President Donald Trump’s economic policies, particularly his tariffs, are facing criticism from both the political left and right. The critics include liberal economists such as Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, as well as conservative and libertarian economists who admire the late Milton Friedman. Friedman viewed steep tariffs as harmful to both businesses and consumers.

Michael Tomasky of The New Republic argues that the Republican Party’s economic problems extend well beyond Trump himself. In a Monday morning article, Tomasky contends that Republicans more broadly have failed to understand fundamental economic concepts. Read Tomasky’s article in The New Republic.

Tomasky points to a promise Trump made during his 2024 campaign. Trump said, “Under the Trump economic plan, we will cut your energy prices in half … We are going to bring energy down by 50 percent, 50 percent, 50 percent within 12 months from January 20, which is the day we go into office.”

Tomasky writes that the promise is “relevant to us today on two levels.”

“The first is the more obvious: He was lying out his know-you-what without any regard for whether these words would end up being true,” Tomasky writes. “They just sounded good at the time, so he said them. Fifty percent in a year … The second level is more interesting — and more damning not only of Trump, but of the entire Republican Party and of conservatism generally, in this country and across the world, and not just in Trump's second term, but for all time. And that is this: There is probably some way in which Trump actually believed he could lower energy prices — maybe not by 50 percent in a year, but lower them substantially and noticeably. Why would he believe this? He believed it because conservatives believe stupid, simplistic things about how the capitalist economy works.”

Tomasky continues: “They believe that if you just let the free market do its thing, wonders will arise and all will be well. They believe this first and foremost because their big-money donors believe it. But they also believe it because the economists — or more precisely, the economists they prefer to listen to — say so, and they must know what they're talking about.”

According to Tomasky, a “new generation of economists … have seen with their own two eyes that markets do not always self-correct” and now recognize that “sometimes, government intervention is required to achieve good ends.”

Tomasky writes that during the midterm campaign, Democrats are understandably concentrating on attacking Trump for his lies and attributing the higher prices people are paying to him. He says that approach makes political sense, but argues that Democrats must take a broader approach over the long term. That framing shifts the focus from Trump’s individual statements to the economic assumptions Tomasky says shape Republican policy, including the balance between market forces and government intervention.

“It would be great if they nominated a presidential candidate in 2028 who had the guts and the rhetorical skill to indict not just Trump, but conservatism and traditional economics more generally,” Tomasky writes. “It's not an accident that the last three, now four, GOP presidents have wrecked the economy: Bush, Bush, Trump, and Trump.”