In a way it is not surprising. He was a registered Democrat for about a decade. Historically Democrats have preferred state control of the economy and pricing. Republicans have preferred the market (reliance on the people to make voluntary decisions regardin value).

Trump’s latest foray into market intervention policy is a state-mandated cap on credit card interest rates. Not only is this state interference in private business, but it will result in credit being unavailable to a large segment of the American population. What credit card business would loan money to a less credit-worthy customer at the same rate they would loan it to a customer who has a high likelihood they would pay it back?

Add this to his other market interference policies such as tariffs and state ownership of steel companies and chip manufacturers and you start to understand why the Mamdani White House meeting was so cordial.

Government spending, interference in the private marketplace, and waste and fraud have put us $38,000,000,000,000 in debt and on the edge of financial ruin. Beware of politicians with “solutions” who created the problems in the first place.

Oh, let’s tax the billionaires they say. Well the billionaires are the entrepreneurs, the job creators and the investors in private enterprises. Confiscate all their assets and it would pay down less than a third of the accumulated debt. It would also create the Mother of all Depressions.

What a weird time we live in when election choices (with few exceptions) are between populist Republican socialists and traditional Democrat socialists.