re: There are a lot of "conservatives" who want to end the MAGA/America First Populism.

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I am not sure that this is fair. Jingoism and xenophobia seem to be the primary elements of the movement. Trump just took advantage of those sentiments and gave them voice.

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As such, libertarianism on an international scale tends to lead to a regulatory race to the bottom that impoverishes American workers in exchange for building up Communist nations.

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Jingoism

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We were built up more an faster than China was during its capitalist-inspired emergence. Some American workers did fall behind because they refused to adapt. This is no different than any other advancing society, though, and that advanced society cannot exist where these people are paid a "living wage" by redistributing money from the productive class.

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From the Civil War to the 20th century, U.S. economic policy was grounded in the Morrill Tariffs, named for Vermont Congressman and Senator Justin Morrill who, as early as 1857, had declared: “I am for ruling America for the benefit, first, of Americans, and, for the ‘rest of mankind’ afterwards.” William McKinley declared, four years before being elected president: “Free trade results in our giving our money ... our manufactures and our markets to other nations. ... It will bring widespread discontent. It will revolutionize our values.” Campaigning in 1892, McKinley said, “Open competition between high-paid American labor and poorly paid European labor will either drive out of existence American industry or lower American wages.” Substitute “Asian labor” for “European labor” and is this not a fair description of what free trade did to U.S. manufacturing these last 25 years? Some $12 trillion in trade deficits, arrested wages for our workers, six million manufacturing jobs lost, 55,000 factories and plants shut down. What did the Protectionists produce?

From 1869 to 1900, GDP quadrupled. Budget surpluses were run for 27 straight years. The U.S. debt was cut two-thirds to 7 percent of GDP. Commodity prices fell 58 percent. U.S. population doubled, but real wages rose 53 percent. Economic growth averaged 4 percent a year.

Under Warren Harding, Cal Coolidge and the Fordney-McCumber Tariff, GDP growth from 1922 to 1927 hit 7 percent, an all-time record.

Economic patriotism put America first, and made America first.

Of GOP free traders, the steel magnate Joseph Wharton said it well: “Republicans who are shaky on protection are shaky all over.”

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Leftist compared to what? A conservative ideal? A libertarian ideal? Or the Status quo? A policy which is left of the ideal but right of the status quo is progress in a conservative direction, is it not? We do not live in a theoretical world of black and white but a greyscale globe of nuance and contradictions.

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