American Dynamism

Jonah’s return to The Remnant features a guest with “The most important hair in public ...

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Jonah’s return to The Remnant features a guest with “The most important hair in public policy,” Ryan Streeter from AEI. While Ryan’s magnificent mane isn’t captured in the final product, his spot-on analysis of the causes of American stagnation (and what we can do to get out of it) certainly are. Why is fulfilling work so hard to find for a great many Americans? Which of the structures meant to stand between the individual and the government do our current policy regimes totally fail to support? Are all politicians really just heartless hacks? And what factors are the advocates of working-class Republicanism forgetting when they envision the future of the party? Lucky for us, Ryan thinks about this kind of thing for a living, and therefore has more revealing answers than you may find anywhere else.

Show Notes:

–Ryan’s page at AEI

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  1. Dave Fiore

    Jonah,
    I'm listening right now and notice that this is at least the second time I've heard you "wonder" about the new GOP "Worker Party" stand. Now, I'm not familar with Rubio's recent rationale, but allow me to posit a possible explanation. You mentioned that aside from some protectionist policies, that Trump's policies were not that different than a standard Ryan position. That's RIGHT! I think the "Worker Party" thing is simply a messaging lesson that Trump got right. The GOP always thought that low corporate and small business taxes, less regulation, controlled immigration, free floating financing, small government ... would provide an environment that would be beneficial for business and its workers. And we failed to convey that message more effectively than democrats who promised to "protect workers" from evil corporations. We allowed them to make us looked like the evil corporations and they won the argument. Then Trump showed up and pointed out that those democratic immigration policies and trade policies and "safe" regulations and high taxes were actually the things keeping workers from the dynamism that this episode discussed. Trump found the messaging that combined the democratic message that "I'm really the guy working for your interest" with the GOP policies that actually benefit workers. And the Trump middle class gets it.
    So yeah, its not a different policy, its a different message about the policy, and one that requires a certain amount of populism that people can connect to and trust.
    I think that's the difference.

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    The Stray Goose

    I enjoy woodworking and reading woodworking magazines. Some time ago I read an article that was about 30 years old. The title was, "Where Are Your Table Saws Made". In the article they explained that this equipment was made in the American Midwest (mostly Ohio) and they moved a generation ago. There's just a few places in Taiwan that make the saws for all the different American companies. In the article there is a picture of two Taiwanese men holding a four-handled 'thingy' that held molten steel. They were pouring it into a mold that would end up being machined into the tabletop. The men were in flipflops and shorts. No safety equipment at all.

    Now if I'm a guy who used to make those saws in Ohio and I saw this picture I would realize that I never had a chance. There was NO WAY I was going to compete with THAT!.

    Then along comes Trump telling these guys that they got screwed by 'globalism' and the 'free trade agreements' that Washington politicians agreed to even though perhaps they weren't real free trade agreements, just ways for companies to cut corners to make a buck at workers' expense (while kicking back some profits to the politicians).

    Then Clinton comes along and sneers that they're going to lose their jobs. Hell, who can blame them for voting for Trump.

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  3. Ted Sisson

    I always love AEI wonkery. Thank you.

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    Gz Expat

    I was delighted to hear the advertisement for a local Oregon beef supplier that I didn't know about. I got to their website and placed an order as I was so excited about the products they had. And, of course, because of my excitement, I forgot to include the promo code. Gah!

    I popped United Harvest a note telling them what I did and they honored the promo code and refunded the amount saved. THAT is the ingredient to a return customer.

    Dingo!

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    BrettH

    Do your thing Jonah. Meander as you please, I’ll listen with interest regardless. I’m just nerdy that way.

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    Troy Ault

    Hey Jonah (not sure this is the venue for the feedback you solicited?) love these wonky episodes. Keep em coming. One topic suggestion: How should conservatives engage in social justice debates today vs. in the 60’s? One argument I’m sympathetic to on the center-left today is that, look, a lot of conservative ideas around little platoons, equality of opportunity and community/cultural change outside of politics is great, but we just can’t wager on small change with the hope that racial disparities are going to be better 100 years from now. One more cycle of race riots feels like it could tear us apart, so we need to be more open to progressive solutions today than we otherwise might. Same argument could extend in general to ladders of opportunity to the Trumpy white working class, and stagnating sociology-economic mobility. Is it possible we’re just in a cycle where more heavy-handed solutions need to be tolerated for the sake of quicker, more widespread progress, and that we don’t have to give up our conservatism to be part of that process - just to wield it more thoughtfully? Or is this too slippery a slope?

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    Rev Snow

    100K freelisters. 25K paid members. And this is the biggest outlet hosted on Substack.

    Just remarkable to me how such relatively tiny populations are 1) organizationally viable; and 2) taken to be at least a somewhat important thing. All Dispatch readers together couldn't close the voting gap in Michigan.

    It's like the time you realize that every program on the highest rated Fox new network gets one million viewers or fewer. Far less than one percent of the public, but still understood as a leading influence on American life.

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    Kevin Johnson

    Good one, Jonah. I think Rubio’s schtick is mostly rhetorical with a little acceptance of the policy chops of your reform conservative buddies (while claiming them as his own.). He understandably wants to separate from Trump and appear shiny and new but without ignoring the cultural chords Trump exploited. Trade, immigration, and China (TIC) are connected issues as much cultural as economic. They symbolize elite ignorance of and disdain for folks who saw their world crumbling, figuratively if not literally. Just shouting that he heard folks on these issues boosted Trump tremendously. You can, I think, scratch the cultural itch without abandoning the core of conservative principles, as your friends laid out. On China, you rightly note that the consensus favoring opening is gone; China did most of this, but Trump rightly identified and vocalized broad, if inexact, discomfort with the “made in China” signs everywhere you cite. Given the distance between rhetoric and policy in any administration, here’s hoping Rubio and others can give conservatives acceptable policy principles with substantive tweaks as well as rhetoric letting the left-behind feel they are part of the mix. Not impossible, but...

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    CynthiaW

    "If your main outlet is politics, you're just an unhappy person!" (Mr. Streeter)

    And that's (social) science, folks!

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    Jason Gibson

    it must be the hair cotton....feathered and LETHAL!!!

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