ANNALS OF TRUMPI$TAN: Trump redefines conservatism, setting up a fight over its future. (Karen Tumulty, WaPo, August 31, 2025)

Is Trumpery conservative?  Or is it a honky-tonk medley of Jim Crow, union-busting, mafia-style shakedowns and shady corporate socialism?  You tell me.  From The Washington Post:

Trump redefines conservatism, setting up a fight over its future

On one issue after another, the president has scrambled what used to be fundamental conservative beliefs.

August 31, 2025 at 5:00 a.m. EDTToday at 5:00 a.m. EDT

6 min

President Donald Trump speaks to members of the press in the Oval Office on Aug. 14. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

Analysis by Karen Tumulty

It used to be pretty easy to name a handful of principles that defined and united American conservatives: lower taxes, unfettered trade, smaller government and keeping that government’s hand out of private businesses.

In ways big and small, President Donald Trump has scrambled those fundamental propositions.

Trump’s domination of the Republican Party has allowed him leeway for a host of apostasies. He’s setting the stage, however, for what could be an epic battle over conservatism’s direction once he is off the scene. Will this turn out to be a temporary phase and a reflection of one man’s predilections, or a permanent redirection of the movement?

“I’m a Trump guy. I love most of the things Trump is doing,” said Stephen Moore, an economist who co-founded the anti-tax, anti-deficit Club for Growth. But he added, “A lot of people are very concerned about where this is headed.”

Follow Trump’s second term

Trump’s positions on some issues — tax cuts and deregulation being two examples — continue to unify conservatives. But his heavy-handed use of executive power represents a far cry from the days of the post-Ronald Reagan era when activist Grover Norquist declared that the right’s goal was to shrink the government “to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

Front and center is Trump’s long-standing affinity for tariffs, which the president sees as more than a negotiating tool in matters of trade. Last week, for example, a 50 percent levy went into effect on imports from India as punishment for its buying of Russian oil.

A train transports containers in Ajmer, in the Indian state of Rajasthan on Aug. 25. Last week, a 50 percent levy went into effect on imports from India as punishment for its buying of Russian oil. (Himanshu Sharma/AFP/Getty Images)

He has also used tariffs to employ a brand of industrial policy against which conservatives have held a long-standing antipathy.

In May, the president said he would put a tariff of 25 percent or more on iPhones unless Apple manufactured and built them in the United States — a move that could increase their price to as much as $3,500. Earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook appeared with the president at the White House to announce that his firm would spend about $600 billion over four years in the U.S.; Trump declared that Apple would be exempt from the 100 percent charge he is threatening to place on computer chips imported to the United States.

So submissive have U.S. companies become to Trump’s desires that, just hours after the president joined the right-wing criticism that was raging last week on social media about the new, sleeker logo of the roadside restaurant chain Cracker Barrel, the company announced it was returning to its original design featuring an overall-clad mascot.

Cracker Barrel also made sure the White House knew it had taken the Trump’s wishes into account in making the decision. “I appreciated the call earlier this evening with @CrackerBarrel. They thanked President Trump for weighing in on the issue of their iconic ‘original’ logo,” Deputy White House Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich wrote on X.

And last month, Coca-Cola announced that it would launch a version of Coke made with American cane sugar, days after Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he had persuaded the company to do so.

Nothing Trump has done thus far has brought such shudders from free-market conservatives as his recent announcement that the federal government would convert billions of previous funds and pledges into a 10 percent stake in struggling Silicon Valley chipmaker Intel — a deal making it one of the company’s biggest shareholders. That came about after Trump called for the resignation of Intel’s chief executive, Lip-Bu Tan, making an unsubstantiated allegation on social media that Tan was “highly CONFLICTED.”

If socialism is government owning the means of production, wouldn’t the government owning part of Intel be a step toward socialism?” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) asked in a post on X.

His colleague Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) — who actually identifies as a democratic socialist — hailed Trump’s move: “Taxpayers should not be providing billions of dollars in corporate welfare to large, profitable corporations like Intel without getting anything in return.”

Trump recently said that the federal government would convert billions of previous funds and pledges into a 10 percent stake in Intel. (Amir Cohen/Reuters)

Trump has portrayed those who object to his move as “stupid people,” and promised, “I will make deals like that for our Country all day long.” On Monday, he told reporters: “I want to try and get as much as I can.”

