Conservatives Howl Over Carrier Deal

December 3, 2016 Hunter Wallace Economy, Politics 57

UPDATE: Trump has found a new target:

This is political gold if he keeps it up. Just like with political correctness, Trump can have a major impact just by running his mouth on Twitter and generating news cycles.

Before we get into that, John Cassidy in The New Yorker:

“Still, it would be dangerous for Democrats to dismiss the Carrier deal as merely a stunt. Three weeks after his election victory, Trump has confirmed that, in the key area of the economy and jobs, he doesn’t intend to abandon his aggressive campaign rhetoric. In place of the traditional Republican bromides about the wonders of the free market and free trade, he’s using a language of economic nativism and nationalism that harkens back to Pat Buchanan in the nineteen-nineties, when the current wave of globalization was just kicking into high gear. And not just that. Trump is making it personal, singling out individual corporations and chief executives for cajoling and threats. …”

We’re already in a good place if Bernie Sanders is trying to up the ante on Trump by calling for tariffs to keep White working class jobs in the United States. That’s a big improvement over the neo-liberal status quo. By voting for Trump is such overwhelming numbers, the White working class has new political power.

Kevin Williamson:

“One particularly tough and indigestible nugget of talk-radio stupidity afflicting the guts of conservatism is the idea that there is some sort of fundamental difference between bribing a business with tax cuts and bribing it with a wheelbarrow full of cash. The Trump-Pence bailout of Carrier’s operations in Indiana provides an illustrative case. …”

Hey look, the White working class communities ought to die guy who writes for National Review isn’t happy about the Carrier deal, so that is a clear sign Trump has scored a political victory.

Jonah Goldberg:

“In September of 2015, I wrote a G-File on how Trump’s popularity was corrupting conservatism. Then, almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a “news”letter arguing that Donald Trump’s cult of personality is corrupting conservatism. It was titled, “Trump’s Cult of Personality Is Corrupting Conservatism.” Then last March, I wrote about how many lifelong conservatives seemed like pod-people in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, changing positions and attitudes almost overnight as Trump gained in popularity. The more traction Trump got, the weaker the grip traditional conservative ideology had on quite a few famous ideologues. …

If the only casualties of a Trump presidency were the opportunists, courtiers, and comment-section trolls, I’d be pretty giddy. But this Carrier decision shows that the damage will not be nearly so surgical. The rot is already setting in. (You knew the recap thing at the beginning of this “news”letter meant I would return to the subject of corruption, right?) As a political act, it is very, very easy to exaggerate the economic importance of the Carrier intervention. It’s less than a thousand jobs. Save for the workers and families directly involved, it’s all symbolism. …

Trump’s Carrier intervention may just send an equally loud, but nearly opposite signal: that the White House is going to pick winners and losers, that it can be rolled, that industrial policy is back, that Trump cares more about seeming like a savior than sticking to clear and universal rules, and that there is now no major political party in America that rejects crony capitalism as a matter of principle. After all, don’t expect the GOP to recycle the language it used for the bailouts, Cash for Clunkers, Solyndra, etc., when it comes to Carrier. The RNC belongs to Trump …”

Save for the workers and their families as we approach Christmas … When you have lost Jonah Goldberg, you have lost Middle America.

Wall Street Journal editorial board:

“A giant flaw in President Obama’s economic policy has been the politicized allocation of capital, from green energy to housing. Donald Trump suffers from a similar industrial-policy temptation, as we’ve seen this week with his arm-twisting of Carrier to change its decision to move a plant to Mexico from Indiana.

Carrier announced Wednesday that it will retain about 1,000 jobs in Indianapolis that would have moved to Mexico over the next three years, and on Thursday Mr. Trump held a rally at the plant and claimed…”

If anyone knows what makes the White working class prosper, it is The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Just ask the White working class in the Rust Belt!

