There was a time in the not-so-distant past when I was told reliably that picking winners and losers in the economy and the president trying to decide what companies should and shouldn’t produce was very, very wrong.

A Republican or two may — just may — have said that about Barack Obama. Now? Trump’s tweet was greeted with a silent grimace from the dying band of free-market conservatives but a loud shout from the Trumpentariat.

What used to be the party of free markets and free trade now gives raucous cheers for Chairman Trump’s trade wars and for state control of capitalist enterprises. Sure, Richard Nixon flirted with wage and price controls. He never blurted out orders on where American companies could build their factories.