To paraphrase Neil Young, here is a new essay that’s guaranteed to bring you right down. It’s by Russ Roberts.
The current state of the country and the current state of political and intellectual conversation depresses me in a way that it never has before.
I share his despondent mood. Here are what I see as the causes.
1. For a conservative-flavored libertarian, or libertarian-flavored conservative, the Overton Window is moving away from our views all over the place. Health care policy obviously, where Obamacare is most likely to be replaced by full-on single payer. Fiscal policy in general, where tax and spend (or maybe just spend and spend) is entrenched. Trade policy, where protectionism now has bastions in both parties.
Mainstream economics will soon be all about inequality, secular stagnation (i.e. the theory that government needs to spend because everyone else is saving too much), climate change, race/gender bias, market failure, and market power. In other words, reinforcing rather than counteracting what Bryan Caplan calls anti-market bias in the general population.
The Trump Presidency is not the solution to this Overton Window trend, and one can argue that it is part of the problem. The Republican Party won about as much as it possibly could last November, but in terms of American football, the Republicans have not moved the ball. When the Democrats get it back, they will have excellent field position.
2. The people who care most about politics want to have their outrage validated. The media cater to that desire. Does the sight of neo-Nazis marching validate your outrage as a progressive? The progressive media will make as big as story as possible out of it. Do the antics on campus validate your outrage as a conservative? The conservative media will make as big a story as possible out of it. This reinforces the destructive feedback loop to which Roberts refers.
3. The Internet encourages immediate reactions. As articles appear, your instinct is to share those with which you agree and denounce those with which you disagree You don’t take the time to think through an issue in a nuanced way. In fact, stories come and go so fast that by the time you think about something, it is no longer being discussed.
4. The U.S. lacks an external threat that is widely recognized and powerful. Sure, some people think that Muslim radicalism is an existential threat. Some people think that climate change is an existential threat. But for an external threat to lead us to pull together, there needs to be a consensus about the threat. Without the consensus, these sorts of fears instead exacerbate divisions. Russ and I worry that the outrage cycle is an existential threat. But that is an internal issue, not an external one.
In conclusion, it looks as though the country is in what some have called a cold Civil War. That is unsettling enough. Moreover, it seems highly probable that the left will come out on top, and that it will in victory show no signs of heeding Lincoln’s call for “malice toward none and charity to all.”
There are numerous things but the current episode is still not as bad 1919/1920, 1929-
1939, 1968, 1974 – 1982, or even 1992 (IMO). Here are some of the issues:
1) Maybe accept a version of Obamacare is a reasonable moderate position. I don’t single payer is going anywhere.
2) What has Trump been able to do on free trade? So far nothing! And he is lazy politically and disruptions of free trade is not going to be popular in the short run.
3) There is real concern with young people ages 18 -25 as High School students are bizarrely well behaved. But global economy is not good to people 18 -25.
4) What is wrong without an external threat? I say we better today than the Cold War.
5) It still strikes me that to increase support for free markets you have to prove real wage increases.
6) I still the biggest problem of income inequality is long term is it is pushing back family formation. So all developed nations are following some version of the Japan or Singapore model. Long term this will significant implications although I am not sure what.
One note where my Trump father-in-law disagree with:
He claims the current High-Schoolers are too focused on phones and college resumes and not on life or work skills. (Consistent with most older conservatives). I say they are getting ready for the modern world where wages on working class jobs have been stagnant since 1974. I think we are both right but I not sure the answer.
(I was surprised that he stated that wages on working class should not matter.)
“When the Democrats get it back, they will have excellent field position.”
That was always a given. The only wildcard is Trump. Certainly the Democrats would have excellent field position if an “approved” Republican had become President. I have hope that Trump will alter the narrative, but such a change won’t happen with direct assault, it will have to be subtle unsettling, which Trump is certainly skilled in provoking.
Charles Murray made this point about all Republican presidents since Eisenhower, excepting Reagan.
“Without getting into the comparative defects of Clinton and Trump (disclosure: I’m #NeverTrump), I think it’s useful to remind everyone of the ways in which having a Republican president hasn’t made all that much difference for the last fifty years, with Ronald Reagan as the one exception.”
http://www.aei.org/publication/a-reality-check-about-republican-presidents/
Ok after LBJ, of the Democrats only Obama has had modest impact as Clinton governed as a right center Republican after 1994 and Carter had little impact.
And Ronald Reagan had absolutely no impact on social issues long term.
In many ways I think we are replaying the 60s and 70s. No doubt Obama is a modern version of JFK. I often wondered whether Trump was Nixon or Reagan, but now I think he is like the Vietnam War. The divisions were there, but Trump, or Vietnam, brought them to the surface. The left did not come out on top after the 70s I am not sure why they come out on top now.
The left failed to come out on top largely because it was the Democrats who started the war and the party was fractured by it. Imagine if a conservative republican had started the Vietnam War: rather than destroying the Dems it would’ve unified and galvanized them like the Iraq War did.
Not really related, but as far as personality and disposition go, Trump has much more in common with Johnson than with Nixon or Reagan.
Field position is determined by demographics. Dem demographics get better every year. If you want Reagen back you need Reagent demographics. Romney should have won 49 states with those demographics.
Social media and 24/7 news exists in Asia and they don’t act like this. It’s because they controlled the demographics.
It’s really that simple. We never lost the battle for hearts and minds. We let the other side import warm bodies to cheat the game.
If this were true the Republicans would’ve ceased to exist decades ago. But alas, hardcore Dem Irish, Italians, Polish, etc. gradually moved right.
People care about their economic interests; and Asian and middle eastern people might already vote Republican (and middle class 3rd or 4th generation latinos too) if the GOP didn’t actively go out of its way to alienate them.
“malice toward none and charity to all.”
Like Sherman’s march to the sea?