If you want a primer as to where are where we are, Peter Zeihan’s youtube video will give you a clear-eyed understanding from a “Deep State” researcher. Peter is the Deep State you want, BTW. The kind you’d expect running some vital portion of the vast administration, making sure America is OKAY. He’s an unabashed globalist who loves green-tech, and is as granola as it gets. Pretty sure he’s gay, if that helps Progressives decide to give him a try. I know that sounds condescending but I’m sincerely convinced that it matters to more than one would expect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZHfnDrEZNA
The other side of the coin is Whatifalthist (Rudyard Lynch) – a Gen Z conservative who takes a deep analytical dive and uses only primary sources. He references Peter Zeihan in a respectful fashion, acknowledging that he builds on much of Peter’s work.
I have found a lot of insights and commentary disturbing, but if you look at his channel you don’t need to view the videos, just the view counts under the titles.
channel https://www.youtube.com/@WhatifAltHist
Here’s my take in my lifetime
In 1992, Clinton knew the internet was coming and industrial policy had to change in order to win the future. To not win the internet would mean utter loss of American global leadership – could anyone deny it to be the right call these days, right? He re-worked out the manufacturing base (NAFTA) to overseas production and promoted education for knowledge-based work. This led to the expansion of universities, the dissolution of the trades, and the winning of the Internet. It also led to a lot of societal shifts, specifically an expanding class of low-Elites (the credentialed class). I am among those with a Masters and have participated actively.
I am a trained low-Elite with wealth and prestige. I am what the Democrat Party would call “the ideal Democrat Male.” I’m non-violent, well-educated, averaged $300,000/year + stock, listen to NPR, Board theater president for not-for-profits, good with kids, and been on the tip of every progressive cause for the past 15 years. I go to live shows of “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me.” Our kids know pronouns and how to be kind.
The steering of an economy the size and heft of America is like turning a barge – you have to do it slowly. Sometimes you lose a generation in the transition (see the Lost Generation – the generation before the Boomers). Sometimes you have to pause or speed up due to wars or external variables. We kept the same industrial policy, the same immigration policy, the same healthcare and benefits systems for 30 years, and only under Trump with NAFTA 2 and Biden with BBB and CHIPS and other acts did we start to change. But there was a problem – the bloat of the administration caused so much friction that however we went, we were running in place or falling behind. Projects just never went anywhere – Obama’s high-speed rail plan never happened but billions were spent, Bernie’s Universal HealthCare, Bush’s immigration policy (that’s what he ran on in 2000, remember? Does anyone remember?), Biden’s infrastructure plan is still in a Hold pattern, while the planes are crashing and ports are getting smashed. Ultimately, nothing was getting “done”. Not immigration reform, not universal healthcare, not balanced trade. This is a cynical critique and I am not being generous in spirit. I could happily point out the good portions but that’s not the intent of this post. I think there’s plenty of those who cover the good, and not enough who share the bad.
The challenge with a democracy that has a referendum on the direction of the country every 4 years is that the people will expect that they will get what they voted for quickly. Or at all. Since 2000, the conservatives voted 6 elections for immigration reform, which makes sense since those states are deeply impacted by the matter – the trafficking, the humanitarian issues, the resource stretches, the drugs, the crime, the confusion within communities on new customs and neighbors. The blue-collared workers, who were mostly raised Democrats with fantasies of unions they’ll maybe join again, shifted right after every election. The marginalized communities came over with Trump – they were tired of being show ponies for causes and became cynical with performative actions like Obama drinking Flint Water, Biden on just about every cause, and the Dem establishment over-talking them with their own cultivated “community experts” they’ve pulled from academia. They’ve won 3 elections and this is the first time they’re getting what they want in 25 years.
That’s hard to argue against. I can’t help but be hopeful for them. I wanted other things first – like universal healthcare – but I can’t fault for at least someone getting something. Democrats won 3 elections and got…..I don’t really know what we got for it other than kicking a lot of these issues down the road and throwing up culture issues to distract the base from core concerns. Perhaps you do? I don’t consider Obamacare a victory and I doubt anyone that uses it does too. Biden created a portal for citizens to file taxes to the IRS directly so you don’t need a middleman – a commonsense policy that should almost be a right in my opinion. Why wouldn’t you have direct access to the government regarding your taxes? I don’t honestly know who asked for Juneteenth but I’m glad for it if that holiday really does live up to the hype. I would rather have high-speed rails. Most people do too.
I digress
America within the current system couldn’t be a democracy in a true sense. It was trying to run an international empire (or an international order, if you’re more inclined with globalist talking-points. I like globalists – I am one I think. I was one, at least.) and so it had complicated obligations. How do you reconcile cheap Saudi oil at the expense of Texas oilmen? How do you reconcile German industrial plastics over GE? Trade-offs to preserve NATO with trade subsidizes were often at the expense of the American worker, whose salaries stagnated and barely scaled with inflation. The incentives were to go to knowledge-based jobs. They were eco-friendly, indoors, less physical, more creative, it paid more, and it was a path to the middle class dream to owning a home. But the reality was that we sold off or out-sourced bits of our economy to bribe other countries to ally with us, and we tried to excuse it with promises of cheaper goods and cleaner native environments. No more industrial waste. No more repairing stuff. Consumption kicked into a new gear with goods that were cheap and clean and disposable. This was a good thing. I think? It was initially. I worry that consumption in this country is a galloping horse. But it also destroyed some basic knowledge. Let me explain
When I went to Taiwan, I actually met the President of EVA Airlines and we toured a few facilities. I stayed with his family and we saw a lot of the country. But when we walked down the streets of Taipei, he took me to a Japanese dollar store. I was flummoxed – I’ve been to American versions but they were full of Chinese and Mexican goods. Here were honest-to-god Japanese goods, sold for a dollar or less. Mr. Chang explained to me ball-bearing manufacturing in that store, and why the Japanese industrial philosophy that if you can’t make better ball-bearings you can’t innovate jet engines. America lost all its ball-bearing knowledge generations ago. The dirty secret of Tesla is that they’re originally Toyota’s factories. The iPhone is assembled here. Things are IKEA’d here.