Noah Rothman:

“The fatal conceit of any populist movement is that it is non-ideological. It is entirely practical, its advocates insist. It has no use for theoreticians and philosophers. After all, what have they ever produced? The urgency of the present crisis demands of us the resolve to use every tool in the toolbox. What crisis, you ask? And what tools? The questions alone betray a suspicious lack of revolutionary consciousness. They mark the incredulous inquisitor as unfit to share the fruits of the new enlightenment. These sentiments aren’t anything to celebrate. When ideology, and the thoughtfulness that goes into its development, becomes a convenient scapegoat, you’re entering into a dangerous period. …

Trump ran for the presidency not only as a new kind of Republican who owed no fealty to conservatism—the party’s guiding ethos since at least the Reagan administration and perhaps earlier—but as someone who was outright hostile toward the philosophy. Trump’s war on ideology has entered a new phase with a salvo aimed squarely at conservatism’s central pillar: free-market economics. …”

Noah Rothman is one of those pundits whose track record shows he doesn’t know shit about anything in the world, but who nevertheless chimes in on many subjects and gets paid a lot for it. I’ve always found him to be a useful barometer of the conservative conventional wisdom on Twitter.

James Pethokoukis:

“There’s no doubt Team Trump is delighted by Carrier’s decision to keep in Indiana roughly half of the 2,100 jobs that the maker of heating and air conditioning equipment had planned to shift to Mexico. As Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s pick for treasury secretary, told CNBC yesterday, “This is a great first win without us even having to take the job.”

Actually, it’s their second win. Trump also lobbied/nudged/cajoled Ford into changing its mind about shifting a sport utility vehicle production line to Mexico from Kentucky, not that doing so actually would have cost American jobs. But Carrier, especially, had become a potent symbol of Trump’s economic nationalism after video of Carrier’s initial offshoring decision went viral. And in response to Carrier’s reversal, Trump took a victory lap on Twitter: “Big day on Thursday for Indiana and the great workers of that wonderful state. We will keep our companies and jobs in the U.S. Thanks Carrier.”

But how many Trump “wins” can the American economy afford?

I’m usually in favor of virtually everything James Pethokoukis opposes. He called Trump’s Carrier speech “absolutely chilling” on CNBC so make of that what you will.

Note: BTW, there wasn’t anything really new about the Carrier deal. Southern state governments have been luring and retaining industries with tax incentives and right-to-work laws for decades now. We’ve long been practicing an “industrial policy.”

About Hunter Wallace 12392 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

57 Comments

  1. All Trump did was to get Carrier to accept the offer that the State of Indiana made to Carrier.

    As usual, these so-called “conservatives” don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground.

    Btw Brad, I’m getting a little tired of Trump calling his own supporters racists to please these people you have mentioned.

    • There’s one thing Trump could promise that wouldn’t cost Trump, his voters, or the Treasury a dime: Suspend Federal enforcement of affirmative-action laws. It’s a lot more profitable to make stuff in America when you don’t have to hire incompetent-Americans and then pay competent-Americans the same wage to fix their constant fuck-ups.

  2. Of course Trump is picking winners and losers.
    Winner: Blue collar working class, especially whites
    Loser: Cuckservative think tanks.

      • Actually, Sir – it’s all in reverse : what Trump is practicing is true Conservatism – right out of the Constitution – ‘government either levying tarifs, and or threatening the levying of them to protect the citizenry against unscrupulous imports’.

        What these ‘Conservatives’ are saying is not ‘true conservatism’ but, instead, economick liberatarianism; something which The Constitution seems to advocate, within the states, but, prohibits from without.

        As I’ve said to you before – we need a real Conservative movement – something that, in actual fact, conserves the people, their enterprise, and their lands and culture – instead of masquerading as such, while, in actual fact, does the very opposite.

        As far as I can see, Trump is a real ‘conservative’, and is being incorrectly called out by those who are charlatans.

        • I think of Trump as a National Populist or an America Firster. The term “conservative” has become inextricably linked with massive nonwhite immigration, outsourcing American jobs to third world countries, waging endless wars on behalf of Zionism and distracting voters with divisive, no-win issues like gay marriage and abortion.

