Other Things That Will Not Turn Economic Royalists Against Trump

So, granting all that, what about the other problems with Trump?  My guess is, economic royalists will acknowledge some, not acknowledge others and not see any but one as a deal breaker.

What about the extraordinary levels of dysfunction in the White House?  Ordinary Trump supporters have generally either dismissed that as something that elites get upset about but doesn't affect ordinary Americans, or else applaud it as evidence that Trump is draining the swamp and the swamp is fighting back.  My guess is that economic royalists will incline toward the latter explanation.  Remember, economic royalists oppose any concept of workers' rights beyond the right to quit if the job is unbearable.  To acknowledge any other rights in employees is to restrict the employer's right to deploy resources as the employer sees best.  Thus economic royalists are apt to have a certain perverse approval of an abusive workplace -- it shows power lies where it should and besides, if it was really so bad, why is anyone still there? 

What about pointing out that Trump is not merely an abusive employer, but everyone is at cross-purposes and the White House really is badly managed?  Presumably economic royalists do not approve of workplaces that are so dysfunctional that it interferes with their ability to get the product out.  But government is a different case since the "product" it gets out consists of laws, regulations, and services, all of which royalists disapprove of, so the more inept and dysfunctional the government the better.

What about the threat Trump poses to democracy and the rule of law?  It should be obvious by now that none of that is a deal-breaker so far as economic royalists are concerned.  And, if truth be known, libertarians have always been skeptical of democracy.  After all, if you believe that all government is bad, and democracy is a form of government, then the conclusion about democracy is obvious.  Libertarians are apt to see democracy simply as tyranny of the majority over the minority.  Everyone agrees that there are some minority rights that should be beyond the power of a democratic majority.  Our Bill of Rights protects unpopular religious and political views and guarantees certain criminal procedural rights.*  Economic royalists would simply broaden the areas beyond the authority of a democratic majority to ban all redistributionist taxation and all constraints on profit making.  Within those restrictions, they are presumably all in favor of democracy.  But so long as the people are not willing to accept those restrictions, democracy is not a libertarian priority.

What about the rule of law?  Business needs regular and consistent laws to flourish.  Why aren't economic royalists concerned that Trump seems to see the law as an instrument to shield his friends and harass his opponents, including hostile business interests?  My guess is that to an economic royalist the real problem is that there are too many laws and that if you repealed 90 plus percent of all laws on the books today, the ability to use law to harass opponents would disappear.  Declining to enforce economic regulations, wrecking regulatory agencies by corruption and incompetence, and appointing economic royalist judges to strike down what is left must seem like a good enough start.

Well, what about Trump's deviation from economic royalism?  His immigration crackdown is (at least in theory) a violation of free market principles of labor mobility, and some of it, like his child separation policy, look a whole lot more like despotism in the making than, say, Social Security or Medicare.  I certainly don't think that economic royalists are at all happy about Trump's immigration crackdown.  They just don't see it as a really serious violation of economic liberty, not on a par with, say, requiring employers to use e-verify.  So they are willing to put up with it in return for cutting taxes, gutting regulations, and appointing economic royalists as judges.

What about Trump's protectionist policies?  Why aren't libertarians up in arms about them?  Look, there is ample evidence that economic royalists are not happy with this aspect of the Trump administration.  But compared to a tax cut, regulatory rollback and judicial appointments, they will grit their teeth and bear it.

Well, what about Mike Pence?  He'd make exactly the same judicial appointments (literally, the Federalist Society is the one making the choices; any Republican President would simply rubber stamp them) and support the same tax cuts and regulatory rollback, but without the erratic behavior, with respect for basic rule of law, and maybe even relaxing the protectionism?  I suppose Pence might be less effective at wrecking through corruption and incompetence than Trump and therefore less desirable from an economic royalist perspective.  But presumably the main reason economic royalists show no interest in removing Trump is that the recognize it would involve the Republican Party in an internal war and therefore harm its electoral prospects.

Well, what about the scary revelations in Woodward's new book?  Including the ones that Trump considered preemptive war with North Korea and had to be talked out of a tweet that the North Koreans could have mistaken for an act of war?  My guess is that nuclear war, or even a large-scale conventional war with a significant risk of going nuclear is a deal-breaker for economic royalists.  After all, if you fail to roll back the New Deal this election cycle, you can always live to fight another day.  Nuclear war, on the other hand . . . .  But the good news is that we seem to have moved past the risk of war with North Korea and that, although there is still room for a foreign policy disaster, at least the disaster is not going to go nuclear.

The bad news is that means that nothing is going to be a deal breaker for economic royalists.  Why, they would probably support Trump even if he shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

_________________________________________
*And, I realize, other things that judges have written into it, but more on that later.