🆙 Countering 'neopopulism' with Up Wing techno-optimism

Down Wing thinking by any other name is just as anti-progress

May 27, 2024

Here are two stories worth reading, both of which inform today’s essay::

“A New Centrism Is Rising in Washington: Call it neopopulism: a bipartisan attitude that mistrusts the free-market ethos instead of embracing it.” - David Leonhardt, The New York Times
“Trump-allied Republicans are changing the GOP’s approach to labor, free markets and regulation” - Eamon Javers, CNBC

Each piece tries to get a handle on the changing nature of American politics. Specifically: the rise of the market-skeptical populist right, and how it’s transforming Republican economic policy, including an embrace of trade protectionism and industrial policy. As Javers writes:

The effort underway to define a new, conservative economic policy for the age of Trump is driven in part by a changing understanding of who conservatives are – and what kind of policy they actually care about. Leading this change is a cadre of economic populists who reject the political bargain that created the modern Republican Party in America: The marriage of conservative social policy that appeals to rural and evangelical voters with low-tax, laissez-faire economic policy beloved by corporate boardrooms.

This shift means new opportunities for Republicans to work with market-skeptical populists on the left. On issues such as trade, antitrust, industrial policy, and — increasingly, perhaps — immigration, what Leonhardt terms the “neopopulist” Rs and Ds can find common ground. That bipartisanship is why Leonhardt also calls these “neopopulists” the “new centrists.” From his piece:

Trump’s heresy on trade and government intervention has made it easier for other Republicans to moderate their own positions. … “Until they’re ready to say no on $2 trillion of tax cuts, I don’t see them as economic populists,” Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts told me, referring to Trump’s original tax cut. “But it is true that there are now some Republicans who are willing to question the deregulated markets that have ripped off consumers for decades.” …Warren herself has worked with Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, on legislation that would force airlines to reimburse passengers for canceled flights and with Senator Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, on a bill to regulate cryptocurrency. Another neopopulist moment occurred in February when Senator J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican, praised Lina Khan, the antimonopoly crusader whom Biden appointed to run the Federal Trade Commission, for “doing a pretty good job.” Vance is a right-wing Republican whom Trump is considering as his 2024 running mate, while Khan is among the progressive stalwarts of the Biden administration. Yet Vance chose Khan as the one member of the administration he was willing to praise.

What both pieces are discussing, essentially, is the modern American version of a 20th century European phenomenon that French philosopher Jean-Pierre Faye in the 1990s explained through his “horseshoe” theory. Faye suggested that the far-left and far-right of the political spectrum are more similar to each other than they are to the center. (This concept is visually depicted as a horseshoe rather than a straight line; the ends of the spectrum — extreme left and right — are closer to each other, like the ends of a horseshoe than to the moderate, centrist point of the line.)

Faye aimed to illustrate how extreme ideologies, whether from the far left or far-right, can end up resembling each other in their tactics and authoritarian impulses. That, despite having fundamentally different goals and values. For instance: Both European fascists and communists tended to suppress dissent, centralize power, and bypass normal legal processes. Both also pursued radical, utopian goals that envisioned a complete overhaul of society based on their ideological views, which they believe justify extreme measures.

To be clear: I’m not saying that the populist parts of the Democratic and Republican parties are communists or fascists. Rather, I’m merely pointing out that in some important ways, they have more in common than you might think. That’s the point being made by David Leonhardt.

The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised

Some thoughts on all this from my pro-progress, conservative futurist, Up Wing perspective:

First, Leonhardt uses the tag “neopopulists” because their views are broadly popular with the American public. But that sort of redefinition is both distracting and unnecessary when there already exists a perfectly serviceable and applicable definition: an ideology that appeals to the general public by emphasizing their supposedly special virtues and wisdom in contrast to a perceived corrupt or elitist establishment. Indeed, the neopopulists of the left and right are skeptical of Corporate America, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the US military, and the Federal Reserve. These neopopulists are also alike in their skepticism toward mainstream economics across a range of issues including government debt, inflation, and the downsides of government intervention.

Second, Leonhardt calls neopopulism the “new centrism” because the two sides are working together on some issues, and, again, those issues are popular with voters. This is a reinterpretation of the traditional American left versus right spectrum, with deeply market-skeptical and interventionist neopopulism replacing market-enthusiastic “neoliberalism” in the broad middle. I think this shows the limits of the left-right spectrum and the advantage of the four-quadrant political compass. The latter measures political ideology along two independent axes: economic (left moving righward, with decreasing government intervention) and social (up moving downward, with decreasing government control). The economic axis represents one's view on how the economy should be managed, with the left favoring more government control and the right favoring less. As the GOP becomes more populist, it moves clearly leftward on the economic axis.

