🚀 Can JD Vance make MAGA more pro-progress (and Up Wing)?
Light AI regulation is great, but so is liberal democracy.
What’s the consensus explanation for Donald Trump picking JD Vance as his running mate? The former American president sees the current and youthful US senator from Ohio — he turns 40 in August — as best able to carry on his MAGA, “America First” legacy.
Another question, then, and a possible answer: What explains why some high-profile folks in Silicon Valley — including Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen — have thrown their support to Trump and seem especially enthusiastic about Vance? After all, immigration and trade are pretty important to the American technology sector, and Trump 2.0 promises more restrictions on both. Additionally, Vance himself — in addition to supporting those trade and immigration limits — has been critical of Big Tech, praising the antitrust efforts of FTC Chair Lina Khan. So what’s the deal here?
Let’s start with Vance. The obvious, and I think correct, explanation is that Vance worked in Silicon Valley for about five years, including as a junior venture capitalist, and made connections with influential tech figures like Peter Thiel, David Sacks, and Elon Musk. Later, he founded his own VC firm, raising money from tech investors including Eric Schmidt, Andreessen, and Thiel. An appropriate analogy, maybe: When in the film Goodfellas, mobsters Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) were extremely happy about their pal Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) potentially becoming a "made man."
From Hill’s narration:
We were goodfellas. Wiseguys. But Jimmy and I could never be made because we had Irish blood. It didn't even matter that my mother was Sicilian. To become a member of a crew you've got to be one hundred percent Italian so they can trace all your relatives back to the old country. See, it's the highest honor they can give you. It means you belong to a family and crew. It means that nobody can fuck around with you. It also means you could fuck around with anybody just as long as they aren't also a member. It's like a license to steal. It's a license to do anything. As far as Jimmy was concerned with Tommy being made, it was like we were all being made. We would now have one of our own as a member.
Indeed, many of Vance’s tech supporters — including Thiel, Musk, and Sacks — are members of the "PayPal Mafia,” a group of former PayPal employees and founders who went on to found or invest in other successful tech companies. With Vance as veep, it’s like having one of their own in the White House and someday, perhaps, occupying the Oval Office (something Musk and Thiel, not being natural-born American, are ineligible for. So, again, the Goodfellas angle works).
What’s more, Vance has already expressed many views in sympathy with that group, especially the go-go effective accelerationists, Andreessen and Thiel. In a recent Senate hearing, according to the New York Times, Vance “accused Big Tech companies of predicting that AI could destroy humanity in order to solicit new regulations that only the largest companies could comply with.” He also strongly supports open-source AI, which may AI doomers loathe. And in an interview with NYT columnist Ross Douthat, Vance said, “there’s a lot you can do on the regulatory side — make building nuclear facilities easier, make building natural gas pipelines easier, make building housing easier — that doesn’t cost money and in fact brings in money.” All those views echo, particularly, the views of Andreessen as outlined in various viral essays such as “It’s Time to Build” and “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto.”
They also seem to be in sync with the 2024 Republican platform:
Republicans will slash Regulations that stifle Jobs, Freedom, Innovation and make everything more expensive. We will implement Transparency and Common Sense in rulemaking . . . We will repeal Joe Biden's dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology. In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing . . . Under Republican Leadership, the United States will create a robust Manufacturing Industry in Near Earth Orbit, send American Astronauts back to the Moon, and onward to Mars, and enhance partnerships with the rapidly expanding Commercial Space sector to revolutionize our ability to access, live in, and develop assets in Space.
I would also note that on immigration, the economic part of the platform focuses less on reducing immigration than on changing its composition in a way that techies might find acceptable: “Republicans will prioritize Merit-based immigration, ensuring those admitted to our Country contribute positively to our Society and Economy, and never become a drain on Public Resources. We will end Chain Migration, and put American Workers first!”
One can imagine a worse form of right-wing populism than one proposing the following: light regulation of AI, encouraging tech startups over incumbents, imposition of a high-skill bias on immigration, regulatory reform to enable abundant energy and more housing, trade policy that sees China as a geopolitical threat, and promotion of space commerce. Such views are in sync with much of the economic agenda laid out in my 2023 book, The Conservative Futurist. Yes, it would be a good thing if Vance played a role in nudging a possible second Trump term in that policy direction, especially when there are outspoken right-wing populist elements against some of those ideas, such as with AI, housing regulation, and even high-skill immigration.
The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised
“If America is to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, take full advantage of emerging tech from generative AI to CRISPR to reusable rockets, and launch itself into a shining tomorrow, it must again become a fully risk-taking, future-oriented society. It’s time for America to embrace the future confidently, act boldly, and take that giant leap forward.” - James Pethokoukis
Unfortunately, fundamental parts of MAGAnomics — even the Vance version — remain deeply at odds with an Up Wing agenda. Again, my core economic thesis concerns the concept of connection: A country’s economic power and prosperity is determined by the size and density of its interconnected networks, such as businesses, cities, governments, and educational institutions. The more complex and interconnected this system is — including connection to global trade, talent, and capital — the more prosperous and innovative the economy becomes. As such, barriers to connection, such as tariffs and immigration restriction, should be avoided.
