November 11, 2024
Hot takes all over the place
The torrent of Trump Hot Takes continues to flow. The internet has given everyone a voice, and they have all decided to use it one way.
Here is my hot take: hot takes are annoying and unhelpful.
What I will say is that I am more interested in the movements of historical Trump allies than I am of everyone else. There are so few that it makes it easier to focus on things that might actually drive agenda.
The Heritage Foundation, authors of Project 2025, is one of those allies that is similar to the American Enterprise Institute under the Bush administration. Its writing will not all make it into policy, but it has been successful in establishing the policy that Trump's folks will start discussions around.
Heritage has been where many conservative ideas get their teeth in the USA and was one of the main NGO's that started the "Think Tanks" craze from the 1990s on.
It was where conservatives needed to go to get their policy prescriptions because the academy was so hostile to activist conservativism. The left like to attack these right-wing organizations as unacademic and prone to digging-up bad, failed, and ultimate dangerous ideas from history and giving them and new shine. This is all true, but seemingly misses the point.
Heritage is not about being correct, it is about winning support for capitalism and the brand of cultural that supports the USA's version of capitalism.
Heritage are culture warriors. And, they are objectively better at it than the Left when it comes to driving identity and cultural political agendas.
Heritage is funded by the group of "very large" USA corporations. These companies take turns funding the organization, so you have to go back a few years to see that it is broadly supported by these companies from oil and gas to Auto to logistics to mining to industrial producers. They know what it is and plan funding around each other.
If you want to read the right-wing's Hot Takes and what Heritage is pushing, read The Daily Signal. To say that it is unhinged is too pedantic. It is off the scales.
A standard warning: there is much to understand about the conservative movement, but there is not much to copy from them about winning. They are an arm of capital and power, and operate as such with tactics that fit that program.
The left are not and while they should understand the right's tactics, they should not fall into the trap of following them.
Investing focus of the conservatives
One of the first policy objectives announced by the Trump-aligned folks (not hot takes by the liberal class) is ESG.
From Bloomberg this morning:
As was obvious even before voters went to the polls, ESG was already a decisive loser in the US. The concept of Environmental, Social and Governance investing became hopelessly entangled with the culture war agenda, failed to deliver on its promises, and went into retreat.
…
Once Trump is back in the White House in January, we’ll learn much more about how his economic nationalism will work. Fine-tuning capitalism to make it more long-termist and take into account more than the narrowly defined interests of shareholders — the big ESG idea — has been comprehensively defeated. Now we wait to see what version of mercantilism comes in its stead.
Now, we would say ESG was always a weird fight between liberal investors who are mistaken about the nature of capitalism, investors who like to follow whatever narrative supports their profit trends, and investors who reject the entire idea that capitalism can work that way.
ESG was never a real thing that mattered and we should not mourn its passing.
What we should be on the look out for are
- the forces that target the left demanding a doubling down on this investment "strategy" narrative.
- the conservative reactionary program that will look very much like ESG in form, but be about supporting "American" businesses.
Why does this matter?
There are entrenched economic interests that drive these agenda. Investors in "green capitalism" have fallen on the wrong side of cultural capitalism in the USA during this election. So, they will do with "dirty capitalism" did during the Biden years hold-up in places where policies support them (California for green capital).
The fight will continue between those who claim their profits should be supported because they are green and those investors who have money in the "very large" companies.
The Left need to be mindful of this. It is not about siding with the lesser of the two evils. Green capital offers no solution to the climate crisis and, worse, likely offers no bulwark against conservative cultural frames.
Unfortunately, social democrats get taken-in by this kind of conflict between capitals rather easily. Venture Capital and other fancy sounding names for investment firms have a tonne of money and they like to splash it around.
Canada has its own version
We are already seeing this division here in Canada. The Cap and Trade program announced by the Liberals on production is supported by one side of the investor community and denounced by another.
Both these sides are the same in the end as both denounce "government interference" in the market when it undermines their profits. Which is why there is strong opposition even from Green Capital on regulation and public ownership.
The "Green Capital" frame in Canada is typified in BC by the weird climate capitalism of the Green Party and a new group called New Economy Canada. This is mostly a rebrand of the Clean Energy Canada.
The Green Party is Venture Capital all the way, meaning it is about destroying old capital through policies instead of transforming it. Those new investments—right now—are private energy companies using new technologies. Like all capital, it is profit subsidies that they are after.
New Economy Canada is the response to VC funds from entrenched "very large" capital (minus oil and gas). They include mining companies like Teck (which were coal companies up to ten minutes ago) Alberta's Industrial Heartland (oil companies that are now "Carbon Capture" companies), large scale building material companies, and massive private sector energy companies. Oh, and some industrial unions like MoveUp(COPE), IBEW, and some niche building trades, and (tangentially) Canada Blue Green Alliance.
The third set is, of course, the conservative "old company" program of entrenched oil and gas, rail, logistics, and auto/trucking companies.
To say that we need a real alternative to these versions of capitalist tenancies is an understatement.
Anger at companies is at an all-time high. It is what the far-right have built their program around. It is a massive mistake for the NDP and unions to attach themselves to these groups.
Instead, we must be uniquely independent.
The cultural war is going to continue and intensify, but the materialist Left must keep focus on the real issues. Our material conditions from democracy to climate to social supports for the vulnerable are not advanced by any of these groups.
Unfortunately, I fear that we are already down the path of thinking that VC investors (small capital) provides a lifeline to relevance.