The Realignment: Note Before a Quick Work Vacation
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Welcome Back to The Realignment
As many of you know, The Realignment is generously supported by the Hewlett Foundation’s Economy and Society program. This week, I’m taking a work vacation to attend their New Common Sense conference in San Francisco.
Scholars, activists, and leading thinkers from across the ideological spectrum are working toward a new “common sense” that’s better suited for our 21st century economy and society. Neoliberalism—the free-market, anti-government, growth-at-all-costs approach to economic and social policy—has dominated policy debates in the United States and much of the world for the last half century. But it has outlived whatever usefulness it might once have had. From skyrocketing wealth inequality to the climate crisis to systemic racism — neoliberalism offers no credible solutions for society’s biggest challenges.
The New Common Sense conference will convene journalists, experts from government and academia, and leaders in the business and technology sector to engage in a series of conversations about what the end of neoliberalism means for the role of markets, government, workers, business, and more — and where we all go from here.
I’ll have plenty of thoughts after the conference, so I’m pumped to take a breather and reflect in next week’s post.
At a broader level, it feels like the American political system is going through another moment of transformation, separate from the 2015-2016 populist upheavals and the destabilizing COVID summer through January 2021. A *ahem* vibe-shift if you will. As an interviewer who spends a lot of time asking other people to articulate the country’s mood and respond to issues, something is clearly up. Finding a way to articulate this sense beyond Q&A and guests is a high priority of mine in this Substack format.
A decent number of listeners are wondering why the percentage of politician guests has gone up of late. There are two reasons related to the above:
A) As an interviewer, I’m the definition of a bystander sitting on the sidelines. Candidates for office like Vivek Ramaswamy and David McCormick, plus members of Congress like Rep. Mike Gallagher intrigue me because of their opposite positioning from my work. Maybe their answers aren’t satisfying. Still, I’ve come to believe any lack of clarity and/or depth is useful and indicative in of itself.
B) It’s been almost eight years since Donald Trump came down the escalator and upended American politics. Politicians (and those aspiring to win office) have had plenty of time to come up with their unique value adds and theories of case. Engaging with politicians is my way of determining the degree to which Realignment thought is actually influencing the conversation. Conferences are fun, but only get one so far.
The following comment from the David McCormick YouTube and my response are indicative of this dynamic:
YouTube Viewer: A suggestion: maybe have Oren Cass or Julius Krein or the authors of American Affairs magazine on the podcast more often. I don't think "realignment" when i hear this. I hear the standard GOP message: I'm a successful business leader who can bring that success to solve America's problems through "conservative principles". Yawn..
Marshall: Agreed re: Oren/Julius. They're on the list for upcoming months. That said, it's telling/relevant that ambitious GOP politicians aren't using Julius and Oren's language/framing to address these issues. If ideas can't translate from op-eds and journals to candidates like McCormick, there's an issue. What I don't know is if the problem is one the candidate side (failure to be intellectually curious/read the pulse of the electorate) or the fault of wonks/academics (Ivory tower thought unable to translate to voters). The third question is that even if David McCormick found the perfect combination of American Compass/American Affairs would it actually make a difference on the campaign trail? J.D. Vance initially campaigned on raising taxes on the wealthy/other new right thought. That didn't make a difference at a polling level. It was when Trump endorsed him that he clinched the primary win.
My theory of the case when it comes to the question of how ideas advance in politics is increasingly less focused on populists and outsiders. Ideas advance when the David McCormick’s of the world think that Julius/Oren are better guides to advancing their personal ambitions and political goals than Milton Friedman.
Preview of This Week’s Episodes
Tomorrow’s episode, a conversation with the Center for a New American Security’s Paul Scharre about his new book: Four Battlegrounds: Power in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
Since yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, I’m reposting my 2021 interview with Robert Draper about his book: To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq.
Last Week’s Free Episodes
353 | How the Consulting Industry Warped the Economy, Infantilized Government, and Weakened Business with Mariana Mazzucato
(AUDIO) (VIDEO)
354 | Is America a Superpower in Peril? - with David McCormick
(AUDIO)
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