In other words, Up Wing is drawbridge down, Down Wing is drawbridge up. On trade, Trump II would continue a move towards protectionism, exemplified by both Trump's trade war and tariffs and Biden's continuation of China tariffs and preparation of new ones on clean energy imports and Chinese EVs. These policies hurt US manufacturing and lead to retaliation from other countries, ultimately harming the economy. Globalization has been a massive positive for American and global prosperity. Deglobalization is a path away from both.
And how exactly do Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and deportation plans make America better able to compete in the coming global scramble for immigrants in a world of population decline? We need strivers of all sorts, and a more populous America.
Finally, a big part of my Up Wing vision concerns liberal democracy. The rise of populism and economic nationalism has aligned with growing skepticism toward liberal democracy. As economic liberalism — characterized by individual freedom, open markets, limited government, and global trade — weakens, so does respect for people's decisions. “If we devalue choices made in markets, why wouldn’t we devalue choices made at the ballot box?” writes my AEI colleague Michael Strain in a recent column.
Too much of what Vance says about American democracy is unsettling. This from the politics team at investment bank Piper Sandler:
Vance is a post-liberal when it comes to democratic norms and the rule of law, too. In the same interview referenced above, he defended the effort to install a Trump slate of electors in states that voted for Biden. When asked why he won’t condemn the effort to try to get Pence to reverse the election outcome, he said, “If the conservative response to this is to say ‘both sides are bad,’ and the liberal response to this is to say ‘it’s fine when my side does it, and it’s bad when the other side does it,’ the liberals will always win the argument in the country. I really don’t believe this is about some deep principle; this is about power.” He dismissed concerns about the impact using these kinds of tactics would have on the body politic.
He has called for firing thousands of federal workers who enjoy civil service protections and replacing them with Trump loyalists and ignoring court orders that would try to block this illegal maneuver. In a 2021 podcast, he said he would give this advice to Trump should he become president in 2025: “Fire every single mid-level bureaucrat, every civil servant in the administrative state. Replace them with our people and when the courts…stop you, you stand before the country, like Andrew Jackson did, and say ‘the chief justice has made his ruling now let him enforce it.’”
I look forward to a future of supersmart AI, CRISPR cures for cancer, and humanity extending across the Solar System. But I also want that future to be one of political freedom and choice built on the great liberal values at the heart of the American Way, values true American conservatives should want to, you know, conserve.
Micro Reads
▶ Business/ Economics
▶ Policy/Politics
Defining “Artificial Intelligence” in State Legislation: An Analysis of the Current Landscape - Now and Next
Trump Tax Cuts Worked, But Can America Afford Them? - Bberg Opinion
US senators call out Big Tech’s new approach to poaching talent, products from smaller AI startups - Politico
▶ AI/Digital
▶ Biotech/Health
"The Future is Going to Be Weird." Elon Musk Predicts Brain Chips Will Eventually Replace Phones - The Debrief
▶ Clean Energy/Climate
Why Is Musk Supporting EV Bashers Donald Trump and JD Vance? - Bberg Opinion
A Welfare Analysis of Policies Impacting Climate Change - Policy Impacts
▶ Robotics/AVs
▶ Space/Transportation
▶ Up Wing/Down Wing
▶ Substacks/Newsletters
What Would It Take to Recreate Bell Labs? - Construction Physics
Understanding the new Tech Right - Noahpinion
Defying Malthus - Risk & Progress
Trump's tariffs mean big opportunities for corruption - Slow Boring
Central Planners Love (And Need) Higher Taxes - The Dispatch
Towards a Sane Compromise on AI Part 1 - From the New World
Protecting Nature Because We Want To, Not Because We Have To - Breakthrough Journal
I agree with you James . The US’s “secret sauce” has historically been in its ability to take in immigrants from around the world and give them the freedom they need to prosper. Just look at how many companies were started by non-native-born Americans…
The MAGA crowd pays lip service to “merit-based” immigration but made no attempts to carry out any meaningful reforms in that direction in Trump’s first term. On the contrary, they made it harder to get H1-B visas, and even suggested ending spousal immigration (why immigrate at all if your spouse cannot).
The US is shooting itself in the foot if it closes the door to foreign talent.
Jackson's statement that ‘the chief justice has made his ruling now let him enforce it’ was supposedly in response to protecting Indian rights under US treaty in Georgia. The "Trail of Tears" followed when their rights were ignored. Vance is a smart guy and a lawyer - choosing this example for a quote seems bad.