The term RINO no longer makes any sense at all.
From Tea Party Patriotism to Economic Nationalism
Please consider From Tea Party Patriotism to Economic Nationalism
The cascading events of the 2008 global recession, and a bipartisan $700 billion bailout of US banks, sparked a cultural backlash known as the Tea Party movement. This grassroots affiliation then swelled in opposition to more large‑scale government intervention, most notably the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.
Two years later, the 2010 midterm elections proved a turning point: Republicans, branded as Tea Party supporters, won back 63 House seats and six Senate seats, the largest shift in Congress since 1948. By 2016, then‑presidential candidate Donald Trump was praising the movement: “The tea party people are incredible people. These are people who work hard and love the country.”
Roughly a decade later, the Republican Party no longer champions small government or a laissez‑faire economy. Once the self‑proclaimed guardians of limited government, today’s GOP embraces state control across multiple fronts: steering corporate investment, micromanaging trade, spending without restraint, and ignoring entitlement insolvency. It is no isolated drift — it is a wholesale realignment toward big‑government nationalism.
Nowhere is the GOP’s break with small‑government ideals more visible than in its willingness to dictate where and how America’s largest companies invest.
Rather than trust markets to allocate capital, Washington now treats investment and ownership as matters for political control.
Tariff threats first targeted steel and automobiles; however since “Liberation Day,” imports have plunged nearly 20 percent. Deutsche Bank concluded that some American firms were eating the tariff costs and accepting smaller margins. But global head of FX research, George Saravelos, told Bloomberg, ‘The top-down macro evidence seems clear: Americans are mostly paying for the tariffs.’
In the classic pattern of political hubris — the government breaks your legs, then sells you crutches — lawmakers now want to hand you a check to offset these self‑inflicted costs.
Republican Senator Hawley, the architect behind the American Worker Rebate Act, desires to redistribute tariff revenues to taxpayers, a true fiscal mess in which government extracts money from consumers in order to give it back to them. Have we forgotten the failed Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) experiment that flooded households with stimulus checks during the draconian COVID‑19 lockdowns?
This appetite for intervention is matched only by the willingness to spend without restraint. At the turn of the millennium, America carried about $5.5 trillion in federal debt. By mid‑2025, that figure has exploded to roughly $37 trillion, more than a sixfold increase in just 25 years. Interest on that debt now swallows over $1 trillion annually, about 17 percent of all federal spending, and the government spends roughly 20 percent more than it collects in revenue. The recently enacted One Big Beautiful Bill will only add fuel to the fire: the Congressional Budget Office projects $2.4 trillion in new deficits over the next decade, or $3.1 trillion once interest is factored in. At this pace, the United States will celebrate its 250th birthday burdened by a national debt exceeding $40 trillion. This is not just a failure of governance, it is the abandonment of the very fiscal discipline Republicans once claimed as their defining principle.
The Republican Party once sold itself as the last line of defense against an overreaching federal government. Today, it champions state control over private enterprise, embraces protectionist tariffs that raise consumer prices, and presides over record‑shattering spending that will burden future generations with mountains of debt.
In forsaking the creed of limited government, the GOP has not merely drifted from its roots, it has become the very Leviathan it once vowed to oppose.
Things a Typical MAGA Republican Supports
- Big government
- A slice of Apple and Nvdia profits
- An equity slice of Intel
- A government say in the operations of US Steel
- Monstrous tariffs (a huge tax on consumers and small businesses)
- Redistribution mechanisms (to redistribute tariff taxes collected from consumers and businesses)
- More deficit spending
- A more complex (less flat) tax code with no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and new deductions for auto interest
- Ten declared emergencies allowing government to meddle in nearly everything
- A new emergency on deck to address housing
- Sanctions for political reasons on Brazil and India
- Renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War
- Ability to tell the Smithsonian Institute what exhibits it can or cannot display
- Restraints on freedom of speech
- Extreme lawfare after campaigning to end it and railing against Democrats’ use of the tactic against him
- Radical interpretations of the Constitution
- Radical executive Orders after railing against Biden’s use of such maneuvers especially student loans
- Government access for sale to the highest donors
- Promotion of meme coins for personal and/or family profit
- Unprecedented political pressure on the Fed
- Unprecedented political pressure on the Supreme Court
- Dubious regulatory initiatives including Title IX sanctions against universities
- Non-enforcement of laws (TikTok)
- Threats and intimidation of Canada to make it the 51st state
- Uninvited intervention in the Greenland election
- Refusal to rule out a military takeover of Greenland
- Ad hoc presidential interference in business autonomy (Cracker Barrel, Coca- Cola, Major League Baseball)
- Threats to run a primary against any Republican who disagrees with any of the above
What Is a RINO?
RINO stands for Republican In Name Only.
A RINO used to be anyone who supported things on the above list.
Now a RINO is allegedly anyone who does not support everything on the above list.
Transformation Complete
Trump’s transformation of the Republican party to Big Government and Massive Budget deficits via coercion is complete.
Related Posts
June 21, 2025: Record Deficits as Far as the Eye Can See and Trump Begs for More
Let’s investigate CBO deficit projections vs what actually happened.
June 23, 2025: How Long Can the US Dollar Remain the Global Reserve Currency?
An article on the fundamental flaws with the euro triggered this post.
August 14, 2025: US Debt Now Grows by $1 Trillion Every 150 Days
US national debt just topped $37 trillion and is growing fast.
Finally, please see my September 2, 2025 post: Gold Surges Above $3,600 to New Record High Despite a Rising Dollar
Gold does not believe the Fed is under control, Congress is under control, budget deficits are under control, and Trump is under control.
And neither do I.
