of other programs)
9) Immediately void all military spending contracts longer than 2 years. Only the Navy is authorized in the Constitution to be a permanent force, close everything else down
10) Local communities and states to re-organize their volunteer militias under the command of the US President to defend the nation if needed. (unlikely considering the navy has nuke subs, anyone who attacks the USA would have to be nuts)
I can go on if anyone wants to read more
Where exactly are these “Originalists” now?
Watch all the MAGA and leftists give downvotes and mock. Why? Because MAGA and leftists are both slightly different shades of communism arguing about who’s following Marx better.
Don’t believe me, go read Marx’s manifesto for yourself and note what his policy recommendations are.
Karl Marx in America Hardcover – May 29, 2025 by Andrew Hartman
https://a.co/d/b0Kn0mj
Make America 1700s again, like the last 250 years change nothing… Embarrassing
Congrats on inventing the dumbest strain of anarchism yet. I’m sure not having public schools and roads and infrastructure will work and not look like sub-saharan Africa this time just like how communism will also work this time.
What an OUTSTANDING post Mish! The 14 points are exactly correct, followed by your “What is a RINO?” This post should lead every news outlet for the next week!
I guess some expected Trump, who has made his living leveraging other people’s money, would magically change into a fiscal conservative. Not a chance from the start. And MAGA and the remaining so-called Republicans are becoming equally meddling and authoritarian as the Democrats, regarding some same and some differing issues. Hate to say it, but the US is descending rapidly into national socialism.
Now, since we are facing another war loss in Ukraine, attention is turned to utilizing military fleets to disintegrate small boats and their anonymous crews ALLEGEDLY filled with drugs, while no attention is paid to mitigating demand for those drugs here. The explosions are exciting.
Tariffs may succeed in bringing manufacturing back to the US, in AT LEAST a generation or probably longer. Meanwhile, there is absolutely no way to avoid the collapse of many entitlements and services as debt soars then collapses. That is the next Administration’s problem.
Absolutely no way this gets fixed or ends well in our lifetimes. Beyond that, we need help from the next Greatest Generation.
I give you credit for just focusing on the surface details and ignore the substance of what is occurring below the surface.
What might that be, specifically?
“Trust the plan.”
-QAnon
John Podesta is still cowering in his basement, waiting for The Storm
I’ll take a shot El Senor:
60 years of running at least 100 of our cities into the ground for starters.
Destroying our educational system.
Trying to elect Kamala Harris as our President. A woman with no experience running anything. Whose background was being Willie Browns hoe 40 years ago when the guy was still married. She can’t even put 2 sentences together and I was supposed to vote for her?
Not understanding every nation has a border
I should do a montage.
Magas put the blame everywhere except where it belongs, squarely on their shoulders. Miserable little people
The typical crybaby litany of frightened bullshit.
+1
Sorry to say to downvoters. But the fault lies in Biden and Kamala voters too. “Blue no matter who” got us here. It will keep us here, on the bus heading towards an abyss.
I voted Libertarian until trump showed up. Since then I’ve voted for whoever was most likely to beat him.
Same here – I even voted in the Republican primary in 2016…and me a Dem..
Any dem candidate would be a million times superior to this mess. What you’re expressing is trump sucker face saving.
I like the list of things you put together on what’s new and different in MAGA world vs traditional small government world. It’s handy. I might add constraints on university speech, curricula, and staffing practices to the mix, and injection of religion into public schools (notably Oklahoma but nationally as well in the form of religious charter schools).
Thanks
I will update my list with a few more things