The New Populism

With the choice of J.D. Vance as his vice-president, Donald Trump has declared his commitment to populism. This has been his position all along. It is why he is accused of being an isolationist and a protectionist. It lies at the heart of his “America First” agenda and even of his slogan, “Make America Great Again.” He is, in many ways, nostalgic for a bygone era of American industrial and economic dominance. This was clearly echoed by Vance in his acceptance speech at the RNC. It seems to me, however, that we must be clear-eyed about this approach and willing to ask some hard questions, starting with, will it work, and can it be done?

A lot of water has gone over the dam since we last dominated the global markets. One would have to go back to the 1950s or, at most, the 60s. A large part of the populist yearnings are for a return to those days when a single paycheck was all that was needed to buy a home, buy a car, and live an approximation of the American Dream. For a very complex set of reasons those days are gone, and while today’s populism gets many of those reasons right (the rise of the welfare state, the breakdown of the family, the terrible inflation that resulted from the uncontrolled spending of the bureaucratic state) it also gets several of those reasons wrong.

And let me say right at the start, J.D Vance, Tucker Carlson, and Donald Trump are not wrong to be concerned about the working class and the forgotten men and women and towns and villages of the American Midwest. We all should be rooting for a restoration of prosperity to those places and more. But we have to be clear about why that region is struggling in order to fix the problem. My main concern is that we are chasing an “impossible dream,” by longing for a return to an earlier time. Like everything related to time, there may be no “going back.” What is required is something new and even fundamentally different. Part of why I am actually encouraged by the choice of J.D. Vance is that he has already started that approach of innovation and renovation in his home territory. I think for all the demagoguery surrounding his choice, he fundamentally “gets it” regarding the need to innovate our way out of this dilemma.

So, to return to what populism gets wrong. First and foremost, globalization is not the enemy it is made out to be. It was not the trade agreements (NAFTA, China) that “hollowed out” the industrial Midwest (not to mention the industrial Northeast and Southeast with the loss of the knitting mills, steel mills, and furniture making). It was the fact that those American industries had become uncompetitive in the emerging global markets that were rising long before any of those agreements were entered into, and the culprits were not Mexico (NAFTA) or China. The main culprit was Japan, and then Korea.

After college, I worked for an American snowmobile company in their quality control department. It was a great job with a great company that made a really fun product. In this rapidly growing industry, which became highly competitive very quickly, there was a growing need for speed. The snowmobile evolved from what began as a rather large, bulky, and slow-moving utility vehicle for farmers and ranchers to get around and do their work in the winter — the first machines were called “snow dogs” because they were seen as mechanical dog sleds for winter travel and work — to what we know today as speedy and maneuverable recreational vehicles. So, the competition within the industry was to develop faster engines, lower the center of gravity of the vehicle for stability, and increase the range of motion of the suspension and the skis for speed and maneuverability.

The problem for these companies was that the American small engine manufacturers were using cast iron engine blocks, which were heavy and slow. The Japanese were in the process of revolutionizing the motorcycle industry with cast aluminum engines with hard chrome cylinder walls. The result was much lighter engines that generated significantly higher rpms. As a result, we were an American snowmobile manufacturer that contracted its engines with a Japanese motorcycle company. This began in the late 60s.

The same process was taking place in the consumer electronics industry with Sony, JVC, and Panasonic replacing RCA, GE, and Westinghouse in taking over the market. In the same way, GM, Ford, and Chrysler were replaced by Honda, Toyota, and Nissan. Now we are seeing the emergence of Korean companies such as LG, Hyundai, and Kia take their place in the global market. Much has been said about the Chinese, but they have shown themselves to be imitators and thieves rather than true innovators. (I’m not saying that they can’t innovate.) I do worry about their work in AI and even more so their use of AI and technology for surveillance and espionage, not to mention their increasing pursuit of global military and economic power. They are not pursuing innovation for the same reasons that we and many of our global competitors are. They are not seeking primarily to increase global market share for automobiles or cell phones, they are innovating in the pursuit of ruling the world.