          • Yes, he is an ‘American-Firster’, in the domestick sense, though, as he believes in the perpetuation of the Anglo-American-Rothschild Empire, he cannot be so, externally, as the American Firsters were isolationists who tended to be suspicious of Jews.

            The last two qualities have nothing to do with Trump.

            It is why I think of him as a Dixiecrat from Manhatten.

          • I think you are correct sir.The media filth did redefine our tag-conservative.But its just as well cuz the damn neoconservatives were so f,ing brilliant they just couldn’t lower themselves to vote on Trump.I really don’t want to be lumped in with them anyway

        • what the current regime and the so-called “conservatives” are advocating is “free trade” which is a NWO bastardization of what this country practiced for generations. Trump is returning to the correct practice of trade, using tariffs to control imports and favoring native production of goods over imported goods. This is, by the way, what is practiced by nearly every other country that has not been taken over by globalists.

          • Yes, Mr. Daddio, you are absolutely correct in all regards.

            Thank you for your thoughts.

            It’s always a pleasure to read such clarity of mind.

  3. Jonah is guided by Jewish tribal instincts, not some dead as a dodo “conservatism”. He needs to go teach at a yeshiva.

    • I despise the miserable lying piece of shit too, and it’s almost certain that his primary reason for attacking the decision is the fear that Americans (especially whites) will begin thinking about what is good for them rather than feeling cowed by globalist moralism. But it’s just obvious that Jews disagree monumentally between each other on issues like trade.

  5. Slate: “In 1992, Bill Clinton Had to Pander to White Bigots to Win the Presidency. In 2016, Hillary Can Call Them What They Are.”

    Deplorables. Lol.

    Trump ran with it bigly. An excellent judo move.

    Of course, prog elites want more immigration to use as buffer against blacks whom they fear, in the swamp of their subconscious, as thugs.

    Gentrification is really about using homos, section 8, immigrants, and rising property prices to squeeze blacks out of cities. In fact, the reason why prog elites make so much noise about MLK and how much they love blacks is just a cover to hide the fact that they are using gentrification and immigration to push blacks out of cities as fast as possible. It’s like Zio-globalists using the ‘we love Muslim refugees’ as a cover to promote the very imperialist policies that led to the refugee crisis. Obama and Hillary furthered the Bush and Cheney’s plan to destroy more of the Muslim world at the behest of rabid and virulent Jewish supremacists.

    Why do progs feel more affinity for foreigners with no roots in America? It’s like a compulsive shopper who has no use for items she already has and must always get new stuff.

    Proggery is obsessed with making new americans than dealing with americans with roots in america. It is anti-historical. It is shop-around-the-world-nationhood.

    The Judeo-centric America-is-nation-of-immigrants mentality really stuck. It’s like the US ceases to be itself unless it keeps making ‘new americans’.

    But then, why did Europeans and Canadians catch this bug too?

    The idea of whites defending white homelands is deemed evil and ‘far right’(even though Jews force all whites in US and EU to defend Israel as a Jewish homeland.) Anti-whititism and anti-nativism have been all around the world and replaced with invasivism and parasitism that advantage Jews like Google kids, Bloomberg, Hollywood scum, and the like.

    Anyway, white elites and privileged are least negatively affected by mass invasion this since they can afford to live nice despite problems of Diversity.

    They privatize the virtue(WE care so much) but socialize the consequences(dump somalis in some Ohio town). And it gives privileged prog whites the moral excuse to beat down on working class whites who are deemed ‘racist’.

    Diversity boosts elitist-supremacism as a tool of the rich who pose as defenders of the minority against the native masses. Thus, the elites can neglect and insult the native masses as much as they want. If progs love Diversity so much, why do they live in whitening gentrified cities? Why not move to black Africa or Bolivia and live under colored folks?Or at least give California back to Mexico and let Californians live under Mexican rule since progs say Mexicans should totally take over that state. OK, let Mexico have it as their own. Besides, it’d be historical justice as gringo stole it long ago.

