Source: Persuasion
by Robert Tracinski
“In the popular imagination, Trump is a successful businessman who wants the ‘pro-business’ policies of lower taxes and less regulation, and he and his supporters continue to use the threat of ‘socialism’ as an all-purpose bogeyman. Even Trump’s authoritarianism seems like a selling point to some of these supporters, who are tempted by the idea that he can impose free-market policies that lack sufficient public support to get through Congress. This is one of the great illusions of authoritarianism. The supporters of a strongman see him as the battering ram to push through their long-stymied ideological agenda. They give him unchecked power so he can do the things they want him to do. But once he has that power, he does the things he wants to do. There is an inexorable logic in authoritarianism that always turns strongmen against economic freedom and free markets.” (09/24/25)
https://www.persuasion.community/p/when-strongmen-own-the-store