A paradigm shift occurs when there is a radical change in thinking from an accepted point of view to a new one. Changes in social consciousness are not easy. Institutions defend orthodoxy with all their assorted powers, while new ideas receive support only from iconoclasts who are often dismissed as kooks or disparaged as domestic enemies.
Prevailing opinion is like a heavy boulder sitting in the valley between several steep hills. For a novel idea to succeed, its proponents must push that boulder up the slope until it reaches the top of a neighboring peak. Two observations follow from this analogy: (1) when moving the heavy boulder of conventional wisdom in a new direction, the gravity of traditional consensus works to roll it right back into the valley where it originally rested, and (2) once the boulder is finally pushed up a hill with the force of sufficient evidence and popular support, it will quickly roll down the other side and rest in a new valley of conventional wisdom. Changing human minds, in other words, is a punishing exercise until you reach a tipping point, when social change occurs rapidly.
We are right now in the midst of one of these phenomenal paradigm shifts. Americans are “awakening” to the idea that the federal government does not have their best interests at heart. They are pushing back against mass illegal immigration. They are resisting government surveillance and censorship. They are questioning economic regulations that have weakened private property rights while giving a small number of corporations and financial elites almost total control over commerce, the food supply, and the monetary system.
During the half-century Cold War, Americans often turned a blind eye toward questionable military strategies, Intelligence Community actions, and economic policies because a pervasive “us vs. them” attitude kept the country united against common communist enemies. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the reunification of Germany, and the expansion of Western business interests into communist China, this us/them dynamic began to fade away. As companies in the United States replaced domestic workers with foreign workers — and eventually Chinese slave labor — Americans realized that the distinctions between so-called “authoritarian” States and so-called “democratic” States were not as stark as they had once seemed.
The offshoring of good manufacturing and industrial jobs in the United States to countries that had been considered competitors, adversaries, or even enemies softened the ground for the paradigm shift we see today. In the ’92 presidential contest, independent candidate Ross Perot warned that the North American Free Trade Agreement would move jobs and money to Mexico and leave Americans worse off. George Bush and Bill Clinton disagreed, and Republicans and Democrats argued that NAFTA would both discourage illegal immigration (by providing jobs south of the American border) and increase household wealth (by decreasing the cost of consumer goods).
Prices for many products did go down, because that’s what happens when the cost of labor goes from $13/hour (when made in America) to $1/hour (when made in Mexico or Central America). However beneficial such price decreases in essential household items might have been, there was a tremendous cost — the destruction of blue-collar towns across the United States. Ross Perot’s entirely rational prediction came true, and the “giant sucking sound” of jobs and money going south ultimately made Americans poorer. As a cherry on top of the toxic NAFTA sundae, rampant illegal immigration continued unabated largely because the U.S. welfare system remains an attractive nuisance that draws foreign nationals who prefer America’s generous handouts to the blue-collar jobs in their own countries.
This hollowing out of the American middle class continued every time Republicans and Democrats inked another “free trade deal” that made it easier for American companies to invest in slave labor overseas. As the cost of such deals became more widely apparent, the “ruling class” in D.C. became more inventive with its justifications. Bill Clinton opened up trade with communist China not because American companies could make a bundle from a workforce willing to work for subsistence wages, but rather because the introduction of Western commerce to China would be the camel’s nose under the communist tent.
Globalization, in other words, was sold as a peaceful foreign policy that would make our adversaries more like us while avoiding military conflict and nuclear bluster. If blue jeans and the Beatles could collapse the Iron Curtain, then McDonald’s “Golden Arches” diplomacy would democratize communist China. At least that’s the hogwash Americans heard, as they watched their jobs move to the other side of the world. The costs for such foreign policy pipe dreams have been immense. Over three decades of “free trade deals,” Americans have lost millions of jobs, household savings have disappeared, the wealth gap between the top 1% and everyone else has significantly widened, drug- and alcohol-related deaths have skyrocketed, property theft and violent crime rates have steadily risen, and towns across the country have become rusted monuments to apathy and neglect.
What did American workers get in exchange for so many lost jobs sent overseas? Nothing good. Once-important domestic companies have become multinational behemoths devoid of any sense of national allegiance. Moreover, as these companies have exponentially increased their wealth and global reach, they have also exponentially increased their influence over the foreign and domestic policy decisions of the U.S. government. (BlackRock, for example, set up shop in the Biden White House, and the corporate press mostly hid this inconvenient truth from the public.)
China, a third-world nation three decades ago that could not feed its own citizens and seemed near collapse, has become a regional powerhouse with global reach. America, on the other hand, has crippled its own industrial and manufacturing self-sufficiency. In fact, it depends on China for critical pharmaceuticals, electronics components, metals, and finished products. “Golden Arches” diplomacy failed to democratize communist China. Instead, the U.S. government embraced the mass surveillance and censorship of its totalitarian adversary. Finally, a combination of catastrophically expensive “green energy” policies, profligate government spending, and economically unsound central bank money printing has set the United States down an untenable path toward runaway inflation, dollar destabilization, and financial ruin. Globalization, in other words, has left Americans poorer, more miserable, less optimistic about the future, and dangerously disconnected from their government. At the same time, their geopolitical enemies have never been more emboldened. That’s a gargantuan price tag for no reward.
The more that the U.S. government struggles to maintain its status as a global superpower with a witches’ brew of money-printing, welfare spending, and mass illegal immigration (the last ingredient being used as both a deflationary pressure on wages as well as a cynical tactic to distract Americans with cultural conflict and political strife), the more it resembles a Potemkin village incapable of withstanding scrutiny. Americans look at all they have lost over the last thirty years, and they wonder how the people running the federal government could be both spectacularly incompetent and magnificently malicious. Imaginary pronouns, forcing men into women’s sports, and hyperventilating about COVID and “climate change” can distract the American people for only so long.
Eventually, a vocal leader comes along and finds America’s globalist boulder stuck in a deep ravine. No doubt that boulder has many notes attached from sage voices such as Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan all saying, “Tried to move this up the hill, but it kept falling back down.” But if enough Americans join together, President Trump might have just enough strength to heave the boulder to the other side. “Make America Great Again” is a rallying cry for Americans to lift the country up despite the weight of Deep State opposition. The hilltop lies ahead. Keep pushing with all your might.