    Prog elites hog all the privilege with trust funds of their rich parents, but they pretend to be morally superior to poor whites and working class whites because they are for immigrant-diversity. It’s like aristocrats turning up their noses at the dirty peasants who complain that their lands are being taken over by foreigners. Aristos, by posing as defenders of the newcomers, preen as moral superior over the ‘deplorable’ peasants.

    But it’s not the deplorables that are calling for new cold war with Russia or new wars in the Middle East. It is the neocons, Jews, and Hillary who call for more wars, more world crises, and more refugees who need to be ‘welcomed’ because of US-backed wars.

    And if progs really hate racial domination, why don’t they address the problem of Jewish supremacism? NPI conference is nothing. AIPAC Jew-Nazi rally is hailed by all politicians in support of greater Israel and more hell on earth for Palestinians. Hail Israel. hail Zionist Occupation of West Bank. Hail Neocon destruction of Iraq. Hail Hillary wrecking of Libya. Hail Obama’s total destruction of Syria by aiding Jihadis.

    http://www.unz.com/jpetras/the-worker-president-and-the-banker-regime/

    Aint that the truth?

    ===========================

  6. “Conservatives” have no more troops to rally. They callously sacrificed them on the altar of “free trade” and globalism. Trump acknowledged to these folks that they’re getting screwed and agreed to help them.”Conservatives” have a near empty hall to preach to now, save preaching to themselves.

    • Free trade and globalism don’t even begin to compare to the sacrificial altars of integration and immigration Imagine a president that agreed to help on that front.

  10. True Conservatives, Ryan Republicans, Jews of both the left and the faux right, and the centrist and center-left neo-liberals — basically the whole mainstream — don’t want the white working class to have any dignity.

    • Conservative politician:

      “White men who get laid-off at age 55 should think of it as an opportunity. It can be turned to an advantage. They can always get jobs as greeters at Walmart. I’m on the board of directors.”

      • watch out for those laid off over 55 workers in the parking lot on the way to your car, Mr. Politician. They are mad, and have nothing to lose.

    • What we have now isn’t really a free market. There is a federal minimum wage, hours/week regulations, overtime pay regulations, insurance regulations, bathrooms per business/employee regulations, workman’s comp regulations, unionization, race/gender quotas, etc. All these things make it more expensive for a business to run.

      It makes no sense to keep raising min wage and then turn around and blame free trade for factories moving overseas.

      • Here’s what is dumb about free trade. Free traders expect access to the US market and not have to pay anything for it. Imagine you have a shopping mall and you’re told you have to let traders sell their goods in your mall, without paying you anything.

        • It’s a race to the bottom.

          Merkel, Clinton, Blair, Trudeau, Cameron, Ryan, Sarkojuif, etc, have all said, “We have to be able to complete with China!”

          China has hundreds of millions of slave labourers.

          We don’t have to compete with anyone. We can just refuse to trade.

          • Sure, you can just refuse to trade.

            Why not start in your own personal life by growing your own cotton and wool, spinning it yourself, weaving it yourself, and sewing it yourself with needles you made from animal bone that you hunted yourself with a bow and arrow you made yourself?

            Think of all the money you’ll save by keeping it all to yourself and not losing it to free trade!

            There are other reasons to restrict trade, but just keeping all those jobs for yourself isn’t sufficient.

          • You don’t need a computer/device either. But you apparently think you are better off with one than without one. So you purchased one that was probably made in an Asian country.

          • “It’s a race to the bottom.” Yep. that’s what keeps prices low and consumer satisfaction high. Grocery stores engage in a race to compete for your business. Mobile device manufacturers are in a race to sell you your next mobile device. Restaurants are in a race to sell you your next meal. What’s the problem with that?

            It’s only a problem for people that think they can demand everything in exchange for nothing. You might as well believe in egalitarianism.

        • That’s not really a good analogy. In the case of a country, the people allowing the trade to occur are those who benefit from the lower prices; and the country itself would continue to exist whether it engaged in international trade or not. A shopping only exists in order to earn rent from the businesses conducting trade in its premises.

