Spectrum

Veteran political observer and world renowned economist Dr. Richard Vedder analyzes Donald J. Trump’s unprecedented attacks on Republican high-ranking officials during a campaign and the intraparty fights led by the GOP’s presidential candidate. Vedder, a long-time Republican and fiscal conservative, said this type of intraparty chaos is unprecedented. “It is unique,” Vedder says. The only election close to this was when former President Theodore Roosevelt bolted from the GOP in 1912 to form the Bull Moose Party and challenge incumbent GOP President William Howard Taft, from Ohio. Both lost to the Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Vedder claims that Trump sees himself more as a “populist” than a Republican. He is going after blue collar white voters regardless of party. His base crosses party lines. He, therefore, doesn’t care about the GOP “elite.” Trump hopes to add to that base with GOP loyalists who also are angry with the Republican power elite, Vedder says. Vedder says that this election is unique, not only