When David Frum and other Never Trump conservatives were rooting for then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, they laid out a variety of reasons why, despite some policy differences, they considered her a much better choice than Donald Trump.
One was foreign policy: Trump’s favorable view of Russian President Vladimir Putin was a major concern for Frum, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and other Never Trumpers. Another was economic policy: Harris shared Never Trumpers’ opposition to the aggressive tariffs Trump was proposing.
President Trump, after returning to the White House, didn’t back down on tariffs and is getting the U.S. into an all-out trade war with long-time allies that include Canada, Mexico and countries in the European Union (EU). And both consumers and businesses, Frum warns in an article published by The Atlantic on March 18, can expect to suffer as a result.
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Frum makes his point by comparing Trump unfavorably to the late Sen. Robert A. Taft (R-Ohio), who was a candidate in the 1948 GOP presidential primary but lost to New York Gov. Thomas A. Dewey (who lost to incumbent President Harry Truman in the general election). Sen. Taft was the oldest son of former President William Howard Taft, and Democrats, Frum recalls, hammered him mercilessly because of some comments he made about rising food prices in 1947.
Sen. Taft argued, “Voluntary reduction of consumption is the first step. We should eat less.… eat less meat and eat less extravagantly.”
“At Taft’s next appearances,” Frum explains, “hecklers chanted, ‘Eat less, eat less.’ Democrats ridiculed him as ‘Eat-Less Taft.’ The following year, Republicans rejected Taft as their nominee in favor of the more progressive and internationalist Thomas Dewey, the governor of New York. The GOP had lost its momentum: At the general election, the Democrats held the presidency and regained control of the House and Senate.”
Frum continues, “I think of ‘Eat-Less Taft’ as I hear President Donald Trump’s appointees defend their administration’s consumer-crushing tariffs.”
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Trump has said that although his tariffs may cause some short-term pain, they will lead to a major economic boom down the road —an argument that Frum considers badly flawed.
“President Trump alluded to an impending ‘disturbance’ in his March 4 speech to a Joint Session of Congress,” Frum writes. “Questioned later in the Oval Office about a possible recession, he euphemistically acknowledged a ‘period of transition’ ahead. So get ready to eat less. At least Taft’s message offered some kind of hope at the end — and, of course, it wasn’t Taft’s personal fault that food prices had risen. But Trump’s tariffs are Trump’s fault, and it’s clear that if he has his way, they will be permanent…. Trump is a flimflam man who will promise anything to anybody and count on the suckers forgetting tomorrow what he said yesterday.”
Frum adds, “His Cabinet officers, however, are gradually revealing the true cost of the Eat Less scam. They do not match Taft’s self-harming candor. But their real message of ‘Less for you, more for us’ is reverberating louder and clearer.”
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David Frum’s full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).
