The Mountain and the Molehill

The best thing about 2020 is that if you don't know where your close friends, family and colleagues stand on something, now you do.

The worst thing about 2020 is that if you don't know where your close friends, family and colleagues stand on something, now you do.

There isn't any avoiding it when you've been stuck in tight quarters with some of those people every day of the week for four months. It probably doesn't help that being distanced from everyone else leads to spurts of collective oversharing on social media, either. Or that more than a few of y'all have become a bit too comfortable with day-drinking on a Tuesday. I know, I know, it's very European.

But if you came into this hellscape of a year yearning to know just what your vaguely-gesturing-in-the-direction-of-racism high school classmate or your aggressively anti-everything-in-society-that-actually-works niece thought about every damned thing that might happen, well, then 2020 is coming up roses for you, my friend.

Less so for the rest of us, I fear.

For my part? Most of my friends and nearly all of my extended family are conservative. My uncle is a minor conservative celebrity on Twitter and thinks he has remained mostly anonymous. I know what your dog looks like, Uncle Dave, and also your pool looks really lovely. I'm conservative, too, or at least I was when that term was still defined by a desire to defend institutions that have survived hundreds or thousands of years from the majority's occasional flights of passion. I've heard a lot from people who think about the world like I do this year, and I'm charitable enough to presume that only a portion of what I've heard was motivated by the now-ubiquitous 11:30 AM take-out frozen margarita.

Fellow conservatives, I suspect we don't agree on as much as we usually do right now. For instance, I think that the militarization of police goes beyond a race-related problem to an issue for all freedom-loving peoples who would see the government fear them and not the reverse. I think that racism is absolutely embedded in some of our institutions, even if I cringe as much as you every time I hear it described in the postmodern terms invented on university campuses to create further division. I think protests are energizing and fiercely American, and that would-be anarchists trying to take over their agenda doesn't make the authentic expressions of resistance less valuable or important. And yes, I think missionary-promoted narratives are working hard to skew your takes on these issues, and I'm pretty sure they're trying to do the same thing to me.

AND I know why most of you are uncomfortable expressing support for Black Lives Matter and some of the ongoing protests. For most of you (alas, not all), I know it has literally nothing to do with the narrative that national media desperately want to promote about you. I understand.

I know that you struggle signing on to protests that in too many cases have devolved into or been accompanied by violence and vandalism. I know why the "defund police" message sits very badly with you, and turns you off completely to anything else that person has to say.

It is because you cherish a belief in the rule of law.

I know why you believe that the protests are being driven by - or at the very least have been co-opted by - organizers whose goal is to subvert capitalism. It's not hard to know given that many of them literally say as much, whether through stated policies or signs. I know why a movement that doesn't adequately police the destruction of private property and the ruining of livelihoods by a group of its participants, no matter how small, isn't one you feel you can sign up for.

It is because you believe that capitalism works. That without it the American Dream doesn't work.

And I think you are right. On both counts. But I know something else, too. I know that whatever threat these divisive elements co-opting an important social movement pose to our cherished values, at a national level it is a molehill.

If it is the threat to capitalism that concerns you, let me ease your mind; its end will not be at the hands of a 24-year old ukelele-strumming Oberlin grad with a man bun and a "capitalism kills" sign.

If it is the threat to the rule of law that concerns you, let me give you peace; it will not perish from this Earth by the will of a mustachioed software engineer in a $120 t-shirt and paintball mask who busts the windows of small businesses because something something equality, then goes home to unironically post a meme comparing himself to the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy on his $3,000 MacBook Pro.

If it is the threat to either of those things that concerns you - and it should - then I implore you: Pay attention to what is happening right now at the intersection of political power, financial markets and corporate power. Because this, friends, THIS is a mountain. We needn't be hyperbolic. Capitalism will survive this. So will the rule of law. But if there is a threat to either, you won't find it on the streets of Seattle or Portland.

