Learn. Share. Evolve…

0:00:05 Hey, before we get started, I wanted to ask a small favor of you. Yes, you. We’re planning for
0:00:10 the future of the gray area and we want to hear from you. I want to hear from you. Tell me what’s
0:00:17 working, what’s not working, what you want to hear more of. Your feedback helps me and the whole TGA
0:00:24 team make a better show. So if you’d like to participate, visit voxmedia.com slash survey. Thanks.
0:00:31 Pop music and heavy metal may seem like unlikely bedfellows, but the UK band Sleep Token has stormed
0:00:37 the charts with their unique blend of metal, hip hop, reggaeton, and EDM. The masked and entirely
0:00:42 anonymous quartet are getting millions of listens and a plethora of haters who say they’re ruining
0:00:48 the genre. I’m musicologist Nate Sloan, co-host of Switched on Pop, Vulture’s music podcast. And in
0:00:53 this week’s episode, we’re asking, is metal the new pop? And if so, what happens when a niche genre
0:00:57 goes mainstream? Listen to Switched on Pop anywhere you get podcasts.
0:01:10 For decades, the American right has stayed on brand. The economy, low taxes, free markets,
0:01:17 deregulation. Those have been the buzzwords for more than half a century. But lately,
0:01:24 that conservative doctrine has started to be challenged. There’s a new wave of thinkers who
0:01:30 argue that Republicans have been wrong on the economy. And those challengers are coming from the right.
0:01:38 This new economic thinking, it’s not libertarian. It’s obviously not progressive. But it is a break
0:01:44 from what we’ve come to expect from the American right. The question is, is it for real?
0:01:50 I’m Sean Elling, and this is The Gray Area.
0:02:01 Today’s guest is Oren Kass. He’s the founder of the think tank American Compass and the editor of a
0:02:09 new book called The New Conservative. And he’s one of the most influential advocates of this right-wing
0:02:16 economic populism. Kass thinks the Republican Party has been too captive to corporate interest and market
0:02:24 fundamentalism. And he believes that conservatism needs a major reset, one that embraces tariffs and
0:02:32 American manufacturing, that empowers workers. It’s a conservatism that wants to re-ask a very simple
0:02:41 critical question. What is the economy for? Who is it for, really? It’s an ambitious project.
0:02:50 Whether the Republican Party is serious about it is a separate question. But Kass certainly is.
0:02:57 And his economic approach has the attention of some very prominent Republicans like J.D. Vance and Marco
0:03:01 Rubio Rubio. So I invited him on the show to hear what he had to say.
0:03:10 Oren Kass, welcome to the show.
0:03:11 Oh, thank you for having me.
0:03:19 I want to start with a quote from something you actually wrote in 2018, because I think it does
0:03:27 sum up what’s motivating your whole political project. You write,
0:03:32 our political economy has relied upon the insidious metaphor of the economic pie,
0:03:38 which measures success by the amount of GDP available to every American for consumption.
0:03:42 But the things America thought she wanted have not made her happy.
0:03:50 So let’s start there. What does that mean? What did we think we wanted? And why hasn’t it made us
0:03:51 happy?
0:03:57 Well, you’re very perceptive to start there. It’s funny, we were just putting together this
0:04:02 new book called The New Conservatives. That’s sort of an anthology of everything we’ve been doing at
0:04:07 American Compass over the last five years. And I actually went back and grabbed that essay and
0:04:13 made it a prologue to the book. Because exactly as you said, it is sort of a starting point,
0:04:22 certainly for the way I think about a lot of this. And I think in my mind, what we saw go wrong in our
0:04:31 economics and our politics is that we did come to think of sort of consumption as the end unto itself.
0:04:38 And, you know, to be clear, like, I love consumption as much as the next guy, I think. I’m not saying we
0:04:44 should go back and live in log cabins. But I think we assumed that as long as we were increasing
0:04:50 consumption, as long as material living standards were rising, everybody would be happy and we could
0:04:56 declare success. And it’s important to say in economics, from a formal perspective, that is, in fact, how our
0:05:01 economic models operate. Economists will tell you their assumption is that the goal of the economic
0:05:08 system is to maximize consumption. And so that’s where that economic pie metaphor comes from. And it’s
0:05:14 something that was so widely embraced across the political spectrum, across sort of the intellectual
0:05:19 spectrum, I would say, was this idea that as long as you’re growing the economy, you’re growing GDP,
0:05:25 you don’t really have to worry too much about what’s in the pie or where it’s coming from.
0:05:32 You can always sort of then chop it up and make sure everybody has lots of pie. And I think it’s
0:05:36 important to say that, and this is the point that we sort of got what we thought we wanted,
0:05:41 it’s important to say that that worked. That for all of the problems we have in this country,
0:05:46 if you’re only looking at material living standards, if you’re asking how much stuff
0:05:51 people have, how big their houses are, whether they’re air conditioned, even how much health care
0:05:59 they consume, really at every socioeconomic level, consumption is up. We did that. And yet I think
0:06:04 it’s also very obvious that that did not achieve what we were trying to achieve, that that did not
0:06:12 correspond to human flourishing, that that did not correspond to a strengthening economy over time,
0:06:17 that it certainly did not correspond to strengthening families and communities. And ultimately,
0:06:23 it didn’t correspond to a strong and healthy political system or democracy. And so there’s then
0:06:28 obviously a lot of to talk about in terms of, okay, well, why isn’t that right? Why did it go wrong?
0:06:34 What do you do about it? But as a starting point, I think it’s important to recognize how much sort of
0:06:38 debate or confusion there is still about that basic point. There are still a lot of people
0:06:44 right now, this month, looking around and writing about, hey, wait a minute, people have more stuff
0:06:49 than ever. This has been successful. It makes no sense that anybody’s upset.
0:06:54 So just to be as clear as possible, when you say we didn’t achieve what we wanted to achieve,
0:07:01 you mean it didn’t make us happy. It didn’t allow us to live flourishing, fulfilling lives.
0:07:08 That’s right. And I think, you know, I don’t love the term happy. I think a lot of happiness studies
0:07:16 kind of get very sloppy very quickly. I do think, though, that there is a way in which we can define
0:07:22 the ends that we’re trying to achieve. And, you know, I think there’s an interesting sort of element
0:07:28 of disagreement within our politics that’s quite natural and healthy. It is contested what are the
0:07:34 ends that we’re trying to achieve. But to the extent that we can agree on certain basic things,
0:07:42 like I think we probably want to see a situation where, you know, people are building lives that allow
0:07:48 them to support themselves and their families, that provide a stable environment for raising kids who
0:07:54 are then able to go on and do those same things, that we see their health improving, that we see life
0:08:01 expectancy rising, that, you know, ultimately in the macro economy, we see investment and innovation
0:08:09 growth and progress. You know, all of those things are very different from just how big is your TV.
0:08:14 And I think there was an assumption that it would just all be correlated. And you still see this point
0:08:20 being made that, well, you know, rising GDP is correlated with all these other things. So just focus on rising
0:08:26 GDP. And it’s certainly true, you’d rather be a rich country than a poor country. But there’s an awful
0:08:33 lot of texture and variation therein. And I think if you look at the trajectory that the United States
0:08:41 is on and has been for the last 20 or 25 years, what you see is sort of a real decline in a lot of
0:08:47 these capacities, whether you’re looking in economic terms at investment and growth and innovation and
0:08:53 productivity, or you’re looking in more social terms at families and communities and life expectancy.
