{"id":26228,"date":"2023-09-03T21:46:48","date_gmt":"2023-09-03T21:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/belalcazar.org\/?p=26228"},"modified":"2023-09-03T21:46:48","modified_gmt":"2023-09-03T21:46:48","slug":"opinion-should-right-wing-populists-despair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/belalcazar.org\/analysis-comment\/opinion-should-right-wing-populists-despair\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | Should Right-Wing Populists Despair?"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

By <\/span>Ross Douthat<\/span><\/p>\n

Opinion Columnist<\/p>\n

Over the last few weeks Sohrab Ahmari, well known as a leading intellectual exponent of a combative Trumpian conservatism, has been making the rounds explaining why he\u2019s giving up on right-wing populism.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a slight overstatement; his new book, \u201cTyranny, Inc.,\u201d on the cruelties of corporate power in America, bears blurbs from leading populist Republicans like Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio. But he describes these figures as \u201cshining exceptions on the right,\u201d whose willingness to consider interventionist economic policies contrasts with the broader trend in which populism is \u201cturning into a niche\/trashy online-media product,\u201d with no policy content beyond resentment of elites.<\/p>\n

No doubt Ahmari\u2019s liberal readers would respond, it\u2019s always been that way! <\/em>But part of the reason that the \u201cTyranny, Inc.\u201d author and his circle earned so much attention in the Trump era is that the age of populism really did unsettle economic orthodoxies on the right.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration often defaulted, as Ahmari laments, to warmed-over Reaganite policymaking. But Trump\u2019s victorious campaign really did kill off, for a time at least, the Tea Party-era emphasis on entitlement reform and hard money. And Trump did follow through on elements of his economic nationalism \u2014 while the Biden administration has embraced similar ideas on trade and infrastructure, to the point where it\u2019s fair to say that both parties have been reshaped by Trump\u2019s \u201916 campaign.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a populist intellectual ecosystem exists on the right, through think tanks like American Compass and journals like American Affairs and Ahmari\u2019s own Compact, where before the Trump era there was little more than a scattering of gadflies. The Hawley-Rubio-J.D. Vance faction in the Senate is small, but more influential than any past equivalent. And Trump himself, the Republican front-runner, is still making promises \u2014 new cities! new tariffs! flying cars! \u2014 that smack more of industrial policy than supply-side economics.<\/p>\n

So why is Ahmari despairing of his cause? In part, he\u2019s reckoning with forces he probably underestimated before \u2014 the folk libertarianism of the G.O.P.\u2019s donor base and the cynicism of its celebrity-industrial complex.<\/p>\n

But then Ahmari is also disillusioned because, while remaining socially conservative, he has personally moved farther to the left than some of his fellow populists.<\/p>\n

With its potent anecdotes of corporate malfeasance and its (somewhat overstated) account of the ruthlessness of American economic life, \u201cTyranny, Inc.\u201d is a book more in the pessimistic spirit of Barbara Ehrenreich\u2019s \u201cNickel and Dimed\u201d than \u2014 well, to take a personal example, than \u201cGrand New Party,\u201d the book I co-authored with Reihan Salam 15 years ago making the case for a more populist conservatism. Ahmari sometimes describes his view of American capitalism as close to that of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and there is simply no way to infuse the full Sanders vision into the current Republican coalition; in that sense, he\u2019s right to deem himself politically homeless.<\/p>\n

Finally, though, Ahmari doesn\u2019t always fully reckon with how recent material and cultural changes complicate his argument that cultural renewal depends on economic transformation \u2014 that \u201cefforts to change the culture without reforming the economy are futile at best.\u201d<\/p>\n

If so, what should we make of the fact that the American economy was arguably worse, and yet the culture healthier, 10 or 20 years ago than today?<\/p>\n

When Barack Obama ran for president, inequality had been rising since the 1980s and the health care safety net had a significant hole. When Trump ran for president, household income had been stagnating since 2000 and economic policymakers had let the unemployment rate stay unnecessarily high.<\/p>\n

But today inequality may actually be declining, wages have risen generally and risen faster for the working class, unemployment is extremely low and we are closer to universal health care than we were 20 years ago. Meanwhile, the big Biden-era problem for wage earners has been an inflation spike, which a Bernie Sanders agenda seems ill-equipped to solve.<\/p>\n

Yet despite these economic improvements the cultural fabric looks more frayed than ever, with liberals as well as conservatives fretting over the slow fade of church and family, with crime and homelessness returning to American cities while a haze of marijuana settles over twentysomethings, with a spiritual despair shadowing every social rank.<\/p>\n

You can blame Covid for deepening this era of bad feelings. You can argue that our social malaise just shows economic improvements haven\u2019t gone nearly far enough. And you can pin blame for certain social trends \u2014 internet addiction among teenagers, say \u2014 on bad actors in big business.<\/p>\n

But in terms of priority and urgency, I wonder if Ahmari\u2019s harder-edged social conservative side \u2014 the anti-pot, anti-porn, anti-crime aspects of his politics, let\u2019s say \u2014 may actually be more relevant to our situation than the New-Deal-liberal side that\u2019s earning him new interest from the left.<\/p>\n

Cultural conservatism absolutely needs an economic policy, and corporate power absolutely shapes the culture. But our own social crisis feels a little less economically determined, a little more essentially cultural, in 2023 than at any previous moment in my adult life.<\/p>\n

The Times is committed to publishing <\/em>a diversity of letters<\/em> to the editor. We\u2019d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some <\/em>tips<\/em>. And here\u2019s our email: <\/em>letters@nytimes.com<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on <\/em>Facebook<\/em>, <\/em>Twitter (@NYTOpinion)<\/em> and <\/em>Instagram<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ross Douthat has been an Opinion columnist for The Times since 2009. He is the author, most recently, of “The Deep Places: A Memoir of Illness and Discovery.” @<\/span>DouthatNYT \u2022<\/span> Facebook <\/span><\/p>\n

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By Ross Douthat Opinion Columnist Over the last few weeks Sohrab Ahmari, well known as a leading intellectual exponent of a combative Trumpian conservatism, has been making the rounds explaining why he\u2019s giving up on right-wing populism. That\u2019s a slight overstatement; his new book, \u201cTyranny, Inc.,\u201d on the cruelties of corporate power in America, bears […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nOpinion | Should Right-Wing Populists Despair? - belalcazar.org<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/belalcazar.org\/analysis-comment\/opinion-should-right-wing-populists-despair\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Opinion | Should Right-Wing Populists Despair? - belalcazar.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Ross Douthat Opinion Columnist Over the last few weeks Sohrab Ahmari, well known as a leading intellectual exponent of a combative Trumpian conservatism, has been making the rounds explaining why he\u2019s giving up on right-wing populism. 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