The Republican midterm convention was recently held in Dallas. If that sounds strange, your instincts are correct. Usually, the two major political parties hold their national conventions in the summer before a presidential election. This year, however, the Republicans and President Donald Trump are facing a dire situation.

Polling going into November isn’t looking promising for the GOP. All signs point to the Democrats surging to victory in races across the country, potentially even in some of the Republicans’ historic strongholds like Alaska and Texas. Republican favorability is low nationally amid the disastrous Iran war and the rising prices that have resulted.

The situation has sent strategists into a frenzy. If Democrats win a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, and potentially even in the Senate, we can expect to see investigations, impeachments, hearings, and other procedures intended to bring Trump’s second term to a halt. In effect, it will mean the end of the president’s domestic agenda. In a last-ditch bid to rally support, and at least soften the landing, the GOP held a rather bizarre midterm convention.

While most of the speakers repeated similar, meaningless talking points, one moment in particular—thanks to its absurdity—caught the media’s attention. In his address on night one of the convention, President Trump announced a new proposal.

“If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate,” Trump said, “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”

This proposal immediately drew attention across the conservative ecosystem, and for good reason. For one, the economics simply don’t work. The project would cost roughly $1.3 trillion. The president has claimed that the funds would come from tariff revenue, but the administration has yet to settle on a coherent explanation regarding how the project will be financed. The safer assumption is that the money would be printed, just as it was when the Federal Reserve injected the U.S. economy with trillions of new dollars during the COVID pandemic in 2020.

In the aftermath of this money-printing frenzy, Joe Biden’s presidency was plagued with out-of-control inflation. It was a predictable outcome, but one that few in DC expected. The principle is quite simple: when you increase the amount of something, it becomes less valuable. Thus, when the economy sees an increase in the amount of money in circulation, the value of the money decreases. As a result, your dollar doesn’t go as far.

Given that we are still feeling the economic whiplash of reckless spending in 2020, it is a sad reflection on our political system that an idea like this isn’t universally ridiculed. It’s as if you rode a roller coaster and it broke, and your first thought was to ride the exact same roller coaster again. It’s irrational.

Yet beyond the economic questions surrounding such a proposal, there is a deeper hypocrisy at play. This pitch from Trump comes amid a highly contentious election season, where the insurgent Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have led a political revolt within the Democratic Party ranks. This wave of left-wing victories, ignited in part by Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral win in New York City last fall, has renewed the national debate over socialism. To contrast the radical economic interventionism being proposed by leftist candidates, many Republicans have begun preaching about the virtues of capitalism, and the evils of socialism.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) said recently:

Here’s the reality: the communists are winning Democrat primaries.

The Democrat Party is being pulled further left by radicals who want socialism, confiscation, open borders, and weakness abroad.

Republicans should be the party of jobs, freedom, and opportunity—and say so… pic.twitter.com/RRCqZu82ew

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 25, 2026

The House Republicans’ official Twitter/X account said in July that they intend to vanquish the socialist ideology in America:

Our parents’ generation defeated socialism abroad.

Ours has to defeat it at home.

— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) July 11, 2026

In an effort to paint the DSA as communist, the White House’s official Twitter/X account made a post this summer:

The United States of America will NEVER be a communist country.

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) July 22, 2026

How could it be, then, that the same party touting its credibility in the fight against big-government economic planning is also led by a president who is offering every American adult a free $5,000? Is this not an example of the very economic interventionism Republicans claim to oppose?

This creates a clear bind for the Republicans.

Are they for “free markets” or “free handouts?”

We know based on their fiscal insanity and corporate favoritism that the Republicans are hardly consistent champions of free-market capitalism. They support the theft of private property from peaceful individuals, so long as it funds the government programs they personally, subjectively deem essential. Similarly, they are not opposed to welfare. They are in favor of redistributing the wealth, but instead of funneling it from the rich to the poor, they take from the poor and give to the rich and politically-connected.

What this represents fundamentally is a race to the bottom. In pursuing policies like Medicare for All, the Democrats are seeking an expansion of the state’s involvement in the economic affairs of peaceful people. The Republicans also look to interfere with our day-to-day economic lives. They do this by devaluing our dollars through money-printing—taxing us, in effect—thus preventing our money from going as far.

By offering voters free money, Trump is playing into some of the worst incentives inherent in a democratic system. His party is in control of both chambers of Congress. If he actually intended to pursue this idea, he would do it now, because he likely won’t have the political tools to do so for much longer. The fact that he hasn’t mobilized Republican leadership to make this proposal a reality suggests this was never a serious idea, but rather a political maneuver.

This is fundamentally a quid pro quo, in which Republicans offer voters quick cash in exchange for retaining control of Congress.

Therefore, while the economic consequences of this proposal may be the most materially pressing factor, we must also address the impact this would have on the American soul.

What does it say about our political system when the mask slips to this degree? Now, the statist inducements of the past—welfare, subsidies, contracts, and other government programs—look innocent compared to the shameless, open corruption on display from Trump. Let me be clear: regardless of how the midterms turn out, I do not believe this policy will be pursued. There doesn’t seem to be the political will from any of the parties that would be needed to make it happen. However, the hypocrisy on display from Republicans cannot be ignored.

Both parties now openly embrace socialist policies. For decades, one at least pretended to value capitalism—the voluntary exchange of private property between individuals—and the dangers of leaving economic planning to a centralized government. We libertarians—the only principled supporters of private property and voluntary exchange—knew all along that they were speaking in empty slogans, preaching capitalism while throwing money at politically-favored industries and state-aligned corporations. There is something that is lost, though, when they don’t even bother to pretend anymore.

Going into the midterms, the supposed “capitalists” are set to argue in favor of government handouts. Meanwhile, the Democratic Socialists of America are on the rise. Without any principled opposition in their way, many of them seem poised for victory. The rest of us, caught in the crossfire of the two political parties’ turf war, are left to suffer the economic pain that will inevitably result from their policies. But hey, what’s new?