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This thread explains why I think the Republican Party is lost to me personally.
Economic populism absolutely does speak to the interests cited here, but it does not serve those interests well. Rather, it impoverishes nations, particularly those it seeks to help https://twitter.com/EsotericCD/status/1324844220558049280
Economic populism absolutely does speak to the interests cited here, but it does not serve those interests well. Rather, it impoverishes nations, particularly those it seeks to help https://twitter.com/EsotericCD/status/1324844220558049280
Belief that free trade and economic liberalism is good doesn't come from a lack of caring. It doesn't come (only) from theoretical models. It's borne from the suffering of billions. Squalor was everywhere in the India I visited in my childhood. Then, they liberalized bit by bit
China went further, experimenting with Special Economic Zones as an alternative to communism and centralized mass government planning. For all the American awe at China's central planning, guess where all the growth and innovation is happening? The Special Economic Zones
~"But China is eating our lunch!"~
Would you like to eat their lunch? Here's what that looks like: https://madison.com/ct/opinion/column/dave_zweifel/plain-talk-wisconsin-will-pay-for-foxconn-mess-for-years/article_427a05ce-4ac0-52e9-99c5-46361d66de79.html
Would you like to eat their lunch? Here's what that looks like: https://madison.com/ct/opinion/column/dave_zweifel/plain-talk-wisconsin-will-pay-for-foxconn-mess-for-years/article_427a05ce-4ac0-52e9-99c5-46361d66de79.html
Consider the iPhone. Jeff suggests it would cost $10 more made in the USA. Which parts of the value chain would you like to be in? The US designs iPhones; China assembles them with components from dozens of other countries. Would you prefer we assemble phones designed by China?
I assume the response would be "no, that's silly. No one is saying that." But then please specify which jobs you actually want to be performed by Americans and which by other countries. Or do you want *all* the jobs to be done by Americans and *none* of them done by others?
There is sort of a recipe for that. It's the gold standard of economic populism. It's present in a bunch of countries that do virtually no trade across their borders. Their productivity suffers, and their people starve for it
For America to prosper, her people must cooperate. If she refuses to, others who cooperate will beat us. We don't have the capabilities to build an iPhone from scratch, nor would it be desirable for us to invest to develop each of those from scratch
Jeff tells you that unlike the rest of the elite, he cares about the workers that we don't. Here is his record. Taxing input goods Americans use to manufacture things hurts American manufacturing workers. This is the "good" part of Trumpism Jeff likes https://taxfoundation.org/tariffs-trump-trade-war/
Republicans used to get this stuff. Reducing and simplifying taxes was about not choking the engine that produces all this stuff for us. Now it's about reducing inheritance taxes. Are laid off steel workers concerned about suffocating inheritance taxes?
None of this is to say that the Democrats don't concern me. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren had trade policies identical to Trump's based on the same economic populism theories including a rejection of free trade. But they didn't get nominated. This Party has hope
