the known known was an appetite for change in the land, but two known unknowns were also important in tuesday<u+2019>s outcome. one was whether voters could stomach the especially high-risk gamble that donald trump uniquely represented. the other was whether they could withstand the howling wind of elite disapproval issuing from their tv sets. mr. trump, as wednesday<u+2019>s stock-market rally indicated, has gotten off to a good start reassuring economic decision makers that the world hasn<u+2019>t ended. he can still throw it all away, and quickly, if he embroils the u.s. in a tit-for-tat war with major trading partners. but here<u+2019>s betting he won<u+2019>t. his signature promise, a wall against mexican immigrants, cannot spring up overnight. he will produce maps, models and designs while negotiating with mexico over what might even be a useful revision to the north american free trade agreement. he will declare victory. he will be content with such trade-law cases against china on steel and aluminum as are already progressing through the u.s. and international trade courts. to fulfill at least one campaign threat, illegal immigrants may have to take it on the chin for the first six months of a trump administration. but mr. trump was already repositioning himself to be the growth president well before his surprise triumph on election day. by virtue of being elected, he ends various obama regulatory wars against major sections of the u.s. economy. that can only be bullish. a tax reform, along traditionally idealistic gop lines with lower rates and fewer loopholes, can only be bullish. the secular stagnationists are not wrong to worry about demographic headwinds and debt. those challenges are real. but if we can get 2% growth with the tax code and regulatory policies we now have, 3% ought to be within reach if we get better policies. grab that low-hanging fruit, mr. trump. you and your team deserve credit for eking out an electoral-college victory. but you lost the popular vote. you won fewer votes than mitt romney did in 2012. you barely surpassed john mccain <u+2019>s totals in his blowout 2008 loss. for a mandate that doesn<u+2019>t fall apart with the first scandal or shapely ghost from your past, earn it with success on the growth front. there remains an overhang of uncertainty due to the debt problems of europe, china and japan<u+2014>which could bloom into a global financial crisis at any minute. we shudder to think of the populist remedies a president trump might reach for to buck up his standing. clsa banking analyst mike mayo pronounced this week<u+2019>s election the end, finally, of the 2008 financial crisis. he meant an end to the punitive actions against business that, as we should have learned in the seminal 1930s, only prolong the pain. unfortunately mr. mayo could prove premature. large parts of the trump arsenal of policy promises during the campaign were, sadly, of exactly this sort. start a trade war with china. interfere in the plant-siting decisions by american businesses like ford and carrier trying to maintain their global competitiveness. block the at&t -time warner merger. relaunch the political war on the banks by resurrecting glass-steagall. attack amazon because of some obscure grievance against its founder jeff bezos. that<u+2019>s why the stock-market boom that has greeted the president-elect is important. it will give support to his pro-growth instincts, rather than his retributive ones. assuming mr. trump does not shoot himself in the foot, the biggest danger in this hopeful moment may come when democrats, cut out from a share of power in washington and increasingly routed in the states, resort to extracurricular measures. their target: mr. trump<u+2019>s business interests and the lingering pall of lawsuits hanging over them, which left-wing activist groups will use to try to disable the nation<u+2019>s new commander in chief. mr. trump still gets grief, even after election day, for not releasing his tax returns. but then there never was a presidential candidate with tax returns like trump<u+2019>s, reflecting his personal ownership or contractual stake in hundreds of businesses. there never has been a president like mr. trump, either, whose ongoing business enterprises embroil him, by the count of usa today, in 75 pending lawsuits, not all of which are trivial. for instance, the highly partisan new york attorney general has a rico suit outstanding against the proprietor of trump university. so here<u+2019>s one outcome of this race that voters may not have bargained for. it will be a test of whether america, with its bureaucratization, over-legalization and overregulation of society, has made it impossible for anyone who has led an interesting, nonpolitical life to function as president.
meet pro-growth donald trump - wsj
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