Politics, hatred, utopia: I should have seen this coming

“I think he showed us how it’s done.”  My lunch companion was a 30-year-old Yale grad, an up-by-his-bootstraps denizen of Rochester’s inner city with political aspirations.  He was talking about Donald Trump and how the left would defeat him. I confess I am not very glib. That’s why I write this blog.  It may take me a dozen drafts over 4 or 5 days to concisely express my opinion.  So, my response to this young progressive was… wait for it… nothing!  I was dumbstruck. 

I’ve always thought that society’s reaction to our boorish, prevaricating president would be a return to civility.  But my young friend was spot on as last year’s elections proved.  Using the Twitterverse as a platform, the AOC contingent (if I may call it that) became ascendant.  And, their success has brought outrageous ideas (70% marginal tax rates, Green New Deal) into mainstream media discussion.  Like Trump, AOC has become the “brand” of her party according to Peggy Noonan.  Her essay (Congress’s Mean Girls Are Trump’s Offspring) in the Wall Street Journal asserts, “[t]hey believe that to be enraged is to demonstrate seriousness. It is to show that you understand the urgency of the moment, even if others don’t.”

Still I wonder where the line of acceptable behavior is drawn.  I guess it’s somewhere on the spectrum of nasty women who make their living by being, well, nasty.  Samantha Bee is okay, but Kathy Griffin is not.  There’s a line between them somewhere, right?

Following President Trump’s election, I was astounded at the public reaction of those who supported his opponent and thought she had it in the bag.  His outrageous behavior, boorish manners and policy lunacy was outmatched by street protests, hate-filled messages and the media’s obsession with him.  “He’ll be reelected because liberals will overplay their hand,” I would tell anyone who would listen.  Not many did. And, now, I am not so sure I was right. 

Hatred has transformative power.  It can make the innocuous into the menacing. And, menace provides moral empowerment, which in turn leads to totalitarianism.  In a conventional society, laws are designed to protect people and their property.  In a totalitarian society, laws are designed to move society toward utopia.  Successful extremists can always define utopia. One extreme would have us erect barriers to free trade and reject immigrants while the other would open our borders and exercise government control over private enterprise.  The reaction by each cohort is to accuse their opponents of either being Nazis (Hitler) or socialists (Lenin).  Those who gain political power by conjuring hatred can and will do whatever is necessary to achieve their goals (as both Hitler and Lenin showed us).  

America desperately needs leadership that stands for sanity and moderation, not demagoguery.  Those whose political fortunes rely upon judging, lecturing and disdaining may resonate with a segment of the public but not with the “Exhausted Majority.” Despite the best efforts of the media, most people do not follow politics with rapt attention.  They are more concerned about paying their rent and the rising cost of healthcare and sending their kids to college.  

The question now is how to get the genie back in the bottle.

WHO WILL LEAD?

What I’m reading

Economist Brian Beaulieu says we’re in the third phase (Caution!) of the economic cycle. We may be on the precipice of recession – or maybe not….  In a 1 minute 43 second video, the Hoover Institute provides an alternative to a carbon tax called "Low Carbon Pollution Standards"….  David Brooks of the NY Times tells us that the media have become scandal mongers (once the province only of tabloids).  

#justanoldwhiteguy

It’s old news now but I’ve been thinking about the mob that semi-attacked Tucker Carlson’s home last fall. If so-called progressives want to be the anti-Trump, shouldn’t they stop behaving like the anti-Christ?

Is it 1984 yet?

I just finished reading Stephen Hawking’s book, “A Brief History of Time.”  I confess it’s a challenging read for a non-scientist.  However, Hawking was much more than a scientist and mathematician. He reveals himself to be a moral philosopher as well. Throughout his detailed discussion of how science evolved from Copernicus to Einstein and beyond, he points to how religion has historically explained what science could not and how the advances of the last half of the 20th Century explained so much that it has diminished the role of religion in society.  Similarly, it has diminished the role of philosophy (perhaps a greater loss). What had been promoted by great moral thinkers from Aristotle to Kant has been lost now that we know how the universe works. In the last chapter, he quotes 20^th Century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein as saying, “The sole remaining task of philosophy is the analysis of language.” 

The disappearance of philosophy from our public discourse may explain why, instead of having a clear understanding of what’s right and wrong or moral vs immoral, we now focus on rules of behavior and the politics of reallocating capital. 

So, where are we headed?

The Chinese government has created a “social credit system” to build trust on the basis of compliance with social norms defined by the central government.  Americans don’t need the government to impose one.  We impose it on ourselves.  Shaming is a national pastime.  American companies – who have two strikes against them just by existing – can trip the switch from adored to reviled in the blink of an eye.  We’ve seen it happen to Uber, United Airlines and Facebook among others.

It doesn’t take a large majority to create a movement.  Very vocal extremists can affect electoral outcomes and now occupy seats in Congress. Much like the pastor of a small Orlando church created an international crisis of terrorism by threatening to burn a copy of the Koran (see “Is that what Jesus would do? Really?”), a small cohort with a resonant hashtag, armed with a meme or two, can create a social movement.  Think of #blacklivesmatter, #MeToo or #icebucketchallenge.

On the one hand, this phenomenon is a sign of a strong democracy. Social media provides a platform for small voices to be heard.  A lonely voice may become a force for social good when a large enough chorus mobilizes for change.  

