Analysis: Ron DeSantis’ economic vision as he runs for president is a mixture of traditional Republican policies and Trumpian us-vs.-them critiques.
The speech began with a dark description of the state of the country. America, DeSantis said, is in decline — militarily, culturally and economically. He found many sources to blame. China for one, immigrants another, the elite a third — the latter a group he attacked multiple times as the root cause. The economic speech was a continuation of the overall tone of his presidential campaign.
DeSantis attacked the elite from multiple directions, going after attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos as well as Beltway residents. He noted that many of the wealthiest counties in the country are those surrounding the nation’s capital. “They’re not producing anything of note other than a lot of debt and a lot of hot air,” he said.
But DeSantis added his own contemporary spin on this, arguing that economic lockdowns during the pandemic enlarged the gap between the top 10 percent and the bottom half. “The covid lockdowns and the associated policies represented the largest transfer of wealth from working people, small businesses to large corporations, like Apple and Amazon and Facebook, that we’ve ever seen in the modern history of our country,” he said.
In terms of China policy, DeSantis has joined with other Republican presidential candidates in calling for far more adversarial approaches on issues such as trade, intellectual property and human rights. Whether DeSantis would risk making good on his pledge to revoke China’s permanent normal trade relations status, in light of the disruptive consequences that would come with it, is a different question.The Trumpian influences on DeSantis and the Republican Party are clear.
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