What has 'Trump the disrupter' actually disrupted?

On the exceedingly conventional economics of the Trump presidency

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images, Ralph Freso/Getty Images, Scott Olson/Getty Images, Charlie Leight/Getty Images, Brett Carlsen/Getty Images, Tatomm/iStock)

For about 15 minutes a few years ago, being an "Uber Republican" was kind of a thing. Some GOPers hoped that by associating themselves with the Silicon Valley unicorn that was disrupting the taxicab industry, they could freshly rebrand themselves as a techy, millennial-oriented party. Uber Republicans claimed to love dynamic markets, embraced the sharing economy, and were ready to disrupt the political status quo in Washington. How do you do, fellow kids!

Clearly the technophobic and economically nostalgic Donald Trump wasn't the sort of disrupter that the Uber Republicans were envisioning. Still, Trump supporters today frequently call him a "disrupter" who's totally changing how things are done in the nation's capital. And there's some truth there. Trump has certainly disrupted numerous norms — rhetorical, financial, ethical — about presidential behavior. He's also generated a lot of economic uncertainty for business.

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James Pethokoukis

James Pethokoukis is the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he runs the AEIdeas blog. He has also written for The New York Times, National Review, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and other places.