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Jindal and “Populist-Tinged Reform”

Rod continues the discussion on Jindal, Romney, and the GOP: Jindal’s published remarks this week saying that the GOP needs to take on big financial interests indicates that he is thinking more deeply than Daniel suggests. He had better be. It was encouraging to see Jindal’s statement earlier this week that the GOP must not […]

Rod continues the discussion on Jindal, Romney, and the GOP:

Jindal’s published remarks this week saying that the GOP needs to take on big financial interests indicates that he is thinking more deeply than Daniel suggests. He had better be.

It was encouraging to see Jindal’s statement earlier this week that the GOP must not be “the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything.” The party’s record of being exactly that was an important factor in losing the election, and Romney was the personification of the GOP as the party of big business. As Michael notes, the remarkable thing is that the GOP isn’t doing worse than it is considering how irrelevant its economic agenda is to most Americans. It remains to be seen how serious Jindal is about his “populist-tinged reform.” Railing against big banks and bailouts is all very well, but it will take a lot more than that to change the way the party is perceived. If this doesn’t translate into specific policy proposals (e.g., breaking up the largest banks), it will never go beyond the standard pseudo-populism that pays lip service to the importance of small firms while continuing to undermine them and aid their larger competitors in practice.

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