0:09:00 And pretty much however you measure it, that rising consumption did not ultimately correspond with
0:09:05 the, with the actual ends that I think we, we, for the most part want to focus on.
0:09:14 That has definitely been the trajectory to use your word. And the strange thing for someone like me is
0:09:22 that American conservatism, certainly in my lifetime, has largely existed to reinforce the ideology
0:09:29 you’re rejecting here. And I’m happy to see that pivot. But why do you think the political right
0:09:36 has been blind for so long to the things you’re correctly, in my opinion, fighting for now?
0:09:44 I think there’s a very interesting pivot point that you see essentially around the time of the Reagan
0:09:50 revolution. And if you think about the coalition that Reagan assembled, it had these different elements.
0:09:58 It had the social conservatives, who I would say are sort of most closely aligned to a sort of
0:10:04 fundamentally conservative outlook on a lot of these questions. But then it brought to that also the
0:10:12 very libertarian free market folks on the economic side, and then also the kind of quite aggressive
0:10:18 interventionist foreign policy hawks. And what all these folks had in common was they really hated
0:10:25 communism and really wanted to win the Cold War, and saw that as sort of the existential crisis and tests.
0:10:31 But what happened partly as a result is that I think, you know, within that coalition, a very
0:10:37 libertarian free market mindset was then imposed on the economic policy of the right of center,
0:10:42 even where that was very much in tension with a lot of other conservative values.
0:10:47 And you saw people writing about that at the time from both sides. You know, from one side,
0:10:55 Friedrich Hayek, who is sort of one of the ultimate sort of carriers of this free market ideology.
0:11:01 He has a very famous essay that’s literally titled, Why I Am Not a Conservative, emphasizing that his,
0:11:08 you know, what he calls faith in markets to sort of solve problems and self-regulate was very much at
0:11:13 odds with how conservatives looked at the world. And from the flip side, you had a lot of conservatives,
0:11:20 folks like, you know, Roger Scruton and Yuval Levin more recently, pointing out the ways that,
0:11:26 you know, certainly conservatives like markets. They prefer markets as a way of ordering the economy to
0:11:33 other options. But recognizing that markets are very much in tension with other values like family and
0:11:39 community. And in some cases, markets even actively can undermine or erode the strength of those other
0:11:45 institutions. Markets are also dependent on institutions. If you want markets to work well,
0:11:52 you actually need constraints. You need institutional supports. And so that tension was always present.
0:11:58 I think the coalition made a lot of sense in the context of winning the Cold War. It made a lot of
0:12:03 sense in a context where markets, you know, in the middle to late 20th century really did seem to be
0:12:08 delivering on a lot of the things that conservatives really cared about. But then I think that it sort
0:12:16 of reached its expiration date and just kind of lived on by inertia into the 2000s, into this era of kind of
0:12:23 radical embrace of free trade, even with communist China, and cutting taxes even in the face of big
0:12:31 deficits. In what sense is this vision of yours conservative? Because I can imagine a skeptical
0:12:38 leftist listening to this or reading your work and thinking, this is just a rebranded democratic
0:12:42 socialism. Like, why is that wrong? What is that missing?
0:12:49 Well, I think there’s a real disconnect both on the ends and on the means.
0:12:56 I think there’s a very healthy contestation over what are the appropriate ends that we’re actually
0:13:02 building toward. And I think what you’re seeing conservatives now coming back to finally actually
0:13:09 articulating a lot more effectively is a set of actual value judgments about what we do think the
0:13:14 good life consists of, what we do think is necessary for human flourishing in a way that libertarians
0:13:19 are entirely unwilling to, right? For libertarians, it’s sort of liberty in the market are the end unto
0:13:26 itself and whatever comes out of that, nothing else to say about it. I think if you look at,
0:13:33 you know, certainly my own view and what you see conservatives focusing on, I think there is a set of value
0:13:41 judgments and preferences for, you know, in many respects, quite traditional formations at the family level,
0:13:48 at the community level saying that, you know, it is not merely a value neutral choice. Would you rather,
0:13:53 you know, get married and have kids or spend more money on vacations in Greece? That it is actually
0:13:59 appropriate and necessary for the good society to say, no, no, one of these things is better than the other
0:14:10 you know, you know, I think at the national level, you’re also seeing the, it in, in what is a much
0:14:16 more robust nationalism on, on the right of center, where I think conservatives recognize the, the
0:14:23 importance of the nation and, and sort of solidarity within the nation to functioning markets, to a
0:14:29 functioning society, uh, in a way that at least the modern left tends, tends to resist in a lot of cases.
0:14:36 Well, look, I mean, I’m certainly not here to speak for the political left. My own, my own, my own views
0:14:43 are, I think, a little more complicated than, than, you know, neat distinctions will allow for, but, and part of the
0:14:49 issue here, right, is there is no monolithic left or monolithic right, right? I mean, it’s, it’s not as though it’s that,
0:14:56 it’s that, it’s that neat. Um, but I, I, I would say that I think there’s a deep tradition of left-wing
0:15:03 thought that prioritizes community and connection and advocates for justice and fairness precisely
0:15:10 because it promotes social stability. Uh, and this is indeed a major leftist criticism of right-wing
0:15:18 libertarianism. Um, I, I think there is more overlap on some of these ends than you might, uh, than you might think, or, or, or, or than,
0:15:21 or, or, or than what your comments might imply.
0:15:27 Look, I certainly don’t disagree that there’s, there’s overlap. Um, and, and I think even if you
0:15:32 sort of think of the, a prior version of, of the right and left, you could say the same thing. Well,
0:15:39 you know, everybody is sort of focusing on growth and, and prosperity and, and so forth. There’s,
0:15:45 there’s always plenty of overlap, and, and it’s a good thing that there’s agreement. Um, you, you wouldn’t
0:15:51 want to have sort of two political traditions that literally aren’t, aren’t agreeing on or speaking to
0:15:57 each other about anything at all. But I, I do think to sort of answer the question that you, you started
0:16:03 with, there are very distinct trade-offs and, and points of conflict between these world views.