Third, American populism of the left and right also has plenty in common with the Latin American populism examined in the 1991 paper "The Macroeconomics of Populism" by Rudiger Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards. The economists find that populists take power when a country is deeply dissatisfied with the economy's performance, and a populist savior emerges, one whose ideas ignore the existence of any type of fiscal constraints on economic policy. In Latin America, the results are typically high inflation, shortages, capital flight, and recession. One obvious similarity with American populism is when politicians here disregard the deficits and debt and eagerly embrace novel economic theories, such as Modern Monetary Theory, that suggest they are right to do so.

Fourth, the neopopulism framing obscures deeper differences. Take the issue of industrial policy, where the government intervenes through various policy levers, such as tariffs and subsidies, to support specific sectors. Specifically, let’s look at the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which aims to strengthen American semiconductor manufacturing, research, and development. You can support it for various reasons, including a combo of the: fear that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would disrupt the global supply of advanced chips, a general desire to reshore high-end manufacturing and the jobs that go with it, a political impulse to direct investment and jobs to economic “left behind” regions, especially in electorally important “swing states. Some of those reasons are sounder, policywise, than others.development. You can support it for various reasons, including a combo of the: fear that a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would disrupt the global supply of advanced chips, a general desire to reshore high-end manufacturing and the jobs that go with it, direct investment and jobs to economic “left behind” regions, especially if electorally important “swing states. Some of those reasons are sounder, policywise, than others.

Fifth, given the limits of the two-dimensional, left-right spectrum, you can see why I prefer my own four-quadrant framing: Up Wing versus Down Wing, as opposed to just Left Wing and Right Wing. As I write in The Conservative Futurist, Up Wing advocates economic openness and a proactive stance on innovation. Up Wingers believe that rapid technological progress and economic growth are key to higher incomes, more opportunities, and improved living standards. Up Wingers favor reducing barriers to progress and see the economic benefits of increased connectivity and a larger, more dynamic market.

Conversely, Down Wing proponents are more cautious. They view rapid economic and technological changes skeptically, often advocating for stringent regulations to mitigate potential negative impacts on everyday life and the environment. Pause all AI! Down Wingers are more likely to support protectionist policies and resist deregulation, emphasizing safety and stability over rapid progress and growth.

In the Conservative Futurist, I imagine two new parties: The Up Wing party is the Progress and Prosperity Party, symbolized by a spritely unicorn. It comprises the center-right and center-left of the former Democratic and Republican parties. Inspired by Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton, the P&P favors economic openness, liberal trade, and immigration policies. They advocate for the "proactive principle," encouraging innovation despite uncertain consequences. P&P supporters, typically better educated, are found in denser suburbs, cities, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley, pushing for rapid AI advancement.

Then there’s the Down Wing facing Progressive Populist Party, symbolized by a dour two-headed eagle, consisting of further left and right voters who previously supported Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Drawing inspiration from Andrew Jackson, they oppose disruption from open trade and the impact of immigration on native worker wages. ProPops push for taxes on AI and robots to stem job loss and advocate for banning research that could lead to artificial general intelligence. Their policy ideas prioritize safety over technological innovation or economic disruption.

Now, I don’t expect this scenario to happen. But just as the neopopulists work together, the Up Wingers on the left and right need to work together to push for broadly liberal, economically open, and pro-market, pro-innovation policies, such as increased federal R&D, environmental deregulation, and entitlement reform.

May 27Liked by James Pethokoukis

I would love for you to write about how increased federal R&D might be better targeted than the current methods of handing out federal money. We get some good stuff but we also get a lot of dross . What gets the money to the right places?

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Dan

Jun 6

As you acknowledge, what you discuss is not the big horseshoe of totalitarianism, and I guess that nested horseshoes could exist within a two-dimensional space, with populism as a less extreme curve. Having said that, it's more about political style than substance, and you could even have populist libertarians, as long as they talked the blustery sensationalist talk of a populist.

The old Nolan Chart has its limits, starting with its framing. For its writers, liberty defines both axis, but for others who it attempts to classify, it might be other values like equality or stability that matter. And even if you re-name aspects of it, there's still only two dimensions. Plenty of existing positions tease out those scales further. A free-market framework with a decent welfare safety net, for instance, or a permissive culture that lets you practice harmless traditional values in your own life.

One more thing, what is it with Americans assuming a two party system? If you can imagine reconfiguring those existing parties so drastically, you can also imagine several viable parties negotiating with each other, if ever that antiquated electoral system was brought into the present, let alone a possible future.

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