          • If I was Trump I’d slap a big tariff on everything coming into the country, just like I would if someone wanted to sell things in my hotels.

            The big difference is I wouldn’t let the government get
            the revenue, I’d give it directly to the people. Send everyone a stream of checks in the areas that voted for me – The areas that didn’t vote for me can drop dead.

            They could use the money for anything they like. Buy American made, cheap Chinese trash that’s not so cheap
            anymore, or squirrel it away in bank accounts. After all its their country, its their money.

            ***
            Isn’t it funny how the good for the economy, economic rationalism arguments since the 1980s, made by establishment paid pundits, ultimately only benefited the people at the top.

            Well DUH!

          • I’d say the government could get the money but it would, by law, have to be spent on debt reduction until the debt is gone. After that, it feeds infrastructure.

        • All you have to do is give them a better deal than they would get elsewhere. Lower taxes, less regulation, proximity to resources, higher quality human capital, lower risk of loss to war/riots/natural disaster, looting, etc.

  13. Liberals and even Union leaders are now writing these same kind of articles and comments since Trump’s election, I’ve been noticing. Suddenly they are sounding just like NR writers and people like Neal Boortz. The so called champions of the working class are now even telling people “jobs aren’t coming back.”

    And I thought Conservatives have been advocating and telling us for years corporations need these tax breaks and incentives in order to attract and keep business and jobs. But suddenly it is a sin?

  14. “…Trump’s war on ideology has entered a new phase with a salvo
    aimed squarely at conservatism’s central pillar: free-market economics.
    …”

    Are these people so stupid that they don’t realize that our present trade policies in a market of Mercantilism is like bringing a knife to a gun fight?

    It may be true that some jobs will not come back but if manufacturing moves back to the US it will still be more jobs than we had as opposed to having them all move to China. China is under the exact same robotization challenge as we are. Best the robots are here than there.

  15. ‘Trump took a victory lap on Twitter: “Big day on Thursday for Indiana and the great workers of that wonderful state. We will keep our companies and jobs in the U.S. Thanks Carrier.”

    ‘But how many Trump “wins” can the American economy afford?’

    These are the same two-faced maggots who never get bent out of shape over the billions upon billions of our tax dollars squandered yearly to provide for Israel’s defense and and security walls from which we get nothing in return other than demands for even more transfers of wealth.

  16. “”… Trump is making it personal, singling out individual corporations and chief executives for cajoling and threats. …”

    Yes, that the trick. We are afraid because liberalism singling out one of us and finish him` off to scare all others. Google what happened with british lady “Emma West”

    And when we will work so, that we pick up one random 18 years old handclapping colledge student and ruin his life because he called somebody a raciss on hes own 1 friend facebook wall ?

    So that every single liberal is scared to be next ????

  17. “But how many Trump “wins” can the American economy afford?”

    Amount of money that it took to save Carrier: $7 million

    Amount of money that just fell off a truck in Iraq one day: $1 billion

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1

    Amount of money that was wasted on Iraq: $2 trillion

    Amount of money that will be spent on future medical care of Iraq vets: $2-4 trillion

    Don’t tell me these people are now feigning support for fiscal restraint. They are they ones who ran up the debt with endless foreign wars.

  18. We the People invest these folks with the privilege of Rule. Each and every privilege carries with it a corresponding and countervailing suite of responsibilities, absent fulfillment whereof exercise of the privilege becomes illegitimate.

    In chief of those responsibilities corresponding to the privilege of Rule, is the obligation of loyalty downward from above to them who conferred the privilege.

  19. If those worthless columnists at the National Review, Wall Street Journal, etc had real jobs that were in danger of being outsourced to Mexico they wouldn’t be so cold blooded about keeping Americans employed.

  20. What real conservative thinks $12 a day is free trade. I’ve heard this shite for 30years if you think that is free market then we don’t need you in the republican party .That would NOT be fair trade .We want fair smart trade deals….Go Trump Go

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