0:16:09 And again, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think you want to have different perspectives. But,
0:16:14 you know, when I hear people sort of ask like, well, how are the things you’re talking about? Not just what
0:16:21 the, what the left wants. I think the answer is, well, there’s, there’s clearly quite a lot of space
0:16:27 between the things we’re talking about and, and certainly what the modern political left is, uh,
0:16:32 is spending its time on. And then I think the, the other piece is that then I think you see a lot of
0:16:40 distinction in, in terms of the means and, and the kinds of, of policy approaches that, uh, conservatives
0:16:46 are more inclined to partly based on sort of their view of, of what is and is not likely to work and partly
0:16:53 based on, uh, sort of principles around the, the role of government and so forth. And, you know,
0:16:57 the, the way I always put it is that I think if, if you, if you imagine the libertarians as the group
0:17:02 that are kind of just trusting the market and, and assuming that, well, whatever the market delivers
0:17:08 is going to work, I think what my perception certainly is that you are tend to hear from the
0:17:15 left is much more a skepticism that markets can work, that, that markets can do these things or should
0:17:23 do these things and, and therefore a preference for, um, a, a much larger role for the state in, in,
0:17:27 in addressing these various challenges and solving these problems. And it seems to me that the,
0:17:32 the conservative view is, is more one that, you know, markets are not going to of their own accord
0:17:39 automatically do all of these things, but, but that markets properly constrained and, and channeled can
0:17:45 do a lot of them and, and that there are a lot of reasons we prefer market-based solutions, uh, to
0:17:50 state-based solutions. And so as we think about trying to address a lot of these problems, we’re
0:17:55 much more inclined to ask, okay, you know, what would it take? What institutions, what constraints do we
0:18:01 need? And so I think as a result, you’re seeing now in the kinds of things conservatives are focused on,
0:18:10 somewhat kind of counterintuitively, a lot more interventions in the market intended to hopefully
0:18:16 get markets doing the kinds of things we want to see them doing, whereas I think the agenda from the
0:18:22 left tends much more to be about what are the things that, that the, the state is going to do essentially
0:18:28 because the market will not. Yeah. I mean, I, I, look, there’s certainly a contingent on the left that just
0:18:33 says capitalism is bad as though that’s an answer to all our problems. I’m not one of those people.
0:18:37 Um, but I, you know, I do think there’s a tendency to speak about capitalism as though
0:18:44 it’s just an economic system when in fact, it’s also an ideology. It’s also a political morality
0:18:48 with its own values. And, you know, we can value family and community and these sorts of things, but
0:18:55 capitalism values profit and expansion and competition. And these sets of values are often in conflict.
0:18:59 And, you know, the, the position of a lot of people on the left is not all that different from yours,
0:19:05 which is the market itself isn’t the problem. The unfettered market is the problem. There needs to be
0:19:10 guardrails. Um, and that, you know, that role is best filled by the state, but that seems to be your
0:19:16 position. No? Well, so, you know, I think it’s maybe helpful to kind of get concrete and think about
0:19:22 different kind of policy areas and what the implications of it would be. I think, you know,
0:19:27 one really clear example is when we think about, you know, okay, to the extent that we’ve seen
0:19:32 really significant wage stagnation for, for, you know, the median worker, for the working class,
0:19:38 you know, what are the solutions to that problem? What are the sources of that problem?
0:19:46 And I do think it’s fair to say that a lot of the folks on the left, certainly the, what, what I hear
0:19:51 them saying as a critique is essentially that, well, this is what capitalism does. Capitalism
0:20:01 generates sort of returns for capital and, um, in many ways is, is designed and intended to,
0:20:09 um, either outright exploit labor or certainly leave labor in a weakened position. Uh, and–
0:20:14 Well, that is what it does. No? I mean, I don’t want to get too far afield here.
0:20:18 No, this is perfect. You’re making my point for me that, that you just take for granted. Well,
0:20:23 of course that’s the case. And it seems to me that that’s not the case at all. That, that capitalism
0:20:33 in, in the abstract is a system that works only if both labor and capital are working productively. And
0:20:39 the extent to which either benefits or doesn’t, it seems to me, is a function of the relative power that
0:20:47 they have within that market. Uh, and if you have a situation where capital is, is highly dependent on,
0:20:59 uh, labor to generate profit and, uh, workers have power to demand better conditions. And in fact, the, the
0:21:03 strategy that is going to generate the most profit is one that requires actually investing on, in
0:21:08 workers and improving their productivity, it seems to me you can, you can have a, a very productive
0:21:14 system that, that works out very well for workers as well. I mean, there are many different ways to
0:21:21 do capitalism, right? Um, in the right system with, with the right guardrails, it’s clearly the most
0:21:25 successful economic system invented in the history of the species. I, I wouldn’t deny that at all, which
0:21:30 is why I’m not a let’s abolish capitalism person. I’m not that at all. Just to be clear.
0:21:35 No. And, and I don’t think most people certainly on the American left are let’s abolish capitalism
0:21:45 people. I do think they tend to, uh, assume that capitalism as operating in the market is not going to
0:21:51 generate especially good outcomes for workers. And that the way to address that therefore is, for instance,
0:21:58 through more taxation and redistribution. Um, and I think one problem certainly with, with the left in
0:22:05 America today is that there are just a number of other values that are placed above outcomes for
0:22:12 workers. Uh, obviously the importance of addressing climate change gets much higher priority. Um, the
0:22:18 approach to immigration and frankly, a refusal to enforce immigration law has taken much higher
0:22:25 priority. Um, I think, you know, at, at this point, certainly in the way that we operate our education
0:22:31 system and put it basically all of our eggs on the, on the traditional higher education basket
0:22:38 has the same effect. And so, you know, I, I think at the end of the day, politics on all sides,
0:22:43 it comes down to trade-offs. I think it’s very easy to sort of declare that we like all the good
0:22:50 things and don’t like all the bad things, but what our politics comes down to is how we weigh those
0:22:56 different values and what trade-offs we’re willing to accept. And I think what you’re seeing today is
0:23:00 that conservatives, where certainly they have not done a good job of this in the past,
0:23:06 are starting to lean much further into asking what can we do that are going to boost the prospects
0:23:14 for workers that are going to boost, um, the, the prospects for, for family formation at the expense
0:23:19 of other things we might like too. Whereas on the left, I just, I, well, frankly, and I think this is
0:23:25 very obvious, certainly in the rhetoric of the democratic party, uh, there is, there is another set of
0:23:28 things that, that tends to command top priority.
0:23:44 Support for the gray area comes from Quince. It’s summertime, and that means it’s time to relax.
0:23:50 Unless you’re spending all your money on clothes that don’t last. Don’t worry, Quince has got your back.
0:23:54 Quince says they have all the things you actually want to wear this summer.
0:24:00 Like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work
0:24:06 for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. Quince offers premium items at an affordable price.
0:24:10 Whatever you’re looking for, Quince says that all of their items are priced 50 to 80 percent
0:24:16 less than similar brands. They say they’re able to do that by partnering directly with top factories.
0:24:21 And of course, they use premium fabrics and finishes, so every item feels like a nice luxury item.
0:24:26 Claire White is our colleague here at Vox, and she’s tried Quince herself.
0:24:32 “I received from Quince the Italian leather pouch travel set. They’re beautiful pieces. The leather
0:24:40 is incredibly soft, and they fit so much stuff. The leather is beautiful, and I know that they’ll be
0:24:47 a staple in my travel wardrobe for years.” You can stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from
0:24:54 Quince. Go to quince.com/grayarea for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns.
0:25:10 “Quince.com/grayarea”
0:25:15 Support for the show comes from Shopify. Starting a business is all about turning your ideas
0:25:22 into reality. And to see it through, you need the right tools. Tools like Shopify. Shopify is a commerce
0:25:29 platform behind millions of businesses around the world. And, they say, 10 percent of all e-commerce
0:25:35 in the U.S. From household names like Mattel and Gymshark, to brands just getting started,
0:25:41 like Dr. Sean Elling’s drillings and fillings. And the gray area sole patch dye for hip cats who want
0:25:47 to look as young as they feel. Shopify’s design studio lets you build a big, beautiful online
0:25:54 store that matches your brand style. You can also use their AI tools to step up your content creation.
