Vance destroys anti-tariff argument

Bonchie—a popular and very capable online writer—tweeted something foolish.

JD Vance destroyed his argument.

It is this braindead liberalism pretending to conservatism that saw the U.S. go from the world’s manufacturing superpower to one in which the PRC makes nearly twice as much as we do. And where, if the small island of Taiwan fell to an invasion, we’d be hurled into a Great Depression.

This is not just about a “few union workers,” this is about a globalized economic system in which the United States absorbs much of the producer surplus of the world. A system whose brittle supply chains exposed our economic vulnerability after COVID. And speaking of those auto workers this guy has such contempt for, it was the auto workers of the 1940s who allowed the United States to go from a peacetime economy to the best mass producer of aircraft the world had ever seen.

By this logic, it should be illegal for the United States to control our borders, because that makes it impossible for employers to buy and sell labor at the price they choose.

President Trump believes in borders. He believes in economic self-sufficiency. He believes America should be a great nation.

Now I am at a disadvantage because Vance so humiliated Bonchie that he deleted the original tweet. But judging by Bonchie’s responses to other readers who took exception to his tweet, he badmouthed factory work and the UAW.

Bonchie tweeted in response to a critic:

And do you think major companies are going to pay more for low-skilled labor or lean into automation to cut costs so they can still compete globally?

There's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Amazon creating jobs has been a good thing. It’s not like manufacturing jobs typically pay more.

Everyone sees the UAW and thinks that’s what all manufacturing is. Most of it is low-skilled and low-paying.

Low skill, low pay?

Raggedy Man tweeted, “The ‘low skill, low wage’ people can’t do the job. That’s why I make $150,000 a year WITHOUT a degree, because I CAN, and they/you can’t. You’re a pedantic retard.”

There is poetry and insight in those last two words. Pedantic retard. He just described half the political writers in DC. It is nice to see retard come back as an insult.

When I was in college, I worked in a factory and it paid for a house, a car and college. I can attest to the skill level. Bonchie seems as clueless about factory work as Hillary is about coal mining, which involves operating heavy equipment and if underground, a great deal of even greater skill to avoid an explosion or cave in.

Vance made the best argument for bringing factories back home when he said, “And speaking of those auto workers this guy has such contempt for, it was the auto workers of the 1940s who allowed the United States to go from a peacetime economy to the best mass producer of aircraft the world had ever seen.”

Pacheco the Ghost (I love these pseudonyms) tweeted, “I’ve been a free trader all my life. Let competition make prices lower and products better, I thought. But the reality is, there’s no such thing as a free market. Countries all over the world corrupt this concept with tariffs and subsidies while only the U.S. held doggedly to the idea that the market was behaving rationally.

“In the meantime, as we saw during COVID, a country like China could starve us of antibiotics if it chose to because, on the basis of market efficiencies, there’s no reason for us to produce these things.

“Free trade and the free flow of labor have downstream consequences in the real world that are not a net positive for us culturally, even if they might be positive for consumers.”

Protective tariffs served to incubate our fledgling industries after the Civil War until the Great Depression. The tariffs did not bring the depression. The tariffs created the economy. FDR tried to use the federal government to run the economy. He only extended the depression.

Chad Crowley did a better job than me in explaining this, as he tweeted, “The core problem with liberalism as it exists today is philosophical: it places the economy above the nation, treating markets as ends in themselves rather than tools to serve a people. This is upside down. A healthy nation doesn’t exist to maximize GDP or accommodate the whims of global capital. It exists to protect and elevate its citizens. The economy must be subordinate to the nation, not the other way around.

“When policy is made to please markets instead of securing national strength, you get hollowed-out industries, fragile supply chains, and working-class despair. Liberalism calls this efficiency. But no nation survives on efficiency alone. It survives self-reliance, strength, sovereignty, and the ability to stand on its own. These are not things you can outsource to other nations or import through trade agreements.

“A sovereign people have every right to protect their borders, their labor, and their industries. That is protectionism, properly understood. It’s also common sense. The economy should serve the national interest, not dissolve it.”

We placed the economy over the country after Vietnam. Unions and companies alike took Americans for granted. The companies began offloading jobs overseas and most Americans had Bonchie’s attitude toward factory work and yes, coal mining.

What may have set Bonchie off—and again, he stirred shit up and then deleted the tweet—was UAW President Shawn Fain praising Trump.

Fain said, “This afternoon, the Trump administration announced major tariffs on passenger cars and trucks entering the U.S. market, marking the beginning of the end of a thirty-plus year ‘free trade’ disaster. This is a long-overdue shift away from a harmful economic framework that has devastated the working class and driven a race to the bottom across borders in the auto industry. It signals a return to policies that prioritize the workers who build this country—rather than the greed of ruthless corporations.

“We applaud the Trump administration for stepping up to end the free trade disaster that has devastated working class communities for decades. Ending the race to the bottom in the auto industry starts with fixing our broken trade deals, and the Trump administration has made history with today’s action.”

Oh no! Someone on the left praised Trump. That means Trump did something wrong. We cannot have lefties agreeing with us. We must keep people constantly at one another’s throats and if a lefty praises you, then you must be doing it all wrong.

Be American, buy American. It is nice to see those 4 words together again.