The world according to David Brooks:
“Back in the seventies, when the government was run by Democrats, business was overregulated and overtaxed, and the people suffered. Fortunately, St. Ronald came to the rescue. Supported by his trusty sidekicks, St. Milton, St. William, and St. Margaret, they cut taxes and unleashed the power of capitalism. Freedom and prosperity reigned, and the people were happy.
But somehow it all went wrong. The left, with its secularism and relativism, was largely to blame, of course, but the capitalists lost their moral compass, too. Growth slowed, inequality soared, and communities withered. Today America is spiritually sick, and an inept, corrupt white nationalist is president as a result. I’m not sure how to fix that, but if I write about it enough, maybe someone will think of something.”
To which I say: LOL.
Do you remember Milton Friedman thundering about the moral responsibility of corporations? Do you recall Reagan banging on about the need for a strong safety net? What about all of those articles in the National Review that insisted we needed to protect the American worker from the effects of creative destruction? And everyone remembers Mrs. Thatcher’s quote about society prevailing over the individual, right?
Well, of course not–none of that happened. The libertarianism that Brooks decries was at the heart of Reagan/Thatcher ideology, and it was obvious from the beginning; you do, in fact, remember Gordon Gekko and “Wall Street.”
It gets worse. Sure, Reagan was an altogether more attractive figure than Trump. Yes, he was a small government idealist, and he traded more in hope than fear. Yes, he was willing to raise taxes, as well as cut them; it was his successors who turned tax cutting into a religion. Yes, he wanted to tear down walls, not build them. But Reaganism was Trumpism in embryo. It was Reagan who made the GOP the swaggering, tax cutting, socially reactionary party that it is today. It was Reagan who created the bargain that has been the foundation of the party for so many years: tax cuts and deregulation in exchange for reactionary judges and welfare cuts for “those people.” Gingrich, Ryan, Bush 43, and Trump all believed in the bargain, and it paid off at the ballot box, thanks mostly to the votes of the people in red states who are suffering today.
What we are seeing today is the convergence of many factors: the power of creative destruction, which is a feature, not a bug, of capitalism; the impacts of globalization and technological change; the advent of the internet and Fox News, which have damaged national unity; and the failure of the federal government, due mostly to the efforts of the GOP, to maintain an adequate welfare state for the benefit of the victims of economic evolution. Blue states, in general, have prospered, and levels of crime and divorce are down; it is only the areas that were left behind economically that have turned into the Brooks dystopia.
How does it get fixed? You start by throwing off tired Reaganite economic theories and making the welfare state more effective; the benefits of that will be felt mostly by red state residents, whether they appreciate it or not. One hopes that the debates within the Democratic Party over the next few years will move us in that direction.