0:25:59 Plus, you can easily create email and social media campaigns to meet your customers wherever they are.
0:26:04 If you’re ready to sell, you can be ready for Shopify. You can turn your big business idea
0:26:10 into reality with Shopify on your side. You can sign up for your $1 per month trial period
0:26:22 and start selling today at Shopify.com/Vox. Go to Shopify.com/Vox. Shopify.com/Vox.
0:26:29 Support for the gray area comes from Greenlight. Do you remember when your parents sat you down for
0:26:36 the talk? Not that talk. Come on now. The other one. About money. If so, you probably know that
0:26:43 teaching financial literacy to kids is tricky, but it’s important. And if you’d like to give your kids
0:26:49 a little bit more guidance than you got growing up, you might want to try Greenlight. Greenlight is a
0:26:55 debit card and money app made for families that helps kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely.
0:27:01 Parents can use it to send money to their kids and to keep an eye on kids spending and saving. Meanwhile,
0:27:08 kids and teens can build lifelong financial skills in a fun, accessible way. You can also set up one-time or
0:27:14 recurring chores that reward kids with allowance for a job well done. My kid is too young for Greenlight,
0:27:19 Greenlight, but I know a colleague who uses it with his own kids and he loves it. Start your risk-free
0:27:26 Greenlight trial today at Greenlight.com/grayarea. That’s Greenlight.com/grayarea to get started.
0:27:35 Greenlight.com/grayarea.
0:27:51 Well, let’s move away from this a little bit, because I’m not a member of the Democratic Party,
0:27:56 and I’m also not a representative or spokesman for the left, and I don’t want to get too bogged down on
0:28:04 some of these things. Because I actually think the contestation between some of these value judgments
0:28:08 is, I think, a big sticking point. And I want to get there. And I think the best way to get there
0:28:19 is to talk about what your conservative alternative actually looks like, what you want to do differently.
0:28:22 Now that we have the diagnosis, right? This is the problem. These are the problems you’re reacting
0:28:28 against. What is it that you want to do to fix this? What does your conservative project look like?
0:28:35 Well, there are lots of things. And I think, you know, generally speaking, when we think about it,
0:28:41 we break it into kind of two big buckets. One that is focused on a lot of these broader macroeconomic
0:28:48 issues. You know, how is the economy functioning? What are the incentives in markets? And then the other
0:28:54 one is the much more kind of microeconomic issues that are focused much more on, you know, what are the
0:29:00 supporting institutions that are helping people to succeed in these markets? And so I guess, you know,
0:29:06 we can talk through both of them. If I were to start on kind of the market side and the question
0:29:12 of sort of how do we actually get back to productive markets, where we start from certainly is, and I’m
0:29:17 going all the way back to Adam Smith, and he has this concept of the invisible hand. And it’s, I think,
0:29:23 actually a very unfortunate metaphor because it sounds magical, right? Like, oh, an invisible hand,
0:29:27 that, that sounds like, like, just, that takes care of everything. And if you actually look,
0:29:33 he only uses the term once in The Wealth of Nations. He uses the term once, and he uses it in a paragraph
0:29:40 that actually is about all of the requirements. If, what you need, if you want the invisible hand to work.
0:29:44 And, and what he says is, first of all, you need people, he’s assuming that, that people are going to
0:29:49 prefer domestic to foreign investment. And he’s assuming that the thing that is going to generate
0:29:57 the most profit is expanding output and employing as many people as possible. And his point is,
0:30:03 if those two things are true, if people who are trying to make a lot of money, A, want to do that
0:30:10 domestically, and B, want to do that by investing in growth and employment, then people pursuing their
0:30:18 own interest will also advance the public interest. It’s, I think that’s true, but it’s, it’s not magic.
0:30:25 It’s almost a truism. And what it gives you, I think, is still, even today, a very helpful roadmap to
0:30:32 thinking about markets, which is to recognize that the whole project here is to align private and public
0:30:37 incentives. And if the things that are going to earn people a lot of money are also things that are going to be
0:30:42 good for workers, good for the country, then the system will work really well. And so the question is,
0:30:44 what are the policies you need?
0:30:49 I totally agree with that. If I’m a leftist, I’m an Adam Smith leftist. I think the theory of moral
0:30:52 sentiments is just as important a book as the wealth of nations.
0:30:57 Right. But well, to be clear, and like, also love the theory of moral sentiments. This is even just
0:31:03 within the wealth of nations. This is what he’s actually talking about. And so I think it’s then very
0:31:08 straightforward to actually look out across the last, you know, 30 years and say, okay,
0:31:13 well, what are the ways that sort of broke? What are the ways that the ways to make a lot of money are
0:31:18 no longer the ways, you know, things that actually we think are going to be good for the economy,
0:31:23 good for workers, good for the nation? One obvious one in my mind is globalization,
0:31:29 that the moment we released the constraint on, there’s an advantage in investing domestically,
0:31:33 and said, actually, if there’s more money to be made shutting down your factory and opening one
0:31:39 in China, have at it. We entirely lose the right to expect that markets are actually going to deliver
0:31:47 on the things we care about. I think a second one is what we call financialization, which refers to just
0:31:53 the sort of metastasizing role that financial markets play in our economy. To be clear, financial
0:31:58 markets are very important. The idea of allocating capital efficiently is vital to capitalism,
0:32:03 obviously. But what our financial markets have become is sort of an end unto themselves, where
0:32:10 the most money to be made in our economy is made essentially trading piles of assets around in circles,
0:32:16 doing financial engineering, figuring out ways to get more cash out of existing operations,
0:32:24 ideally while cutting them down in a lot of cases. And so, again, if you say, well, the place where the
0:32:28 top students from the top business schools are going to go, and for that matter, the top engineering
0:32:34 students from the top engineering schools, is not to starting new businesses and creating new products
0:32:40 and making people more productive. It’s to starting hedge funds and seeing who can set up their office
0:32:46 closest to the trading floor to front-run each other by a millisecond in their trades, you lose the right
0:32:51 to expect that people pursuing profit is going to generate good outcomes to the economy. The third
0:32:56 area I would mention here is, and this is one where I think there’s certainly a lot of interesting overlap
0:33:02 with the left, is the idea of industrial policy. And just the recognition that the way that the economy
0:33:11 has evolved is one in which, generally speaking, sort of making big capital investments in physical assets
0:33:17 that take a long time to pay off, has become a lot less attractive than, like, raising venture capital
0:33:25 money to make an app. And the fact that there’s a higher return on capital making the app has no correlation
0:33:31 to which activity is actually more useful to the society. And so, if we actually think that making things
0:33:38 matters, if we want to do more manufacturing, if we want to have those kinds of jobs, you’re going to
0:33:46 have to have some sort of policy that actually either rewards that kind of investment or discourages
0:33:51 the other kind of investment. Well, this gets at a question I have, and I know it’s a question
0:33:55 a lot of people have. Because one thing you notice when you listen to a lot of economic populists on the
0:34:00 right is when they talk about the kind of world they want to live in, they usually point to that
0:34:06 mid-century economy where there were all these manufacturing jobs and that was the foundation
0:34:11 of the economy. But that world is gone. And I’m not saying there aren’t industrial policies that can
0:34:19 improve the situation, but we’re not going back to that world. We’re not undoing globalization. So it’s not
0:34:25 clear to me what the 21st century version of this economy looks like. What does it orbit around? We’re
0:34:29 talking about the world of AI and the internet. It’s a service economy. We’re not all going to be
0:34:34 working on assembly lines in Detroit or Cleveland, right? So what are we going to do?
