f there were any doubt of the direction the Trump-dominated GOP is taking, Tucker Carlson’s monologue on Fox News Wednesday should remove it. Carlson’s not a political leader, but he’s a bellwether, and his words are already being cheered by prominent conservatives. Meant as a rebuttal to Mitt Romney’s New Year’s Day op-ed, the speech wasn’t original, but it reveals the degree to which Republicans have embraced the populist authoritarianism they once condemned.
Carlson began with several swipes against “bankers” who exploit the working class to line the pockets of spooky elites. If that anti-capitalist lingo sounds familiar, so does his contemptuous shrug at the ways free markets improve lives. “Does anyone still believe that cheaper iPhones or more Amazon deliveries of plastic garbage from China are going to make us happy? They haven’t so far.” This is a time-worn rhetorical technique of freedom’s enemies, who sneer at material standards of living in order to elevate abstract social goals over the needs of actual people. In fact, cheaper consumer goods have benefited Americans immeasurably. Some 85 million now own iPhones, for instance, and use them not as trinkets, but as work tools or devices to keep in touch with loved ones. And while Amazon may deliver “plastic garbage,” it also delivers syringes to diabetics, toys for special-needs kids, and even prosthetic limbs for the disabled—all, of course, made of plastic. Freer markets and abundant, affordable imports, have made the average American wealthier than Rockefeller, and 90 times richer than the average human being, writes Timothy Sandefur in his latest at Reason.
from Hit & Run http://bit.ly/2CQDIvs
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