Dissension Is Good for the GOP

Robert W. Merry

Poliitcs,

The substantive debate in Miami revealed an important reality of this election season.

The first thing to be said about the twelfth Republican presidential debate Thursday evening is that it was actually sane, devoid of the kinds of cat-fight polemics that characterized many of the earlier debates. Nobody called anybody a liar. Interruptions and shouting matches didn’t emerge. The CNN moderators and network guest questioners asked substantive and respectful questions. Donald Trump was on his best behavior.

And that tone brought into focus a significant reality about the Republican Party that has been shrouded by some of the past messiness: The arc of issues is broader in the GOP than in the Democratic Party. Republicans are grappling these days with matters most relevant to the cares, concerns and angers that are driving large segments of today’s electorate.

Consider the exchange on trade policy, which seemed in many ways a throwback to earlier philosophical battles from decades long past. Trump, the New York billionaire and front-runner in the nomination battle, took the position of traditional protectionists who favored big tariffs to thwart competition from foreign producers. Trump has suggested a tariff on Chinese goods of up to 45 percent, a figure that harks back to the days of intense Republican protectionism of the 1880s and 1890s.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz argued that such a policy couldn’t possibly work. He offered a solid description of how it could lead to trade wars through retaliatory actions on the part of countries that would feel like tariff victims. Trump quickly retorted that his 45 percent proposal wasn’t actually a tariff but merely a tariff threat. It would be imposed only if China refused to refrain from predatory trade practices of its own.