0:34:40 Well, I feel like you sort of just strung together a lot of assertions there, some of which I agree with
0:34:48 entirely and some of which I don’t think follow at all. And so just to try to sort of untangle those a
0:34:52 little bit. Yeah, go for it. You’re certainly right that the modern economy and the economy of
0:34:58 the future is going to look very different from the economy of what is increasingly a century ago.
0:35:04 The kinds of jobs are going to be very different. It’s going to be a relatively more services-focused
0:35:13 economy. That doesn’t at all mean that there’s no undoing of globalization or certainly scaling back
0:35:20 the excesses of globalization. It doesn’t mean that we can’t have a much healthier industrial economy with
0:35:26 more of those kinds of good jobs. It doesn’t mean that those kinds of jobs aren’t still very important to
0:35:33 the foundation of local economies and the health of those service economies. So the reason that our
0:35:37 manufacturing sector has atrophied the way it is, is not because we’ve become a services-based
0:35:43 economy and people don’t want a lot more manufactured stuff. It’s because we embraced a policy approach
0:35:47 that said, well, we’re just not going to make the stuff. And the second reason this is really important
0:35:52 to focus on is because it’s really important to remember that the theory of globalization was not,
0:35:58 and the theory of trade generally, going all the way back to Adam Smith, is not we stop making
0:36:03 stuff, someone else makes the stuff instead. The theory is supposed to be, and this is
0:36:07 implicit right in the word trade, we will make some things that we are best at making and others
0:36:11 will make things that they are best making and we will trade the things we make best for the things
0:36:18 they make best. And if that had happened, and to the extent that that does happen, I think trade can
0:36:25 be fantastic. But what we’ve gotten instead and where globalization has gone wrong is this model that
0:36:32 simply says, we will not make any of the stuff. And by the way, we don’t get the stuff imported for free.
0:36:37 What we send back is assets. We send back the future claims on our economy in the form of debt,
0:36:42 in the form of equity, in the form of real estate. And so, you know, Warren Buffett made this point back
0:36:47 when we were first starting to do this in the early 2000s, that this was doubly foolish. We were both
0:36:55 hollowing out our capacity today and mortgaging the farm for the future. And so, you know, I’ve now
0:36:59 sort of gone on a bit in an attempt to kind of untangle the things you were saying, but I would
0:37:04 kind of play that back to you and say, like, is any part of that wrong? Does any part of that not
0:37:10 seem, you know, consistent with how you would think about it? Because if that is right, then the whole
0:37:15 like, well, we’re not going to reverse globalization, it’s a services economy, is just sort of a non sequitur.
0:37:19 It doesn’t speak to the problems we have or the solutions we have available.
0:37:21 No, I was just saying, I just don’t know what
0:37:26 that world is going to look like. I’m not saying that we can’t have a better economy without,
0:37:34 you know, recapitulating, you know, the economy of the 1950s and 60s or whatever. It’s just,
0:37:38 it’s just going to look very different. Oh, absolutely. But why, it doesn’t seem to me to be
0:37:44 hard to envision. I mean, we know all sorts of stuff that we make. We know stuff lots of other really
0:37:50 developed economies make. I mean, put China to the side as a sort of relative to the size of their
0:37:55 economy. We have almost as big a trade deficit with Germany, right? I mean, we see, you know,
0:38:02 in Germany, in Korea, Taiwan, we see, you know, highly developed economies with very high levels
0:38:09 of productivity, with very good jobs in their manufacturing sectors that don’t run massive
0:38:13 trade deficits, that in fact run trade surpluses. And I don’t think anybody’s saying, well, the U.S.
0:38:18 has to kind of become an export-led economy and, you know, run giant surpluses. The question is,
0:38:25 why can’t we at least fix that deficit? Why can’t we either make more of the stuff that we consume here
0:38:31 or be making stuff for export to trade for more of the stuff that we import? The burden of proof is
0:38:35 almost in the wrong place. The better question would be, why on earth isn’t that what’s happening?
0:38:37 And why shouldn’t that happen?
0:38:44 What is the price of that? How much pain do we have to suffer to bridge from this world to that world? I
0:38:52 mean, do you think that Americans simply need to consume fewer goods at higher prices so long as
0:38:57 those goods are made in America? I mean, do we just have to take a little bit of economic pain
0:39:04 as we undergo this transition? I do think there will be economic pain in the transition. And so
0:39:09 I don’t want to minimize that. And we can come back to what that looks like. I do think it’s important
0:39:16 to say that as a long-term matter, this is better. You know, one of the most shocking statistics that I
0:39:22 always highlight for folks is that it’s not just that productivity growth is slowing in manufacturing.
0:39:27 Productivity growth in our manufacturing sector has actually been negative for a decade. We’ve
0:39:33 we’ve literally been getting worse at making things. You need more American labor in a factory today
0:39:38 than you did a decade ago for comparable output. That shouldn’t be possible in a capitalist economy.
0:39:43 That’s crazy. And so the alternative, you know, people look at that and they say like, oh, well,
0:39:47 we’re really bad at manufacturing. If you like insisted on doing a lot of that, that would be really painful.
0:39:56 But that’s a bizarre static analysis. If we actually made this a priority and we’re investing in it and committing to
0:40:02 building that sector, that’s not what investment and productivity in the sector would look like at all.
0:40:10 And so I think we should have a lot of, you know, on one hand, confidence that a more balanced economy
0:40:17 would be a stronger one in the long run. And we should also be really focused on the costs that
0:40:23 we’re bearing now. Right? Because it’s not like, well, by doing things this way, everything’s awesome.
0:40:29 But by doing things this way, we do have a lot of cheap stuff. But I would suggest that that actually
0:40:34 it’s right now that the American people are bearing a lot of economic costs of bad choices.
0:40:38 Well, look, let me interject there a little bit, because I just want to be as concrete as possible.
0:40:44 I don’t want to talk about the economic pain in abstract terms. Like, what kind of pain are we
0:40:50 talking about? For how long? On whose shoulders will it fall? This element of sacrifice here,
0:40:55 right? If we’re going to ask people to give up certain conveniences, certain comforts,
0:41:01 certain privileges in some case, for the sake of some greater good. What is that greater good? What
0:41:10 is that shared purpose? The greater good and the shared purpose is a stronger economy that is on a
0:41:16 better trajectory and providing better opportunities for people to have good jobs that allow them to
0:41:24 support families. And that is distributing prosperity more widely across the country. In terms of the sort of
0:41:31 upfront cost that we’re asking to get there, I think there are a couple of things. I think one
0:41:38 is that in the short run, some things are going to be more expensive because we have lost the ability to
0:41:44 make them. And if we want to start making them again, we’re going to have to go through some growing
0:41:50 pains and figure out how to do that. And so I think, you know, what we are looking at is probably a
0:41:57 five to 10 year period in which we have some adjustment costs in the economy, where we have higher costs of
0:42:06 some things, where we’re needing to direct relatively more resources to actual investment. But that’s not
0:42:15 actually all that different from the kinds of economic choices we make all the time.
