Trump isn't a free market ideologue and never has been. I'm not sure what you expected. He didn't conceal his viewpoints; if you are surprised, I think you weren't paying much attention.
The Republican Party on the other hand is very much in favor of the free market… or was. Many long time Republicans turned on a dime and deserve to be called out on it.
They were in favor of the free market from Reagan onwards. But the party was founded on the premise that tariffs would protect their northern constituents and industries, and they took over a century to shake that tendency. Perhaps the only Republican president before Reagan who was in favor of lowering tariffs was Eisenhower, as part of rebuilding globally after WW2.
Meanwhile, as others have pointed out, our current president has been advocating for tariffs for about as long as the Republicans were in favor of the free market.
> They were in favor of the free market from Reagan onwards.
Which is the relevant part. I’m not really concerned with historical positions of the party itself so much as the politicians themselves, none of whom were alive a century ago.
I think it's a bit more accurate to say that many long time Republicans claimed to support free markets. It's a little naive to believe that they actually meant any of that in reality. Them and their donors were growing fabulously wealthy off of functionally non-free markets.
They don't even claim to support total free market as end goal. Both party support free speech and free trade on principle, but support what shouldn't be free is highly political.