You will find it here.

Trump Says U.S. Should Get Slice of TikTok Sale Price [WSJ]

If you aren't plugged into financial markets, you probably haven't seen that much about this story yet. A bit of background is in order.

TikTok is a social application developer. Their main product is an ultra-short-form video sharing app for mobile devices. If you have kids, they probably have it on their phones. It is owned by a Chinese company. It collects a lot of identifying information about its user base, more than 2/3 of which is between the ages of 13 and 24. It says it doesn't share that information with the Chinese government, which you are free to believe if you want. It says it never will, which you are free to believe if you are illiterate. Whether TikTok's parent regularly shares your kid's keystroke data with the CCP or not today, don't delude yourself - by Chinese law we are never more than a single phone call from a party official away from exactly that.

It is also true that TikTok has become a part of the escalating disputes conjured to serve the domestic political interests of the CCP and US government alike. Various government agencies, including the US Army, have banned its use. Some corporations have, too. In early July, the Trump administration began to publicly float the idea of banning TikTok in the United States. On July 31st, it announced that unless TikTok's Chinese parent company divested 100% of TikTok, its operations in the United States could be banned by executive order. Shortly thereafter, in a conversation with the White House press pool on Air Force One, President Trump was less equivocal. TikTok would be banned and it would not be sold to a US corporation.

A day later, President Trump met with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and changed his tune. It would be OK if Microsoft bought TikTok from its Chinese parent company. If it did, however, the treasury would have to receive a payment. And then he set a deal deadline.

Let us recap.

1. The President of the United States threatened the use of executive power to unilaterally ban a foreign company from the distribution of a product in the United States.
2. He then met with the CEO of one of the two biggest US-based public companies to negotiate permission to acquire the company distributing that product.
3. He then demanded a payment to the US government to facilitate the approval of such a transaction.

The rule of law we cherish hasn't anything to do with the overaggressive enforcement and policing of laws. It means a system in which permissible activities under the law are clear and unequivocal to all. It means a system in which the adjudication of conflicts with those laws is conducted without favor or prejudice against any party. It means a nation in which citizens, investors and businesspeople need have no fear that the outcomes of their behaviors will be subject to the arbitrary determinations of a single individual. The rule of law is the answer to the rule of man.

The capitalist system we cherish is about a belief in markets, the superior power of a collection of individuals expressing their preferences to arrive at the correct prices and values of things, against, say, the beliefs of a small group of 'experts', or worse, 'politicians', or even worse than that, 'academics'. It is about a belief that the flow of rewards to capital creates a relationship between risk and reward that produces society-supporting growth. Is it the belief that the system does the best job possible - if often imperfect - of achieving that while providing competitive incentives to reward and attract labor.

That US corporations must now consider their actions based on how they believe they will align with the person and preferences of the president in order to conduct business is a basic betrayal of the rule of law. That we have now established a precedent to enforce or not enforce regulations or orders based entirely on whether a citizen or corporation pays a financial tribute to the US treasury is a brazen betrayal of the rule of law. That the ability to pursue corporate actions and investments is now not determined by the forces of competition but by which institutions can secure an audience with the king and most afford to pay it tribute is a shameless and destructive betrayal of the capitalist system.

The Microsoft / TikTok affair is a betrayal of both the rule of law and the capitalist system on a scale that dwarfs anything being done by the cosplayers in the Pacific Northwest that dominate the conservative news cycle right now.

And yeah, when those people scream "fascism", what they are usually referring to is "a bunch of policies I don't really like." Sure. But fascism IS a thing. And while fascist governments vary wildly in economic models, all share one trait: they rely on the use of arbitrary executive power to coerce or incentivize powerful corporate institutions into obedience and alignment with the aims of a political party or individual.

Fellow conservatives who care deeply about the rule of law and quality-of-life improving miracle of capitalism, now is our time to howl.

How about we focus on the mountain instead of the molehill?