Donald Trump: “I Think Eminent Domain is Wonderful”

Donald Trump Continues to Exemplify Authoritarian Tendencies

by Josh Guckert

In a Fox News interview with Bret Baier of Special Report on Tuesday, Donald Trump made some of his most surprising comments yet on the proper role of government. Most notably, he defended the near-universally despised eminent domain program which allows the government to confiscate land from private owners for “public use” in exchange for what the state deems to be adequate compensation.

This practice became even more controversial in 2005 with the Kelo v. City of New London case, wherein the Supreme Court ruled that land could be taken from owners with the intent to transfer such property to another private entity. Trump has a long history of agreeing with this Supreme Court decision and using this policy to his advantage.

In the interview with Baier, Trump very much makes light of the situations that landowners find themselves in when their property is targeted for seizure. Trump states that it is not that the government simply “take [the land],” but rather, the owner “get[s] much more than the house is ever worth.” In true Trump fashion, he quickly attempted to make his stance into an attack the Club for Growth, but Baier re-directed Trump into actually underlining his ideology. Trump went on to refer to eminent domain as merely a form of “economic development.”

Related: Trump’s Tax Plan Would Add More Debt Than Obama

Trump concludes by stressing again that, in regards to “jobs, roads and the public good,” eminent domain is a “wonderful thing,” and states that he thinks opposition from the right-wing is because eminent domain wasn’t “explained to most conservatives.”

Despite all of his statements to the contrary, no stance should solidify Donald Trump’s big government credentials any more than his standing by the power of eminent domain. In doing so, Trump shows that he has no regard for property rights whatsoever, and that coercion is trivial so long as whatever action taken is for the “common good.”

This is a commonality among totalitarians: they are too often willing to sacrifice the rights of the individual in order to satisfy what they deem to be best for the collective. While socialists and other leftists are often pointed to in regards to such cronyism, corporatists like Trump are just as much to blame.

Perhaps this will finally be the time that Trump’s “telling it like it is” will catch up to him. If the Republican Party is to retain any of its small government credentials, there is no topic more fundamental than eminent domain; particularly in the terms used by Trump to justify its purposes. Conservatives cannot stand by idly and allow their ideology to be perverted any more than it already has over the past several decades.

Related: Donald Trump Announces Universal Healthcare Plan

Other than token support for Republican causes that Trump seems to have read from the most recent GOP platform, we see the true Trump when he speaks outside his comfort zone and enters into more specifics. He can espouse platitudes about how to “make America great again” and “bring back jobs,” but he has little to elaborate upon in those areas.

When pressed, Trump so often shows the dictatorial principles that more accurately guide any political “ideology” that he might have. In conjunction with building a wall along the southern border (a hallmark of autocratic regimes), Trump has continually insisted that the reason that our government fails is not because of the inherent flaws of bureaucracy, but rather that we have “stupid people” in charge. In other words, the overwhelming power that the government exerts over us is not the issue: the issue is that the wrong people are in these positions of strength.

Donald Trump is undoubtedly the least conservative or libertarian Republican presidential candidate. He does nothing of substance but insult and bloviate, and it is time that voters take a stand against this cult of personality.