In the age of Donald Trump, it can be easy to forget that the Republican Party actually exists as an organization. But they do! The Republican National Committee oddly failed to release a party platform back in 2020, but they just released one for 2024. So I thought I’d go through it point by point and evaluate it.
There are dozens of points in the platform, so I can’t spend a lot of time on each one — well, I could, and it would probably be fun for me, but you’d stop reading long before the end. So let’s just hit the highlights; if that makes my assessments overly glib, I apologize in advance. Also note that the platform is laid out in a bit of a confusing manner — there’s a list of 20 “promises”, followed by 10 “chapters” that roughly correspond to these promises, but in a different order. So I’m going to go through the “chapters” instead of the “promises”.
My general verdict here is that this is a huge improvement on past Republican platforms. For one thing, the majority of it is focused on economic issues instead of culture wars. That signifies a pragmatism, and a desire to appeal to a broad, diverse electoral base, that I didn’t see from the GOP in previous cycles. Not all of the economic proposals are good ideas, but a fair number of them are, and that’s great to see.
In addition, this platform triangulates a lot of Democratic ideas — in particular, protecting Social Security, Medicare, and other programs for seniors. In that sense it’s very Clintonian. And on culture-war issues, the tone is usually pretty reasonable, except where immigration is concerned. In general, a willingness to blame immigrants for any and every problem the country faces is the single biggest weakness of the platform. But I will say that it does conclude with some very good rhetoric on foreign policy.
Anyway, let’s get on with the point-by-point evaluation!
Chapter One: “Defeat inflation and quickly bring down all prices”
The RNC’s first big idea is to beat inflation. That seems reasonable, given that people hate inflation, and it’s still above target. Their first idea here is to increase energy supply:
Under President Trump, the U.S. became the Number One Producer of Oil and Natural Gas in the World — and we will soon be again by lifting restrictions on American Energy Production and terminating the Socialist Green New Deal. Republicans will unleash Energy Production from all sources, including nuclear, to immediately slash Inflation and power American homes, cars, and factories with reliable, abundant, and affordable Energy.
Boosting energy supply is definitely deflationary, and would raise growth as well. One thing the RNC misses, of course, is that Biden has already done what they’re promising to do:
This is true not just for oil but for energy in general; for the first time in many decades, the U.S. is a net energy exporter:

When the RNC says they’ll end the “Socialist Green New Deal”, I assume they mean repealing Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. This would be a mistake, since solar power and batteries are the future of cheap energy. Repealing the IRA wouldn’t stop that transition, but it might slow it down, and saddle the U.S. with more expensive legacy energy sources.
The RNC’s next ideas for beating inflation are to slash government spending and cut regulation:
Republicans will immediately stabilize the Economy by slashing wasteful Government spending and promoting Economic Growth…Republicans will reinstate President Trump's Deregulation Policies, which saved Americans $11,000 per household, and end Democrats’ regulatory onslaught that disproportionately harms low- and middle-income households.
The $11,000 number is of course made up, as these big eye-popping estimates of economic benefits in political documents and debates pretty much always are. But in general America does need fiscal austerity, and many parts of the economy are indeed over-regulated. And in theory, both of these should be disinflationary. So these are necessary moves. I should mention, though, that I’m not incredibly optimistic that the GOP will actually cut spending by a meaningful amount — if they did, it would be only the second time in living memory, after the Tea Party Congress and Obama reduced the deficit in the early 2010s.
The RNC’s final ideas for reducing inflation are to stop illegal immigration and to “restore peace through strength”. I’ll deal with both of these later, since they’re also chapters in their own right. But stopping illegal immigration is likely to exacerbate inflation a little bit, by causing labor shortages for industries where those illegal immigrants work (e.g. food processing). And “restoring peace through strength” will only reduce inflation if Trump can figure out a way to stop the Houthi attacks on international shipping.
Finally, a couple of points here. First, the RNC platform conflates bringing prices down with bringing inflation down (i.e., slowing the rate of price increases). The latter is very achievable; the former is probably not, except for a few goods like energy and food. Beating inflation means that prices keep going up, but only slowly. I suppose that confusion is forgivable, since most Americans probably don’t quite understand this difference either.
Also, I don’t see the platform mention grocery prices at all, which are one of the main price categories that Americans seem angry about.
Chapter 2: “Seal the border, and stop the migrant invasion”
Stopping the flood of asylum seekers illegally pouring over America’s southern border is something that Americans strongly desire. It’s not actually an “invasion”, and the RNC platform dramatically overstates the harms from this immigration — for example, “migrant crime” is basically a myth, since even illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than the native-born. But, Americans are very angry about the mass violation of their border — so angry that even Biden has cracked down recently, after largely ignoring the issue for two years. So something needs to be done.
What does the RNC promise to do? First, they’ll beef up border security:
Republicans will restore every Border Policy of the Trump administration and halt all releases of Illegal Aliens into the interior. We will complete the Border Wall, shift massive portions of Federal Law Enforcement to Immigration Enforcement, and use advanced technology to monitor and secure the Border. We will use all resources needed to stop the Invasion— including moving thousands of Troops currently stationed overseas to our own Southern Border. We will deploy the U.S. Navy to impose a full Fentanyl Blockade on the waters of our Region—boarding and inspecting ships to look for fentanyl and fentanyl precursors. Before we defend the Borders of Foreign Countries, we must first secure the Border of our Country.
This would probably be somewhat effective. With asylum, the goal is to sneak across the border and turn yourself in to the Border Patrol, after which you’re entitled to an asylum hearing. Making it harder to do the first part of that would decrease the number of people who get a hearing, and would thus discourage would-be migrants from trying this strategy.
Here are some other RNC ideas:
Republicans will strengthen ICE, increase penalties for illegal entry and overstaying Visas, and reinstate “Remain in Mexico” and other Policies that helped reduce Illegal Immigration by historic lows in President Trump’s first term. We will also invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected gang members, drug dealers, or cartel members from the United States, ending the scourge of Illegal Alien gang violence once and for all. We will bring back the Travel Ban, and use Title 42 to end the child trafficking crisis by returning all trafficked children to their families in their Home Countries immediately…Republicans will cut federal Funding to sanctuary jurisdictions that release dangerous Illegal Alien criminals onto our streets, rather than handing them over to ICE. We will require local cooperation with Federal Immigration Enforcement.
Most of this is harsh stuff, but not crazy stuff. Removing “suspected gang members” goes way overboard and seems unlikely to make it through the courts — you can’t punish people just for being suspicious.
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