But my point is that it was non-competitive forces within American industry, and I put union work rules and the adversarial relationship that it created within many of these crucial businesses high on the list, that contributed to the offshoring and shuttering of so many American factories. We clearly lost our edge in several key industries: automobiles, electronics, fabric making, furniture making, and shoe making. Our steel industry has been under tremendous pressure for decades and is in decline. Globalization is here to stay, and we need to find ways to adapt to it as we have done with the manufacture and assembly of BMW, Volkswagen, Toyota, and Honda automobiles in American factories. Globalization is ultimately a two-way street, and we must learn to both work within its parameters and take advantage of its opportunities.

It seems to me that politicians are almost the last people I would want to be tackling this problem. They polarize everything and fall for simplistic explanations and answers. Blaming the emptying out of manufacturing and industry in the United States on “greedy corporations,” or “elites who don’t care about working people” or on “free trade” and trade agreements are perfect examples of not understanding how deeply non-competitive many of our industries became.

Tariffs and protectionism are certainly popular options for politicians, but they simply mask the basic problem. Europe has relied on them for decades and their economies are essentially in decline. My expectation is that a Trump-Vance administration will impose lots of them, and not just on the Chinese, but as a strategy for protecting and reviving American industry. I will say right here that I will vote enthusiastically for Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, and while I have misgivings about their basic protectionism, I also realize that both of them are pragmatic businessmen who have some basic understanding of everything I am talking about. I predict they will not be utterly dogmatic in their approach to protecting industries, nor that they be unwilling to change course if something doesn’t work.

What completely offsets their commitment to protectionism is their commitment to de-regulation and the unleashing of innovation in America. They will finally take the lid off of small business formation and entrepreneurship in the United States. And most of all, they will “drill baby, drill” and restore the energy independence that was lost while the Democrats were in power.

We must never adopt a politics of nostalgia, and I don’t think I am alone in my concern that this drives at least some of Trump’s and J.D. Vance’s populism. We are not going to be able to restore America to some type of golden era similar to the 1950s. In fact, we shouldn’t even try. We face so many challenges, not least of which is AI and robotics. If you think globalization is a job killer, you haven’t seen anything yet. I’m old, but I will not be surprised to still live to see automated trucking and fully automated factories. We need to be thinking now about the jobs of the future, and we need to be thinking about how we educate our children for both this high-tech future and for the development of skills and work that can’t be automated, that will always require the human touch. It seems to me, and this is why I am fundamentally positive about the choice of J.D. Vance for vice president, that we need leaders who are willing to look these realities square in the face and plan a way forward. Vance, in fact, has already started doing that in his region of Ohio.

Sadly, these economic issues are not the primary issues of this election: inflation, immigration, and all the rhetorical slogans of the day are front and center and hold everyone’s attention. It is the nature of politics to be short-sighted. It is part of why politicians have been so ineffective at dealing with the significant structural problems we face as a society. We must, however, begin to grapple with the problems that we see rising up in front of us. We lament the deindustrialization of America, but that is a problem that is long past, and we will, in fact, face something just as bad, if not worse, in the future if we don’t begin to think now about the work and the workforce of tomorrow. My hope — and it is only a hope at this point — is that by electing Donald Trump and J.D. Vance we will have put in power men and likely an administration that has some inkling of the needs of the workers and the middle class of the United States, and will be willing to do what it may require to make America great again for them and their families.

It will not be easy, and as I said before, politicians are terrible at tackling long-range issues. We need some significant thought leaders to be working on these questions. I am likely out of touch but the current group – Elon Musk, et. al. – seems all in on AI without seeming to recognize its clear and present social dangers, and I’m not talking about killer robots who set out to destroy humanity. I’m talking about their capacity to replace human labor. We will not be able to produce and sustain a functioning society without meaningful work. One of the consequences of the de-industrialization of the Midwest is the opioid crisis, as Tucker Carlson has repeatedly pointed out. Human beings without work face a spiritual and existential threat.

So, I’m all in for Trump and Vance, I will vote for them, and I’m already praying for them, but we have to realize that politicians are not the saviors they claim to be. We must look for cultural, educational, and economic solutions to these challenges ourselves and within our communities. It is part of why we must break the power of the bureaucratic state in order to unleash true innovation and creative thinking. In many ways, this is the essential reason for supporting Trump and Vance. They are committed to de-regulation and the scaling back of governmental power over the lives of the American people. Something like this will be needed to truly make America great again.