In the wake of yesterday’s post on Trump supporters, I caught some criticism for all my politics-talk. Apparently, I’m just a finance/economics blogger, and I clearly don’t understand anything politics-related at all.

Here’s the thing though: economics is politics.

Perhaps not all politics is economics (some of it deals with social issues) – but the reverse is true.

Consider many of the big ‘political’ issues in this current US presidential campaign:

Obamacare: an economic policy around affordable healthcare insurance, in which the Right dislike it for being too Big Government, and the Left dislike it for not doing enough.

Taxation: an economic set of policies which the Right dislike for being too high in general, and which the Left dislike for not being high enough for the rich.

Government Regulations: multiple sets of economic policies which the Right dislike for existing, and which the Left dislike for being both badly designed and poorly enforced.

Employment: an economic fundamental which everyone wants more of.

Trade: an economic function which almost everyone wants changed in different ways.

Immigration: the movement of a key factor of production which some of the Right like because they’re libertarian, and which some of the Right dislike because they’re worried about employment, and which most of the Left have mixed feelings about.

Economic growth: what everyone wants more of.

Childcare and Parental Leave: economic questions that affect both employment and economic growth.

Student Loans: it involves loans.

The National Debt: need I say more.

There is also ‘Climate Change’ and ‘Law and Order’ and other issues like Religious Liberty that have fallen by the wayside – but even then, those arguments tend to focus on economic implications.

Not to labour the point, but there is a reason that academic discipline of economic study is traditionally called “Political Economy” (and “economics” for short): it’s because at its core, the economic debate is almost always a contest of different political ideologies.

Just saying.

Rolling Alpha posts about finance, economics, and sometimes stuff that is only quite loosely related. Follow me on Twitter @RollingAlpha, or like my page on Facebook at www.facebook.com/rollingalpha. Or both.