0:42:22 We’ll see you next time.
0:42:23 Are you crushing your bills?
0:42:29 Defeating your monthly payments. Sounds like you’re at the top of your financial game.
0:42:36 Rise to it with the BMO Eclipse Rise Visa Card, the credit card that rewards your good financial
0:42:42 habits. Earn points for paying your credit card bill in full and on time every month. Level up from
0:42:46 bill payer to reward slayer. Terms and conditions apply.
0:42:51 This week on Net Worth and Chill, I’m talking with comedian Nimesh Patel. From his days as an SNL
0:42:56 writer crafting jokes for television’s biggest stage to developing his own comedy specials,
0:43:00 he’s breaking down the business of funny money like nobody else can. How do you actually turn jokes
0:43:05 into cash? What’s the real hustle behind making people laugh for a living? Nimesh tells all on building
0:43:09 a comedy empire, navigating the entertainment industry and turning his wit into wealth.
0:43:15 Don’t quit your day job. There’s no freedom like financial freedom to pursue something that you
0:43:20 don’t know is going to have a return financially. Whether you’re an aspiring comedian or just curious
0:43:24 about the money side of making people laugh, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want
0:43:30 to miss. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or watch on youtube.com/yourrichbff.
0:43:51 If you’ll allow me to just get a little big picture for a second, you know, there is a pluralist critique
0:43:59 of this, right? And that critique is, maybe critique isn’t the right word. Maybe challenge is a better one.
0:44:06 But in a diverse liberal society, it is hard to build policy around a moral vision of, to use your phrase,
0:44:12 you know, the good life. Because people don’t agree on what that is. That’s sort of a foundational
0:44:19 premise of liberalism. You know, how seriously do you take those sorts of objections? Do you take
0:44:24 them seriously at all? You know, I guess what I’m really wondering, and I’m asking in the spirit of
0:44:29 curiosity, not skepticism, is if your political vision depends on a kind of cultural
0:44:36 cohesion that doesn’t exist, or maybe it did exist at some point, but no longer does.
0:44:46 I think as a descriptive matter, that’s exactly right. And in my mind actually speaks very articulately
0:44:52 to the point I was trying to make back at the start of the conversation about what I see as a real
0:44:59 distinction between where conservatives are right now and where progressives are. Conservatives believe
0:45:06 that, not just that it’s a good idea to have such a vision, but that it’s in fact indispensable. That it
0:45:13 is impossible to actually imagine you’re going to have a cohesive and functioning society where people
0:45:24 aren’t willing to debate and ultimately resolve those kinds of issues. I would dispute a little bit that
0:45:32 it’s inconsistent with pluralism. You know, one thing that’s interesting in my 2018 book, that place you
0:45:38 started with the working hypothesis was sort of based on the exact concept I described that I think we’re
0:45:45 trying to get to is what I call productive pluralism, which is a recognition that it’s incredibly important
0:45:51 for people to be able to play a productive and contributing role, not just for the society,
0:45:56 but for themselves. But that they’re going to have a lot of different ways they want to do that. They’re
0:46:00 going to have a lot of different aptitudes and abilities, and they’re going to be in a lot of different
0:46:06 places. And one of the things that the market unfettered does so poorly in its pursuit of efficiency
0:46:13 is it tends to crush that pluralism, and it tends to push towards specialization in particular functions,
0:46:19 and not take it all seriously the way that that does not align well with what people want. So I think
0:46:27 you can have a pluralist vision and recognize that people are going to want to fulfill their good life
0:46:34 in various ways, but actually have in fact that pluralism be a substantive commitment. Say that if you
0:46:41 want to have a healthy society, it has to be one that does provide lots of different pathways to a good
0:46:46 life, and that that’s exactly where we’re failing right now. And that if we want to support that pluralism,
0:46:53 we have to be willing to, in a sense, intervene in and shape markets to uphold it.
0:47:03 I take those points. Let me try to be a little more precise with what I was saying, because I’m with you on
0:47:12 this basic claim that libertarian types and the more, we’ll call them technocratic liberals, can sometimes
0:47:20 reduce people to mere economic actors. And I think both of us think that human beings are more than that,
0:47:25 that there’s more to flourishing than material comforts. I think what I’m trying to foreground
0:47:32 here is the challenges of going beyond that and talking about sustaining the good life because of
0:47:38 these differences. And to be as concrete as possible, I’ll just, as I was saying earlier, I mean,
0:47:42 a lot of what you hear from conservative economic populists, people like Senator Josh Hawley,
0:47:49 really, is that we want to revive that mid-century economy where men had livable wages and upward
0:47:55 mobility, lots of factory jobs, and they were able to support families on one income, and there was a
0:48:03 lot of good in that world. But it’s also true that there was a price for that arrangement. As you know,
0:48:08 right, women had less autonomy. They were reduced to parenting and nothing else. Plenty of people don’t
0:48:14 think raising a family is the highest good. And we can agree or disagree on that. I mean, I’m a father.
0:48:21 The point is that that’s a choice that we can all make in a free, pluralistic, liberal society. So when
0:48:26 you talk about supporting families or promoting a more meaningful form of life, I’m just wondering how
0:48:30 you think about these kinds of differences in terms of what we’re organizing the economy around,
0:48:35 who it’s really for. And how do you respond to people who don’t want to go back to that world,
0:48:41 who worry that holding up that period of American life, as many do, as the shining example, means a
0:48:46 return to a time where women didn’t have careers, didn’t have financial freedom. I’m not saying that
0:48:53 this is what you want, but I am asking, can we regain the good things about that period without
0:48:58 those unacceptable costs, if that makes sense?
0:49:05 It’s a very good question. And I think your point about sort of raising a family on one income is a
0:49:14 great place to start in thinking about it, because the idea that we should have an economy in which it is
0:49:20 not just sort of hypothetically feasible, but in fact, the norm and expectation that you can raise a
0:49:26 family on one income, in a sense that that is our definition of a healthy economy, seems to me an
0:49:33 incredibly important principle. And one that I’m interested to kind of dig into a little bit,
0:49:39 like, would you want to, I mean you specifically, but would one want to resist that? Because I guess
0:49:48 it’s possible to say, no, we actively prefer an economy where that’s not a norm or expectation,
0:49:54 because that’s the way to ensure that you have gender equity in the workplace.
0:50:01 I guess you could say that. But going back to your point about pluralism, that’s an extraordinary
0:50:09 rejection of pluralism in favor of a market-imposed form of constraint that forces people into one
0:50:14 arrangement that, by the way, the vast majority of people, men and women across the political spectrum,
0:50:23 say they don’t like. Now, it’s very possible that, whereas you can support a family on one income,
0:50:30 you still choose to have a second person working. But “choose” is the key word there. And I think this
0:50:34 really gets, in many ways, to the exact heart of the struggle that a lot of folks on the left are
0:50:41 having right now, is that if you assert that you say, “I want that to be a genuine choice.”