That was fine for a while. We still had the knowledge and a healthy level of the manufacturing know-how. We optimized, automated more, stretched every link in the supply chain to make these cheaper. The American worker couldn’t afford a home, but they got great perks at Google and DVDs. Sure, you’re sleeping in the Google Parking lot making $110,000 salary, but why do you need a home? You have Google – where your friends, work, play, food, shower, exercise, community was. But how is that not the definition of a company town or a work camp? How is that a satisfying substitute for something attainable in living memory? Perhaps it was for a period of time.
In the meantime the Democrats (also all the Bulwark Republicans like Romney) knew the shifting global environments meant that a re-alignment was needed. There needed to be a re-focus on domestic policy – the errant adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq left American soldiers bloodied and battled-tested with new technologies, but also left a war-weary and ever-expanding Broken base of veterans. Oddly enough, alongside the blue-collared workers, the military wanted to focus on domestic affairs, especially since Oxycotin and drug cartels were ripping through their communities. Then Covid happened, and our first responders agreed on a domestic-first agenda – they were fatigued and shook by the supply chain issues. Where were their med supplies?! The LGBTQ were showcased constantly, but when the Marriage Equality act passed on the notion “we’re just like you”, but then elevated on some pedestal for display and accolades that were somewhat earned, but constantly scrutinized even (I believe) in the hearts of the recipients.
Part of the problem with low-Elite is the attempt to create a High Language of etiquette, which is loyalty test and a commitment to the cause. If you could change someone’s language to make it inscrutable, then leverage your credentials, and broadcast the message on all media forms from Disney to television news to award shows, you can confuse and frustrate any critics for not being educated. This was a good technic to stall out conversations or sideline earnest but plain-spoken commentary. What I would give for Martin Luther to be alive right now. He’d be apoplectic like I am.
This is something that never really played well in professional services. There was so much excess money that frivolous events and perks were invented, but very little was fairly distributed. Programs like DEI took hold, and suddenly professionals with decades of experience were getting passed over with those who had lived experience or a specific perspective, which may or may not impact the business. What does a social cause have to do with a corporation? For a corporation it’s merely a flavor of the week and a tax write-off. I don’t discount B-Corps whatsoever, but those are exceptions to the rule. What does a social cause have to do with a corporation – they’re usually diametrically opposed because social causes usually are worker causes. The Civil Rights movement ultimately won (in my opinion) only when the unions integrated to bolster membership. Thanks Hoffa! An accounting firm or a law firm doesn’t have a stake in eco-friendly policies or an opinion on medical procedures beyond their industry’s impact to those policies. Everything else is fungible. This goes hard for tech bros and influencers – they just comment, jeer, opine, question, champion. They don’t need to have a stake in anything beyond their audience and in fact don’t want one. It’s easier to ride a tide of people’s sentiment and as it shifts, you shift with it.
In any case, we now have many front-line workers aligned around domestic polices. From nurses to police, blue collared workers everywhere to accountants, tech bros and veterans. Sounding like a lot of the Joe Rogan audience base.
What about the migrants? Why are these groups also a domestic-policy forward group that eschews Progressives? It’s because a deeper, more-shameful truth – the US government was purposely toppling governments (like Venezuala and Honduras) to engender a migration flow into the US to restore a worker-base that was needed for Biden’s re-industrialization policy. They’re not wrong, just mean: listen to Mike Rowe and he’ll list out all the unfilled jobs. Look at your roads and bridges. We need people. But what the Democrats were doing was playing a very difficult game – get as many migrants here as quickly as possible to re-industrialize without ticking off their blue-collared/migrant base. The government always tries to do multiple things at once – we were getting them here, settling them haphazardly, communicating to the public a narrative that was inaccurate (is it fair to say that? Can I say inaccurate?) and then sporadically tamping down civil unrest that followed. These new peoples were getting benefits most Americans never received in their lives of paying taxes.
The ultimate manifestation of the sin is that the migrant crisis is a reverse underground railroad: funneling marginalized groups into a country, being wholly reliant on State resources for housing and services. Citizenship is the carrot dangled, but if you ask my old friend Edgar – he’s been here 40 years and he still isn’t legal. To make a group that wholly dependent on the State, where you can be deported at a whim or as a show-piece for some group, that is the sin. There’s no way a group can advocate for themselves, and the only ones that would were Progressives. They were herded into a system which had values that did not match their own, stalled in their pursuit of the American dream, and victimized. Your jailor was your friend was your evictor. It was too many narratives to spin at once. Also, no hablas espanol for much of the Progressives, creating more barriers.
So we have an ever-dwindling Progressive/Dem/Rump Republican unity base that offers no real solutions. They can’t promise much and they’ll lead nowhere because they’ve purged themselves of all strong leaders and independent thinkers. Whats left has been are the self-censored and the true-believers in the High Language etiquette. There’s no where left to evolve with their social movements – anything attempted becomes more and more trite to an ever-exhausted public that just wants to buy a house and get on a plane safely.
