Donald Trump Goes "Presidential" Again

In a speech this morning at his SoHo hotel in New York City, Donald Trump was "presidential" once again. It was a  speech, from a political perspective, that was brilliantly written.

It will resonate with the masses.

On the other hand, for any person that understands fundamental economics, the first 15 minutes of his speech was a horror show. It was absurd mercantilist, anti-free trade pandering to the masses.

"Our country will be better off when we start making our own products again, bringing our once great manufacturing capabilities back to our shores," he said. He repeated that theme in many different ways for the first 15 minutes of his speech, displaying either an ignorance of the law of comparative advantage or a willful ignorance of the economic law.

He also stoked up Islamic fear:

Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy is that she refuses to acknowledge the threat posed by Radical Islam.

His framing of the email scandal was masterful:

 To cover-up her corrupt dealings, Hillary Clinton illegally stashed her State Department emails on a private server.

Her server was easily hacked by foreign governments – perhaps even by her financial backers in Communist China – putting all of America in danger.

Then there are the 33,000 emails she deleted.

While we may not know what is in those deleted emails, our enemies probably do.

So they probably now have a blackmail file over someone who wants to be President of the United States.

This fact alone disqualifies her from the Presidency.

We can’t hand over our government to someone whose deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies.

Getting back to economics, the idea of tax cuts, however fanciful that would be in a Trump administration, was mentioned seemingly only as an afterthought near the end of his speech. He mentioned the word "tax" only twice and once was not in relation to a cut in  taxes but a reference to taxes under Obama/Clinton.

But he did have more time for these government expansion lines at the end of his speech:

We will build the greatest infrastructure on the planet earth – the roads and railways and airports of tomorrow.

Our military will have the best technology and finest equipment – we will bring it back all the way.

Massive new factories will come roaring into our country – breathing life and hope into our communities.

Inner cities, which have been horribly abused by Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party, will finally be rebuilt....

We are also going to be supporting our police and law enforcement -- we can never forget the great job they do.

This guy is not libertarian, not old school conservative. He is a big government interventionist.

The full speech is here.

-RW