0:50:48 And I think people on the left get very nervous about that. They say, “Oh, but what if people make
0:50:53 the wrong choice? Or what if there are other social and cultural pressures such that they don’t have
0:50:59 the freedom they should? With the payout of that being, therefore, let’s just have no choice at all.”
0:51:09 And so I think what’s so interesting about this is that I think it does make a lot of this very concrete.
0:51:16 But it also, to some extent, answers your question, is it plausible in our modern politics to make these
0:51:26 kinds of claims and be successful? Because the reality is that this claim is an 80/20 claim in our politics.
0:51:35 A lot of normative claims like these are ones that people overwhelmingly do want to hear and agree with
0:51:43 and believe in. And I think one of the things that you’re seeing conservatives feel toward, and plenty
0:51:49 are not getting it right at all, but some are really starting to get it right, is that when they find that
0:51:54 set of claims and believe in them and want to build an agenda around it,
0:52:04 do you lose some sort of highly-educated, urban, upper-class people? Yes. But you probably add
0:52:09 five or ten working-class people across ethnicities for every one person you lose.
0:52:15 And so one of my great hopes for American politics is that making these kinds of claims and advancing
0:52:22 these arguments in ways that align with what really, I would say, the majority of Americans do want,
0:52:28 is the dominant strategy from a game theory perspective. And to the extent that politicians
0:52:34 see that, to the extent that intellectual leaders see that, I think it will push things in a very
0:52:35 constructive direction.
0:52:43 I want to pivot and I do want to talk about what’s happening now, politically, and get a sense of
0:52:51 whether you think the Republican Party and the conservative movement, more generally, is bending in your
0:52:57 direction. I mean, first of all, I should ask, are you involved in any official capacity with the
0:53:01 Trump administration? Are you advising them? Do you have an actual role in the Republican Party?
0:53:09 No, no. I’m a full-time chief economist at a 501c3 nonprofit. And so, obviously, in that role,
0:53:16 we provide political advice and policy advice to anyone who will listen. But we don’t have any
0:53:21 formal affiliation with the administration. Who are you advising in the administration? Whose
0:53:26 ears do you have? I’m just curious. Oh, anyone who will listen to us. But we never comment on
0:53:34 private conversations. Okay. Part of the case you’re making is that there is this ongoing paradigm shift
0:53:40 within American conservatism. I don’t really believe that. I’m not sold on that. I might be wrong.
0:53:47 Maybe you’ll convince me. But when you look at what this administration is doing on the policy front,
0:53:54 do you like it? Do you think Trump is moving us closer to your desired world?
0:54:00 I think we’re definitely moving in the right direction. You know, we could dive into the
0:54:05 specifics across policy areas or even within a policy area. I mean, just on tariffs alone,
0:54:11 spend a tremendous amount of time sort of emphasizing the ways that I think the problems that they’re
0:54:17 addressing, the direction they’re trying to go, is the right one on the specifics of how things are
0:54:22 timed and what the levels are and so forth. You know, what legal authorities you use for what.
0:54:29 I have all sorts of thoughts on how it might be done better. I also think we’ve seen some very good
0:54:35 course corrections and it’s getting better. But broadly speaking to your question about the
0:54:42 direction that things are headed, I think it’s extraordinarily clear to me that the Republican
0:54:50 party and the conservative movement are shifting quite dramatically in this direction. And, you know,
0:54:55 one way to look at that is in terms of personnel. I mean, Trump has obviously been something of a
0:55:02 constant over the last decade in Republican politics. But the distance from Mike Pence to J.D. Vance is
0:55:09 pretty dramatic. The distance from Rex Tillerson to Marco Rubio is pretty dramatic. The distance from
0:55:18 the various secretaries of labor in the first term to a secretary of labor recommended by the Teamsters is
0:55:19 pretty dramatic.
0:55:26 I got to pause you there because I have to ask, is it really? Rhetorically, yes. But substantively,
0:55:33 is it? I mean, the reason why it’s hard for me to take this iteration of the GOP seriously,
0:55:39 I mean, you can just look at the big, beautiful domestic policy bill they just passed. I mean,
0:55:45 it is the same old Republican Party. You know that. It is jammed up with a bunch of stuff that reflects
0:55:52 conventional conservative priorities. It’s not doing a whole lot to help working class people. It is more
0:55:58 tax cuts offset by more cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, which low income people depend on.
0:56:07 And the net result, as always, will be more upward redistribution of wealth. And on top of that,
0:56:12 another three, four, five trillion dollars tacked onto the deficit, just for good measure.
0:56:22 How am I, how can you look at that and feel like the GOP is genuinely pivoting in your direction?
0:56:30 Well, I’ve been extremely critical, particularly of the deficit element of the big, beautiful bill,
0:56:36 because I think if one is going to be a fiscal conservative, one has to not be adding to deficits
0:56:45 right now. But I do think there’s a way in which a lot of the sort of efforts to argue that things are not
0:56:53 changing in the Republican Party strike me as I think they are very useful sort of political talking
0:56:59 points if one wants to score points about what’s happening sort of on the surface at this moment.
0:57:06 But I think they honestly just do a real disservice to people who are sort of trying to understand where
0:57:13 things are going. And, you know, elected political leaders are always going to be the lagging indicator
0:57:18 of what’s happening in any political party or political movement. They are, by definition,
0:57:22 going to be the oldest, the ones who have been around the longest, the ones who have sort of
0:57:29 most built their careers and ideologies and relationships around what was happening 20 or 30 years ago.
0:57:36 And so if one wants to know what is passing in Congress today, then, yes, you count the votes of
0:57:41 the people in Congress today. If you want to know what’s actually moving within a party or what’s going
0:57:48 to happen over a 10 or 15 year period, counting the votes today, I think, is it’s just not what
0:57:53 someone in good faith trying to understand the direction would do.
0:57:58 Okay, look, I am trying to understand in good faith. I promise you. So I am asking you,
0:58:04 if not on the basis of what they’re actually doing, then on what basis can we assess and make
0:58:08 judgments about the direction they’re going? I’m just looking at what’s actually happening.
0:58:12 Right. But my point is that even when you’re asking sort of in terms of what they’re actually
0:58:18 doing, right, you picked the sort of one element of it that is the sort of most obviously kind of
0:58:26 legacy element. Among other things, what it mostly is, is a direct effort to extend the thing that they did
0:58:34 in 2017. And so even if you look just, you know, in terms of policy, I mean, obviously you have
0:58:41 everything that’s going on on trade, right? Like, let’s not forget the entire trade agenda, not only
0:58:48 in the sort of substance of it, but also the messaging of it and the fact that you have political leaders
0:58:55 out there saying the American dream isn’t cheap stuff. And yes, some things are going to be more
0:59:03 expensive. And here’s why we think that’s worth it. It seems to me extraordinary sea change in kind of
0:59:10 broadly speaking, economic thinking. The tariff regime, the trade war, that is a genuine shift,
0:59:16 no doubt about it. It’s not entirely clear to me how that’s a boon for poor and working class people
0:59:20 at the moment, but I may not be seeing the whole picture. I’m not in Congress.
