Commentary: Dear voters, everyone has lied to you
By Steve Welch Dear Middle-Class Voters, We're sorry we have lied to you. We have known for some time that free trade, while great for the world long term, would harm you dearly in the short term. We knew it would depress your earnings. My Democratic counterparts fought it. Not that they disagreed with me, but their campaigns were funded by labor.
By Steve Welch
Dear Middle-Class Voters,
We're sorry we have lied to you.
We have known for some time that free trade, while great for the world long term, would harm you dearly in the short term. We knew it would depress your earnings. My Democratic counterparts fought it. Not that they disagreed with me, but their campaigns were funded by labor.
We have lied to you for 30 years about immigration, but gosh darn it, you stopped having enough children, and if the population is not growing, all hell breaks loose. The debt can't be paid; entitlements can't be funded. You yell at us now, but you wait and see - we were right; we need the population to grow. Of course, we knew it would reduce your income - it's simple supply and demand - but really what were we supposed to do? After all, if McDonald's sells fewer hamburgers this year then last because the population is declining, then we go into recession, the stock market tanks, and everyone is unhappy and the incumbents might not get reelected.
We and the Democratic establishment both knew in our core that innovation and technology were the only paths to long-term security. After all, at some point there will obviously be a geological or astronomical event that will make our current home unlivable. We have known for some time that massive innovation would be the only way to secure a new home centuries, or maybe even millennia, down the road. We are sorry if you feel like we are rationalizing, but it is true. While we would do it again, we knew all along this would put massive downward pressure on your income and make you feel like less of a person when you were replaced by a robotic arm with a 12-inch touch screen.
We want you to know we stood up for you when it came to the environment. The Democratic king makers continuously pushed policies that would increase prices and depress your standard of living even further. We fought them, not because we didn't agree with them, but we, too, had a campaign to fund. Truthfully, even though we have never been good at articulating it, we knew Democratic policies would depress the rate of economic growth, which would slow innovation, which was our real concern. So, while we shared similar concerns, we have given you different lies.
We have known all along that education was the only real answer, but it would take a generation or more to have a real impact. For us, the election cycle was just too short. For members of the Democratic establishment, they had to fund their campaign with massive amounts of money and support from the education unions that have been scared to death of the real change that is required.
There were times when you were almost on to us. We and our Democratic friends tried to distract you with gay marriage and guns, and we even surprised ourselves with how well it worked.
But, to be honest, we're glad you now know the truth. We know you are mad. We get it. But Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are not the answers. Sure, they both speak to you in a way that says, "I get you." But one is an unstable narcissist, and the other wants to follow policies that have doomed every society that has tried them.
We are sorry. Promise. I mean really sorry. The kind of sorry that can only come from someone who has abused another and is now finally seeing them find the courage to walk out the door.
The Democratic establishment says they are sorry, too, but we don't think they really mean it. After all, they squeaked Hillary Clinton through the process, and we think they have already lost sight of how angry you really are.
We make this promise to you, though. We hear you and understand your anger, and while 2016 is gone and you are going to vote for Trump or hold your nose and vote for Hillary, starting, Nov. 9 our relationship will be different.
We cannot control the far-right and far-left media that get paid to make you mad, but we will no longer partake in this process. However, we also can no longer allow you the temper tantrums that result in nominating candidates who believe dinosaurs and people roamed the Earth at the same time. This indulgence is not good for either of us. Tolerating this lack of reason is part of how we got here: Nominating a conspiracy theorist and having members of Congress who believe the president is not an American. But we also promise to listen, and more importantly, to be honest with you, even when the words we say are going to hurt.
Here's a start on that truth: Globalization and innovation are going to wreak havoc on you over the next several decades. They will create more problems and opportunities then any of us can imagine. We and our Democratic colleagues cannot stop them. Any attempt to do so will actually create more harm then good. They are the natural evolution of society.
However, there are many policies that we can work on that will allow us to better deal with these massive changes that have already begun and, more importantly, address the education inequality that is truthfully at the core of the problem. But the only way for this all to work is for us to have a relationship based on honesty and respect. So, starting on Nov. 9, no more lies.
Sincerely,
The so-called Republican Establishment
Steve Welch, founder and chairman of Dreamit Venture, was a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in 2012. @welchsteven