How long are we going to keep pretending that Donald Trump is conservative? He is a lot of things, but conservative is not one of them.
Take just one recent example… paper straws. Trump banned paper straws by executive order. Actually, he didn’t really “ban” them. He doesn’t have any authority to ban things. His order only applies to the federal government, which is now prohibited from purchasing paper straws. Of course, that could change as soon as a new president is sworn in and reverses that stupid order.
But let’s take a look at his order. Why did he pretend to ban paper straws? Well, because he doesn’t like them. He said they don’t work. He said they fall apart when you try to drink something hot. The moron even said that they “explode.”
The point is, banning a product from the market (or in this case, pretending to ban a product from the market) because you don’t like that product is not in any way conservative. That is authoritarian. That is dictatorial.
I thought Republicans tell us that they believe in the free market. Does banning paper straws because you don’t like them sound like the free market to you? Fine, Trump doesn’t like paper straws. So what? Maybe other people do. In a free country, in a free market system, consumers decide which products succeed and which products fail. If there are enough people who want to purchase a product, then that product succeeds in the market. If there are not, then it doesn’t. That is how it is supposed to work. It is not a free market, and it is in no way “conservative” for one person to ban a product from the market just because he doesn’t like it. That is the authoritarian action of an absolute dictator.