The Economic Nationalist

If right-wing economic nationalists take no other lesson away from this blog, they should take at least this by Mitch. His is a genuine voice of the old American, New Deal left.

Prejudices do exist to prevent any broad umbrella anti-globalist movement: many liberal oriented bipeds do not want to break bread with “right-wing religious freaks”, many conservatives do not want to be involved with left- of-center people. There is probably a mere .0000325% of the American population that would gel with the basic worldview of Left-Federalist, for that matter. Many anti-globalist folks just prefer their own version, go it alone, come hell or high water, and are comfortable within the cubby hole of their own box. That is fine, but as Howard pointed out, there is just 3% here and there, scattered like a tipped-over jigsaw puzzle. The fragments need assembly if a serious offensive on Globalism can manifest—the cosmopolitan multinational corporations and the politicians in their pockets hold all the cards at the moment, and they know it. Plus, they have a small but powerful edifice of useful idiots from the intelligentsia that enable them . This is crunch time, and there is not much leisure to go wobbly on protectionism, and the anti-globalist fragments have to be assembled yesterday. There are some politicos that are turning around(more than there were just a few years ago) so the situation may not be entirely dire, but it remains.

We Republican economic nationalists must realize that our numbers and influence are not nearly enough alone to save industrial America. Joining forces with economic nationalists, environmentalists, anti-globalists and fair traders on the left, however, we stand a fighting chance.

As far as I am aware, not a single western nation has yet overcome the deeply rooted hostility between left and right to assemble the needed economic-nationalist/fair-trade coalition. This I think is precisely why not a single free-trading western nation has yet turned from the disastrous international laissez-faire path. Left and right will remain left and right, but the trade issue today unexpectedly cuts pretty neatly across the left/right divide. It cuts at right angles. Our essential political allies live on the other side of the divide. If you believe that we right-wing economic nationalists can prevail in the face of the free-trade establishment without the alliance of left-wing fair trade, et al., you believe more than I do.

Cast your memory back. Remember how libertarians, white southerners, cold warriors, family farmers, big business, conservative traditionalists and the religious right joined forces to bring Ronald Reagan to power. That coalition seems natural today only because it happens to have been the basic Republican coalition of the 1964–2006 time period, but such a coalition would have seemed anything but natural much prior to 1964. It is breaking up even today. A new coalition beckons.

You don’t have to like earth children with earrings in strange places, you don’t have to like ex-Commie greenies, you don’t have to like union wobblers (though personally I think that you should give the union wobblers another chance)—and they do not especially have to like you—to cooperate toward vital political ends. From the Goldwater-Reagan coalition, we right-wing economic nationalists can salvage the alliance of most conservative traditionalists, some cold warriors and maybe half of the religious right. The rest of the old coalition either adamantly oppose us (libertarians, for instance) or have nearly ceased to exist (family farmers, for example).

One need not vote with the left on Civil Rights or on Supreme Court nominations to support the elements of the left that support us, when it comes to tariffs, treaties, taxes and trade. If you think otherwise, I respect your thinking, but ask you to think more deeply: can we really win without substantial help from the left?

In need, one seeks allies among the willing. Time to heed the call.

HJH

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 5th, 2007 at 8:59 pm and is filed under Trade. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.