Veteran conservative columnist George Will, now 84, spent much of his career promoting the ideas of President Ronald Reagan and Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona). But in 2016, he left the GOP after many years and became an independent. And the person who did the most to inspire that decision was Donald Trump.
Now, nine years later, Will remains a scathing critic of Trump and the MAGA movement — which he views as incompatible with old-school Reagan/Goldwater conservatism. One of his major disagreements with Trump is the U.S. president's "protectionist" views.
In his October 10 column, Will points to the struggles of, Khalilah Few — who owns a hair salon owner in Clayton County, Georgia — as an example of why he vehemently opposes the type of "protectionism" the MAGA movement and the second Trump administration promote.
"The federal government, vain about its successes running businesses — e.g., Amtrak; oh, well — has recently plunged into 'industrial policy,'" Will explains. "The government of Clayton County, Georgia, also enjoys economic planning. If its opposition to Khalilah Few succeeds, she, a single mother with a teenage son, will have lost much of her savings, and her opportunity for financial security. She will be collateral damage from her local government's vision of 'smart growth.” She is, however, represented by the libertarian litigators of the Institute for Justice. Clayton County has met its match."
Will continues, "Few graduated from beauty school in 2012 and in 2023 opened her own salon. Seeking to relocate, she invested more than $30,000 in renovating and renting a space that had previously been a barbershop. When, in May this year, she applied for a permit, she assumed approval would be perfunctory. In July, however, she was denied a permit for two reasons, one unintelligible, the other unconstitutional. The former was that her salon would be incompatible with the county's vision of 'smart growth'…. The county's unconstitutional reason was that Few's salon would create 'saturation': There are several other salons within a five-mile radius. This rationale is pure protectionism — a domestic version of a perennial rationale for national tariffs."
The conservative columnist describes Clayton County's regulations as Trumpism at the local level.
"Clayton County might seem to be mimicking the Trump administration's insinuation of the national government into the operations of large corporations: U.S. Steel, Intel, Nvidia, MP Materials, etc.," Will argues. "Perhaps, however, the administration's 'industrial policy' — 'smart growth' as envisioned and enforced by supposedly prescient bureaucrats — should be seen as mimicking familiar practices of local governments, but on a grander scale."
George Will's full Washington Post column is available at this link (subscription required).