0:59:24 Well, look, there’s a very interesting economic debate to be had about whether it will work. I
0:59:31 obviously have one very strong view. It’s a debate. But in terms of what they’re trying to do, it seems
0:59:38 pretty clear to me that what they are trying to do is quite explicitly focused on the economic
0:59:43 interests of workers. I don’t think there’s any way you can make the case that like, well, really what
0:59:49 this trade war is, is like, you know, upward redistribution of wealth or good for Wall Street
0:59:54 and multinational corporations. I don’t think that’s a plausible. I’d be interested if anyone has even
1:00:03 attempted to make that claim, but I don’t think that’s right. You know, I think another very
1:00:09 interesting area, I mentioned some of the things that are going on on the labor front. One really
1:00:15 interesting effort that’s underway, and Josh Hawley is the leader of it. But Bernie Moreno’s new
1:00:21 center from Ohio is the co-sponsor of it. They’ve actually taken the PRO Act, right, which is like the
1:00:28 ultimate kind of Dem wish list of labor reforms, and they’ve just chopped it up. And they’ve said,
1:00:32 look, some of these we actually think are perfectly legitimate and good ideas. Others of these we don’t
1:00:38 agree with, and we’re going to start advancing the ones we think are good ideas. So you now have a labor
1:00:44 bill co-sponsored by Hawley and Moreno with a lot of other support that would, in fact, force
1:00:53 corp, you know, employers and workers to reach a first contract. That if, if the negotiations stall, it
1:01:00 goes to arbitration and you get a first contract. That’s a, a dramatic shift in how you would see the
1:01:06 Republican Party. I think you’re seeing the same thing to a significantly in the financial sector.
1:01:12 There was a great example recently where private equity firm that had, uh, bought out a bunch of
1:01:19 paper plants was trying to shut down the paper plant in, in Ohio. Uh, and, and you, you know,
1:01:28 literally had the Republican politicians out there at the rally with the union leaders, uh, sort of forcing,
1:01:33 uh, a change and a commitment to at least keep the plant open for the rest of the year and try to find a,
1:01:39 uh, uh, uh, transaction that would keep it open afterward. Um, on family policy, you see,
1:01:46 you know, in 2017, you had Marco Rubio and Mike Lee had to threaten to tank the entire tax cut bill,
1:01:53 uh, to get an expanded child tax credit in it. Now it is an uncont, uncontroversial top priority that the
1:02:00 child tax credit is not only kept at that level, but expanded further. And so even at the level of like,
1:02:06 what is happening in legislation, it’s clear that this is a, a very different party from 2017.
1:02:10 If you look at who Trump has appointed, it’s a very different set of appointments.
1:02:16 If you look at the critical mass and, and, and sort of center of gravity among the younger elected
1:02:23 officials, the people coming into the Senate, um, it’s a, a completely different set of priorities
1:02:27 and, uh, policies from those who have been there for a long time.
1:02:32 Look, I’m with you. Uh, I’m not convinced that the DNA of the party has changed, but I will grant
1:02:37 that there are indications that, that there has been a shift. I don’t know what it’s going to amount to
1:02:42 materially down the road, but I will grant you that there, there are some things that are very
1:02:52 different compared to the part of mid Romney. Um, I think Trump has cultivated a very unique coalition,
1:02:58 certainly more, much more working class than the pre Trump Republican party. And I don’t know how much
1:03:03 of that coalition is a function of Trump and how much of that coalition will, will fade when he fades.
1:03:08 I have no idea. I’m not making any predictions on that. But I mean, I will ask, I mean, I hypothetically,
1:03:17 if the Republican party does prove an unreliable vehicle for your movement, can you see a world
1:03:22 in which you’re working with Democrats? There does seem to be a lot of space for common cause.
1:03:29 We do work with some Democrats. I think there are Democrats who are, um, doing very good and
1:03:34 interesting work. We recently had, uh, Congressman Jared Golden from Maine on, on the American compass
1:03:42 podcast, because he is the sponsor of the 10% global tariff legislation in Congress. And so, you know,
1:03:49 one thing I always emphasize is that I think a healthy American politics is not one where one party gets
1:03:54 everything right and dominates and heads to a hundred percent of the vote and the other one
1:03:59 collapses into irrelevance. It’s one where we actually have two healthy political parties that are
1:04:07 both focused on, on the concerns and priorities of, of the typical American and, and are then contesting
1:04:14 a lot of these very legitimate disagreements about ends and means. But based on what is happening in,
1:04:19 in American politics today, and, and based on, again, not just sort of superficial incentives,
1:04:24 but the very real fundamental differences between conservatism and progressivism,
1:04:32 I would expect that, that this is going to have the most success and, and salience, uh, and, and
1:04:34 overlap in thinking on the right of center.
1:04:42 Well, look, you may be right. I don’t know. Um, in some ways, I hope you’re more right than wrong,
1:04:46 because I don’t really care who gets us there. I think a politics that converges
1:04:56 more on the interest of working class people is a good thing. I know we’re out of time. Um, so we can
1:05:03 leave it right there. Uh, Oren Kass, this was fun and you’re a good sport. Uh, and, and it was a pleasure
1:05:06 to have this dialogue. You are as well. This was a lot of fun. Thank you for having me.
1:05:19 All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I know I did. As always, we want to know what you think,
1:05:26 and we really appreciate the many messages we’ve received this week. We read every one of them. I
1:05:32 read every one of them and they help us make a better show. So drop us a line at the gray area,
1:05:41 at box.com or leave us a message on our new voicemail line at 1-800-214-5749. And once you’re
1:05:48 finished with that, go ahead and rate and review and subscribe to the pod. This episode was produced
1:05:55 by Beth Morrissey, edited by Jorge Just, engineered by Christian Ayala, fact check by Melissa Hirsch,
1:06:01 and Alex Overington wrote our theme music. New episodes of the gray area drop on Mondays,
1:06:08 listen and subscribe. The show is part of Vox support Vox’s journalism by joining our membership program
1:06:17 today. Vox is running a limited time membership sale over 30% off right now. Membership includes exclusive
1:06:24 perks like ad-free pods. Members also get unlimited access to all of Vox’s journalism. Your support
1:06:32 helps fund our work. We rely on listeners like you. Go to vox.com/members to sign up. And if you decide to sign
1:06:44 up because of this show, let us know.
1:06:53 Support for the gray area comes from Greenlight. Do you remember when your parents sat you down for
1:07:01 the talk? Not that talk. Come on now. The other one. About money. If so, you probably know that teaching
1:07:07 financial literacy to kids is tricky, but it’s important. And if you’d like to give your kids a
1:07:13 little bit more guidance than you got growing up, you might want to try Greenlight. Greenlight is a debit
1:07:19 card and money app made for families that helps kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely.
1:07:25 Parents can use it to send money to their kids and to keep an eye on kids spending and saving. Meanwhile,
1:07:31 kids and teens can build lifelong financial skills in a fun, accessible way. You can also set up one-time
1:07:38 or recurring chores that reward kids with allowance for a job well done. My kid is too young for Greenlight,
1:07:44 but I know a colleague who uses it with his own kids and he loves it. Start your risk-free Greenlight
1:07:56 trial today at Greenlight.com/grayarea. That’s Greenlight.com/grayarea to get started. Greenlight.com/grayarea.