Controversial think tank American Compass is working to make sure President Trump's economic populism lasts well beyond his term — infuriating segments of the conservative establishment along the way.
Oren Cass, the group's founder and chief economist, argues against "market fundamentalism" while pushing for protectionist tariffs, tax hikes on the rich and a new "conservative labor movement."
The efforts have angered the conservative free-market establishment.
Americans for Tax Reform had interns hand out leaflets outside an American Compass Capitol Hill event last summer comparing it and Cass to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Club for Growth President David McIntosh fumed in a statement last year: "Self-proclaimed 'conservative' Oren Cass and his American Compass is not, and will never be, viewed as a legitimate voice in Republican policy circles."
Yet American Compass policies look a lot like policies Trump has enacted or considered, and the group has punched above its weight in cultivating powerful GOP allies — including Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, both of whom Trump has said could lead the MAGA movement after he is gone. Both Vance and Rubio are speaking at its fifth anniversary gala Tuesday evening.
"[Trump] really opened up the space for people to recognize that the old Reagan-style consensus had expired, and certainly has validated that other approaches can be more successful," Cass told me in an interview.
And as for the critics, Cass puts them into two categories. Some, like those at the libertarian Cato Institute and conservative American Enterprise Institute, are "thoughtful scholars who are working from their principles and have disagreements with us on all sorts of issues."
Others, Cass said, are simply activist groups who are "not really ideas-oriented" and are "closer to lobbying firms for some particular policy or point of view."
"They don't use evidence. They just sort of assert an attack and belittle and try to enforce their point of view that way," Cass said. "I guess they're welcome to do it if they want. But I think the proof is in kind of how that's working out for them. It's not working out at all."
Take, for example, Trump and Republicans being willing to even consider tax hikes as part of the "big, beautiful bill's" tax cuts and spending priorities — even though it did not make it in the final version. Cass, who was policy director for Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, recalled every candidate in a 2011 GOP primary debate declining to support a legislative package that had $10 of spending cuts for every $1 of tax increases.
"The tax debate has been a great illustration of the way that things have been shifting there. There was absolutely a time when people thought, 'Oh, you just can't say you would consider raising taxes, that's somehow not allowed,'" Cass said.
Club for Growth's McIntosh, though, cast the rejection of the tax increase idea as a failure for American Compass: "Despite his best efforts, Oren Cass and his far-left benefactors failed to enact a top rate tax increase," McIntosh said in a statement to me.
Now that it's 5 years old, the American Compass staff of around 10 recently moved from a converted yoga studio into a real office space. Today it is releasing "The New Conservatives," a book of essays and "manifestos" detailing the group's orthodoxy-breaking positions. And earlier this year, it launched a new commentary magazine, Commonplace.
Its budget only recently passed $2 million, Cass writes — a tiny fraction of the tens or hundreds of millions that other conservative Washington think tanks have to work with. But he told me that American Compass does not strive to be "the biggest organization with the biggest marble building in Washington."
"We kind of like being the special forces team," Cass said. "I would like to continue playing that role."
And while Cass certainly wants to see success during the Trump administration and support his populist instincts, he says the group tries to keep "at least half our focus" on where conservatism and economic policy is going over the next 10 or 20 years.
A core part of that endeavor is American Compass's membership group of more than 250 policy professionals, which include dozens of staffers who are working in the Trump administration, along with Capitol Hill staffers of all levels, according to Cass.
"People at the top of a party come and go, but in many ways, more importantly, as an entire new generation of people rises to be the core of the movement," Cass said.
Poking around in conservative circles and beyond, I found incredibly mixed opinions about the young think tank. But people with power are clearly listening — even if they're not fully embracing its populism.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) texted me this assessment of American Compass: "I think they understand the line between corporate cronyism and free enterprise … the need to build our institutions. And civil society. I agree with that — even if I don't agree with some reflexive populist policies."
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