Dana Blankenhorn

The Political Triumph of Tech

Some 40 years ago, when I was commuting up the West Loop of I-610 for the Houston Business Journal, oil seemed to be in big political trouble.

We know how that turned out.

Today, in 2019, it seems that “Big Tech” is as friendless as “Big Oil” was then. But history sort of rhymes. These only seem to be different days, and you don’t have to be able to rhyme benzodiazepine to figure it out.

Reporters without brains call the reaction against tech their big story. But it’s the reaction to the reaction we need to be looking at.

The Cult of Trump

The most important thing to know about Donald Trump is this.

He’s a cult leader.

There is nothing unAmerican about that. America has been the home to cults since its founding. The first half of the 19^th century was filled with them. The Mormon Church is just one example, but there are many others.

Don’t throw your magic underwear at me for writing that. Most churches begin as cults. Their founders claim to have “special knowledge” and cult leaders pass it to the congregation. The early members gain a special status, because they have the special knowledge. It’s something all western religions have in common. We all want to be the chosen people, because it means that others weren’t chosen, and you’re automatically better than they are.

Decoration Day

The holiday known as Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day.

It was established in 1868 to memorialize the Union victory over the South and the Slave Power.

The pro-slavery attitudes of the South never died, however. It became the “Noble Cause.” It remains ignoble today.

Jim Crow is one testament to it. So is opposition to the Civil Rights cause, the “duality of the southern thing.” Whites prohibiting “miscegenation” made every mixed-race baby a crime until 1967, six years after our 44^th President was born. I’ll explain why this is funny in a moment.

Human Capital and the 1980 Game

In 2020, we will be 12 years removed from the first political triumph of technology, the generational election of Barack Obama. All his progress is now being undone, much as a generation ago oil’s gains were threatened by Jimmy Carter and his cardigan sweater.

As we prepare to play the 1980 Game the question becomes, who is Ronald Reagan now? (It’s usually phrased, “Who Can Beat Trump?”) The answer lies in what drives our economy today, and in what drove it then.

I remain confident in the ultimate triumph of Democracy because, today, human capital is the gating factor to economic growth.

Where Elizabeth Warren is Wrong

Like a lot of people, I admire Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, or as the great Charlie Pierce calls her Senator Professor Warren (SPW).

But, again like most people, I can’t vote for her for President.

The reason, in my case, is Warren’s attitude to the Cloud Czars. Warren is staking a big part of her candidacy on running against them.

Let’s set aside, for a moment, the fact that the Czars – Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook – now command a combined market cap of nearly $4.5 TRILLION. Never mind that they dominate the business world, or that democracy always follows the Golden Rule – he who has the gold makes the rules. Democrats aren’t going to win the White House over the objection of the Czars and the bulk of the technology industry.

My beef here has to do with her proposal to break up the Czars, starting with Amazon.

Her argument against Amazon is that the company can see which brands people are buying, then put an Amazon version into the market and wipe out the other seller. It’s like she never heard of store brands.

Store brands have been a feature of American retailing practically since brands. Kroger does it with food. Target does it with clothes. Walmart does it with both. Walmart calls their store brands “Great Value.”

The Demand of 2020: Law and Order

Regulations are the guardrails of corporate law.

They kick in before people are hurt. They’re usually aimed at corporations, not individuals. Everyone is punished by the paperwork. The penalties come in the form of fines.

Regulation is the best protection business can have.

When regulation isn’t imposed by government, it comes in other forms. It comes in insurance requirements. It comes from the plaintiff’s bar. Fines come in the form of differing rates to protect truck fleets, different prices for handling transactions, and in jury awards.

We Are All Founders

There are two distinguishing features to the existential crises in American history.

The first is it makes us return to first principles, causing us to re-examine, criticize, and eventually deify the past.

In the run-up to World War II, a crisis that really began four score and seven years ago, in 1932, there was a vogue for Abraham Lincoln. Henry Fonda and Raymond Massey did popular biopics, and his memorial became a sort of Ground Zero for what was best in our political natures.

In our time, Lin Manuel Miranda did this to Alexander Hamilton while Ron Chernow, who did the biography of Hamilton on which the movie was based, proceeded to resurrect U.S. Grant. The purpose of both these pieces of art was political. Miranda wanted to highlight the importance of immigrants in getting the job done. Chernow wanted to push back against a Confederate-inspired view of history that still, 150 years later, has those who supported human rights being disparaged while those they fought are exalted.

We love to call America the world’s oldest democracy. We revere the founders as giants.  We even call them the Founders.

But the original Constitution was profoundly anti-democratic. Women couldn’t vote. Neither could blacks, nor native Americans. The franchise was reserved for white males, and not even all of them. You had to be a property owner.

The Google Primary

One reason I’ve always been confident that Trump was doomed was because history has generational cycles, and the rising generation hates him.

Another reason is that American politics are based on economic cycles, and the economic future hates him.

America runs by the Golden Rule. He who has the gold makes the rules. The business of America is business, and the business with the highest value-add calls the tune.

Back in 1979 this was the oil industry. Jimmy Carter defied oil with a cardigan sweater and a call for conservation. They buried him.

2018: Halfway Through the Gauntlet

Kids are taught in history that Gettysburg was the turning point of the Civil War, and that Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa, was the turning point in World War II.

From July 4, 1863, the South never invaded the north again. From January 1943, the Nazis and Japanese never again had the initiative.

That’s not the way things were to the people living through these crises. While these events were celebrated, people knew better.

I believe it will be seen that November 6, 2018 represented a similar turning point in the crisis represented by Donald Trump, and the invasion of the West by Russia that is, even now, escalating in Europe and the Ukraine. But a turning point isn’t final victory. It doesn’t even mean victory is in sight.

Tsunamis vs. Waves

As soon as it became apparent that Democrats would win the U.S. House, analysts began asking whether this was a “wave” election.

It wasn’t. It was a tsunami.

It’s easy not to understand this because most political scientists aren’t taught the difference between a wave and a tsunami.

The waves that daily hit the shore of the Bonzai Pipeline, on Hawaii’s northwest coast are often 12 feet high. But a wave, no matter how high, will break upon the beach and do no damage, except perhaps to the surfer who doesn’t catch it right.

A tsunami, on the other hand, is caused by forces deep inside the Earth.  A tsunami may be shorter than an ordinary wave, but it will do tremendous damage, because of the enormous power behind it.