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said the administration is indeed looking for more private companies in which to acquire an ownership position, especially in the defense industry, where Lutnick identified Lockheed Martin as a potential target.

And the administration is finding other ways to demand a government cut from U.S. businesses. In a deal brokered by Trump, chipmakers Nvidia and AMD agreed to pay the federal government 15 percent of their revenue from selling to Chinese customers, after the Commerce Department in April had cited national security concerns in blocking the sales.

It is not unprecedented for the government to take equity positions in private companies in a crisis, as it did with some banks and automakers during the financial meltdown of 2008 and 2009. But Trump officials are portraying these recent moves as a long-term investment strategy, more akin to how things are done in China and some European countries, in which governments own shares and have significant control over the decisions made in key industries.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC on Monday that the Intel stake is “like a down payment on a sovereign wealth fund, which many countries have.”

Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House on Wednesday. (Tom Brenner/For the Washington Post )

But that would, by definition, put the U.S. government in the business of picking winners and losers in the marketplace. And as Moore pointed out, “How can you have a sovereign wealth fund when you are $37 trillion in debt?”

Nor is what is left of the traditional conservative movement entirely comfortable with Trump’s unprecedented effort to fire Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve governor, over unproven allegations of mortgage fraud. That appears to be the latest step in his campaign to undermine the Fed’s independence, amid Trump’s frustration over the fact that its board — headed by Trump-appointed Jerome H. Powell — has not lowered interest rates to the level the president wants to see them.

Presidents in the past have had plenty of differences with the Fed. Former President George H.W. Bush even went so far as to blame the tight monetary policy of then-chairman Alan Greenspan for his 1992 defeat.

“I think that if the interest rates had been lowered more dramatically that I would have been reelected president because the [economic] recovery that we were in would have been more visible,” Bush told television interviewer David Frost. “I reappointed him, and he disappointed me.”

But none before Trump has been so aggressive in attempting to substitute his own economic judgment for the Fed’s.

So far, in testing how far he can go in breaching what used to stand as Republican dogma, Trump is finding there are very few limits indeed.

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What readers are saying

The comments overwhelmingly argue that Donald Trump is not a conservative in the traditional sense, but rather an authoritarian figure who has co-opted the Republican Party for his own purposes. Many commenters express concern that Trump's approach, including his use of tariffs... Show more

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ANNALS OF TRUMPI$TAN: Trump Shrank Staffing of National Parks. See How Many Are Struggling. (Eileen Sullivan, NY Times, August 27, 2025)

Come speak out on September 2, 2025 at St. Johns County Commission as we honor retiring National Park Service Superintendent Gordon Wilson, who leads the Castillo de San Marco National Monument and Fort Matanazas National Monument.  From The New York Times:

Trump Shrank Staffing of National Parks. See How Many Are Struggling.

Amid deep cuts, more than 90 parks have reported problems like lost revenue and cuts to emergency services. One expert called this “a dangerous path.”

By Eileen Sullivan

Photographs and Video by Erin Schaff

Graphics by Ani Matevosian

Eileen Sullivan, who covers changes to the federal work force in the Trump administration, interviewed dozens of current and former parks employees and advocates. Erin Schaff spent six days photographing Zion National Park. Ani Matevosian mapped the parks that have reported issues.

• Aug. 27, 2025Updated 8:01 a.m. ET
  
  
  National parks across the United States have welcomed millions of visitors this summer to enjoy their fragile beauty, wildlife and ecosystems. But at least one-fifth of the country’s 433 parks have been significantly strained and understaffed because of steep cuts mandated by the Trump administration, according to internal government data obtained by The New York Times.
  Staffing at the National Park Service had been steadily shrinking in the past decade because of tightened budgets. But it has lost 24 percent of its permanent employees since President Trump took office, according to data compiled by the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Association. Among those who left: more than 1,800 park workers who accepted the administration’s resignation initiatives, devised to quickly reduce the size of government.
  Despite the reduced staffing, the Trump administration has directed all national parks to remain open. In July alone, more than 41 million people visited a park, down slightly from last year.
  More than 90 national parks reported problems between April and the end of July stemming from departures, cuts and a hiring freeze, according to internal Interior Department data. Routine tasks like cleaning and stocking the bathrooms have gone undone. Fewer rangers have given tours and lectures. Visitor centers have reduced hours. And parks have lost millions of dollars because they are unable to staff entrances and collect visitor fees.
  “Budget cuts and staff reductions have set our national parks on an unsustainable and dangerous path,” said Phil Francis, a 40-year veteran of the park service and the chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, an advocacy group of current and former national park employees.
  Budget cuts and staff reductions have set our national parks on an unsustainable and dangerous path,” said Phil Francis, a 40-year veteran of the park service and the chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, an advocacy group of current and former national park employees. “Some of the impacts of the staff cuts are visible to the public, but many are not yet. And all of this is only going to get worse.”
  