On the other hand, it has bred what Arthur Brooks calls a “culture of contempt.”  And, media profits by its proliferation. Social media provides a platform for outrageous claims and behavior while mainstream media – particularly cable news – profits by reporting it, analyzing it and discussing it ad nauseum. What divides us now is language and how issues are framed.  

Are high taxes a way to enable social benefits or confiscation of private property?

Is abortion just ending a pregnancy or is it killing a child?

The way one answers those questions inflames our tribal passions. 

Aristotle believed that a virtuous society was the result of the works of good people.  Good works must be defined on the basis of a set of principles embraced by nearly all citizens.  As the influence of religion and philosophy have faded, we are no longer guided by a set of generally accepted principles.  Rather, we focus on rules of behavior.  And, we disagree vehemently about what those rules should be. So, conservative speakers are hounded from college campuses, bureaucratic failings lead to boycotts of corporations; and, the voices of extremists yield public discussion of radical ideas as though they are reasonable.

George Orwell’s great book “1984” reinforced Wittgenstein’s description of philosophy in the 20th Century by creating new additions to our language:  Newspeak, Thought Police, Groupthink, etc.  We now capture those concepts under the umbrella of “political correctness.” Here’s a description of Newspeak from his book:

“The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view…, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought … should be literally unthinkable...”

So, is it 1984 yet?

WHO WILL LEAD? 

What I’m reading

For a perspective on how Republicans can address climate change check this out from The American Enterprise Institute: Carbon tax most efficient in tackling climate change… And, while I’m on the subject, check out this opinion piece from the WSJ: The Nuclear Option is the Real Green New Deal… Bill and Melinda Gates run a foundation in their names tackling global challenges.  As broad as their perspective is, they still get surprised from time to time.  Check out their blog post “We Didn’t See This Coming.”

China is eating our lunch and is ready for dinner

Even among those who think President Trump is wrong, oh so wrong, about nearly everything, there is a grudging admission that some of his observations about China are correct. “China is eating our lunch!”  They have subsidized their own industries while creating obstacles to US companies wishing to enter their markets and they steal our intellectual property.   If Trump can make progress on those issues, he will have served us well.  

But it’s China’s long game that troubles me.  They are likely to make concessions to Trump because the global trade paradigm feeds their coffers. In spite of the capital flight of recent years, China still has over $1 Trillion in US Treasuries on deposit in the Bank of China.  They are using that capital to fund a long-term strategy to build a China centric supply chain with outposts in developing nations hungering for foreign investment. In addition, they are investing in military technology to bypass the US as our military budget has declined precipitously since 2010. 

Americans tend to take our global hegemony for granted.  The US long game from its founding was Manifest Destiny, expanding the nation from one coast to the other and extending our buffer zones across two oceans. It took about 150 years to achieve this position and the commitment of Cold Warriors to maintain it.  We’ve been so secure for so long that we can’t imagine it might change nor can we imagine impact when it does. Now, that hegemony is in jeopardy as a defense strategy based upon aircraft carriers and foreign military bases is undermined by American withdrawal, reduced military budgets and foreign powers investing in asymmetric capabilities like cruise missiles and cyberwarfare. 

Enter Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) who now proposes a China style national industrial policy for the US. He would protect American manufacturing, restrict capital flows and change the tax code to incentivize technology companies to invest in R&D.  Senator Rubio might be looking at how Japan used its industrial policy to become the world’s second largest economy over 40 years following WWII (they are third behind China now).  But it’s noteworthy that policies that worked well during their rise from the ashes have not served them well since.  The senator should also brush up on economics.  Comparative advantage still works. Competing with China in manufacturing may sound nice to American labor unions; however, our real advantage is in technology and innovation. And the best way to support innovation is for government to get out of the way.  

A better (non-Trumpian) approach would be to create economic alliances with China’s other competitors, such as India, South Korea and Japan and to invest in military technology to counter China’s cyberwarfare military expansion.  We should also expand our economic development initiatives in Africa, the continent most likely to grow economically in this century.  Initiatives of this nature won’t fit into the brevity of an American electoral cycle. For the U.S. to play a long game to counter China, a president will have to clearly define our strategy (Manifest Destiny 2100?) and work to gain bi-partisan support.  Such a plan must include strategies for economic development in the U.S. that will rebuild communities through investment in infrastructure, education and workforce development. Failing to do so will undermine political support for such an initiative in the long term.

Unfortunately, I don’t expect such long term thinking or leadership to emanate from the current resident of the White House. 

WHO WILL LEAD? 

What I’m reading…

… "A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking”:  I was inspired to read it in the wake of the author’s death.  Now, I’m not sure I’ll make it to the end.  I haven’t studied physics and math since college and wonder why I should start again… “Reimagining Mobility: A CEO’s Guide”:  a report from global consulting company, McKinsey & Co., describes how autonomy and electrification will affect automotive transportation over the next decade or two… “Is the Campus Free Speech Crisis Overblown?”: an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal featuring comments from college students on the topic. 

The Poll

Well, the poll favors the short form of essay that I’ve experimented with since the beginning of the year.  (It’s still open if you’d like to vote.) However, the vote was close, and my wife voted for the short form. Maybe we should disallow her vote since she’d just like me to shut up.  What do you think?