J. D. Vance has become the whipping boy of liberals (what would Andy Borowitz do without him?). Even Taylor Swift has joined in by signing off her endorsement of Harris/Walz as “Childless Cat Lady.”
By now even Vance probably regrets some of his more “catty” remarks. But consigning him to the ranks of the “weird” and “crazy” misses that Vance has something to say about the American economy and its implications for society that needs to be heard, especially by liberals and Democrats.
In a late July blog I titled “The Anointing of Kamala Harris” I noted that while we liberals and Democrats are all over Trump as a “threat to democracy,” we tend to miss the other big threat to democracy, which is the concentration of wealth in America, and all the people whose lives have been undermined by the neo-liberal economic policies that have made that concentration possible. I wrote then:
“Here’s a key, but often unnoticed, point: American democracy is imperiled not just by Trump and his contempt for the rule of law. It is also imperiled by the vast gap between the super-rich and ordinary Americans. The concentration of wealth in the very few is as also a threat to democracy, if not so obviously as Trump. Moreover, it is as much a product of the neoliberalism of the Democratic Party (think, sorry, Clinton and Obama) as it is of the Republican Party.”
What Vance gets right, that has been overlooked in vilifying him, is that our economy works for some but not for all. The ascendency of free markets and globalism have left out and left behind many millions of the people. Here’s Vance from a June interview with Ross Douthat in the New York Times.
“The main thrust of the postwar American order of globalization has involved relying more and more on cheaper labor. The trade issue and the immigration issue are two sides of the same coin: The trade issue is cheaper labor overseas; the immigration issue is cheaper labor at home, which applies upward pressure on a whole host of services, from hospital services to housing and so forth.
“The populist vision, at least as it exists in my head, is an inversion of that: applying as much upward pressure on wages and as much downward pressure on the [cost of] services that the people use as possible. We’ve had far too little innovation over the last 40 years, and far too much labor substitution. This is why I think the economics profession is fundamentally wrong about both immigration and about tariffs. Yes, tariffs can apply upward pricing pressure on various things — though I think it’s massively overstated — but when you are forced to do more with your domestic labor force, you have all of these positive dynamic effects.
“It’s a classic formulation: You raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour, and you will sometimes hear libertarians say this is a bad thing. ‘Well, isn’t McDonald’s just going to replace some of the workers with kiosks?”’ That’s a good thing, because then the workers who are still there are going to make higher wages; the kiosks will perform a useful function; and that’s the kind of rising tide that actually lifts all boats. What is not good is you replace the McDonald’s worker from Middletown, Ohio, who makes $17 an hour with an immigrant who makes $15 an hour. And that is, I think, the main thrust of elite liberalism, whether people acknowledge it or not.
“Or the hotels example. If you cannot hire illegal migrants to staff your hotels, then you have to go to one of the 7 million prime-age American men who are out of the labor force and find some way to re-engage them.”
Let’s acknowledge a couple things. One, Vance is clearly not a traditional “business-first” Republican. He sounds more like one of the “Bernie Bros” of 2016 or 2020. He has said he finds common cause with them. Second, despite the Trump/Vance downsides, a major part of their appeal is to the have-nots and “forgottens,” those without a college diplomas, left out by both the center-left and center-right elites.
In my July blog, mentioned earlier, I cited a piece from Harvard professor Michael Sandel who urged Kamala Harris to make “the dignity of work” a centerpiece of her campaign. Here’s Sandel:
“Standing up to Mr. Trump and defending reproductive rights is not enough. To defeat him, Ms. Harris needs to address the legitimate grievances he exploits — the sense among many Americans, especially those without a college degree, that their voices aren’t heard, that their work isn’t respected and that elites look down on them. She needs a message that reconnects the Democratic Party with the working-class voters it has alienated in recent decades.”
Harris/Walz need to heed not only a respected Harvard prof like Sandel, but to also pay attention to what J. D. Vance gets right about what our economy has gotten wrong.
Read Dark Money by respected The New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer.
Vance-onomics – no. He’s propped up by Peter Thiel and fossil fuels, so real action on the corporate strait jacket isn’t going to come from him. It’s just fishing for the simple-minded voter — the “open borders”, the tariffs that will bring mostly harm to American workers.
What the Biden administration has been doing should get a lot more credit than it does. Biden isn’t Clinton or Obama, and Harris isn’t either.
– Competition. I believe it’s the first administration in many decades to put up a stiff fight against corporate power over consumers, in its various forms. Relatively small actions, like stepping down bank overdraft fees, price fixing by meat packers, challenging medical industry patents that were being used to support insulin etc. prices, and big ones like taking on airlines, health care groups, Google. Amazon.
– “Arguably the most pro-union occupant of the White House since the New Deal.”
– Domestic infrastructure development in “Build Back Better”. Harris of course supported the administration’s policies, but also pushed for similar investment before taking her VP position.
American workers should know who their real friends are, and who just blows smoke.
“….Ms. Harris needs to address the legitimate grievances he exploits — the sense among many Americans, especially those without a college degree, that their voices aren’t heard…”
Maybe I listened to a different debate than Mr. Robinson. I heard Kamala Harris repeatedly urging voters to turn a page, to move on from hate and vitriol spewed by Vance and Trump, to embrace all Americans’ who want a better life for themselves and their families.
And this: “….Standing up to Mr. Trump and defending reproductive rights is not enough…” The message of defending reproductive rights isn’t just a side issue, it’s the place where women decidedly veer away from men, who still don’t seem to understand how much this matters to women.
You could have said all that without attribution to JD Vance, who, has never had an original thought.
Your good point is lost through the chosen comparison.
Well put. I saw a survey a couple years ago that showed that Washington State was the only state in the Union where White Working Class men without a College degree were majority Democrats. I fall in that category and vote D even though the Party has long ago decided my Demographic isn’t important. I am a retired Union member and served as a Union Rep. as well and thus got my education about “ Class” and the perils of Corporate Globalization “ on the picket line and out in the streets ie WTO protests etc. I will vote D again this fall and Hope Harris -Walz have the Ba..s to stand up to Wall Street and look out for Main Street unlike the Clinton-Obama Liberals.
What’s next from Vance? All the animals being eaten by immigrants are pushing food prices higher? Apparently Vance (by his own account) is happy to lie and fabricate in order to juice the base. I’d expect more from Mr. Robinson than “he gets some things right”. A broken watch gets the time right on occasion also. Is that a cause for celebration. I suggest that Mr. Robinson address issues of genuine import. How about an essay on the majority of the Ten Commandments broken or ignored by Trump?