  Image

  Visitors at Zion National Park in Utah this month.

  Mr. Trump has yet to nominate someone to run the National Park Service, an agency that is part of the Interior Department.

  A spokeswoman for the Interior Department, Aubrie Spady, called the findings by The Times “erroneous,” but declined to address any specifics. “Staffing levels and operations at our national parks this summer are on par with previous years,” Ms. Spady said in a statement. She did not respond to a request for information about the number of employees working in the park this summer or last summer.

  The department’s secretary, Doug Burgum, has also defended the agency’s staffing.

  “We believe we have enough people to support all the programs we had last year this year,” Mr. Burgum told House members on June 12.

  
  

  But lawmakers from both parties are skeptical and said the administration is endangering the country’s “best idea,” as the writer Wallace Stegner once described the national parks.

  “If the park service was overstaffed or is overstaffed, and if there’s waste, show it to us,” Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, said in a recent interview. “Show us the data. Show us the numbers of people, where they are, which positions you feel are unnecessary or shouldn’t be funded.”

  Entrance fees are going uncollected

  Video

  

  CreditCredit...

  The staffing shortage has meant that there are fewer people available to collect fees at the parks that charge for admission — allowing visitors to enter without paying.

  About 80 percent of the fees collected at parks go toward improving the visitor experience, such as maintaining buildings and trails and protecting natural resources. The other 20 percent is divided among parks that do not charge entrance fees or collect little revenue.

  At Zion National Park in Utah, the partial staffing at fee entrance stations is projected to add up to $2 million in lost revenue this year, according to park figures as of late July.

  People were “flocking into the park without paying — it was criminal,” said Julie Maner of New York, a longtime park-goer who now owns a nearby condo where she lives several months of the year. “They’re losing a heck of a lot more money than whatever they’re saving.”Joshua Tree reported that it was not able to do as much of what it called “preventative search and rescue” because one of the rangers who does that task has been reassigned to collect fees and backfill other vacancies.

  This type of work includes having a ranger stationed at trail heads to make sure hikers have enough water on a hot and dry day, said Mr. Mow, the former Glacier superintendent.

  Image

  

  Zion National Park had more than 500 emergency responses in 2024.

  Image

  

  The park’s search and rescue team is about 10 percent smaller than it was a year ago.

  “Intercepting unprepared visitors is the best way to reduce search and rescue incidents,” the park noted in its report.

  The National Park Service has been facing criticism for its lifeguard shortage, which the administration says is a nationwide problem. Park leaders at Assateague Island, the Gateway Beaches and Fire Island reported hiring fewer seasonal lifeguards this year.

  Shortages are creating uncertainty

  Image

  

  Morale among park staff is at an all-time low, many employees said.

  The 90 parks that reported problems to the Interior Department related to staffing shortages is likely an undercount, as several dozen were not listed as providing any information and advocates said others that reported no problems actually have critical vacancies.

  Even as administration officials acknowledge the bipartisan popularity of national parks, it wants to cut about $1.2 billion next year from the National Park Service — more than one-third of its 2025 budget.

  Morale among park staff is at an all-time low, many employees said.

  Mr. Vela, the former acting parks director, said he is struggling to reconcile the administration’s commitment to saving taxpayer money with the sharp cuts it is making at the park service.

  In 2023, the agency reported that visitor spending in communities near parks contributed $55.6 billion to the economy nationwide and supported more than 414,000 jobs.

  And the funding for the parks service typically represents a fraction of a percent of the total federal budget, Mr. Vela said.

  “It is a huge return on investment,” he said. “Here you have a situation where you’re bringing in revenue and you’re leaving money at the door.”

  Eileen Sullivan is a Times reporter covering the changes to the federal work force under the Trump administration.

  Erin Schaff is a photojournalist for The Times, covering stories across the country.

  See more on: U.S. Politics, U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Douglas Burgum, Donald Trump

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