The performance of Republican candidates in the recent midterm elections has created a golden opportunity for the GOP to move beyond the nationalist-populist vision of Donald Trump and rededicate the party to free trade, competitive enterprise, fiscal and monetary prudence, deregulation, and the encouragement of legal immigration.
Confusingly, the Trumpian brand of Republicanism embraced some of these economic principles (lower taxes, deregulation), but in the absence of a consistent free-market vision, squandered the benefits of these policies by also embracing economic nationalism, fiscal profligacy, and nativism.
