Trump’s War on Explained



Why? It seems like every consumer loves Amazon. What gives?

"I have respect for Jeff Bezos, but he bought The Washington Post to have political influence, and I gotta tell you, we have a different country than we used to have," Trump said. "He owns Amazon. He wants political influence so that Amazon will benefit from it. That's not right. And believe me, if I become president, oh, do they have problems. They're going to have such problems."


This week, Trump filled in some detail. He thinks that Bezos bought the Washington Post to stop D.C. from taxing Amazon. “The politicians in Washington don't tax Amazon like they should be taxed,” he said. They have to be taxed because right now “they are getting away with murder taxwise.”


A Brutal and Baseless Attack

These serious claims are all wrong on their face. Amazon customers once benefited from the lack of a sales tax when shipping out of state. But once Amazon established distribution centers in state after state, its goods are taxed like any other -- thus taking away a pricing advantage for customers. It is fast service and variety that are driving Amazon to new heights.



For his part, Trump says he is burned up at Bezos, the Post, and Amazon, because journalists have been digging around for dirt on him. Threatening journalists would be bad enough. This is straight out of the 1790s when the Alien and Sedition Acts led to the arrest of editors who criticized President John Adams. Such attacks on free speech nearly smashed the union. Certainly it led to the triumph of Thomas Jefferson in the upset election of 1800.

The Old World Washed Away








So, yes, that is disruptive. Amazon is the creative part of Schumpeter’s process. The destructive part is that many people in the old economy are very upset.

The Empire Strikes Back




But what if technology makes it possible for people to work from home? Offices shrink. Revenues decline. Real-estate value falls. What happens if fancy hotels are losing marketshare to AirBnB? Hundred-million-dollar properties fall into bankruptcy. What happens when consumers can buy direct from China? Trade negotiators and entrenched establishments lose power.

And what happens when the essential value that is being traded is not physical but intellectual and people can trade all over the world? That alone blows up the world that Donald Trump romances about.

Think of it. When have you ever heard Donald Trump celebrate the new world of the app economy? He uses Twitter for his purposes. But when has he identified the tech sector as an important source of economic growth? He speaks not of innovation but of greatness. He is attached not to entrepreneurs as such but existing elites in the legacy sectors of the American industrialism of decades ago.

The central campaign symbol that Trump has chosen is The Wall, the ultimate brick-and-mortar construction project. It will require contractors, buy-outs, eminent domain, the art of the deal, all in an effort to shore up the value of the real estate holdings of the nation state.

Think of his remarkable demonization of Apple, another ornament of the new digital age. He has demanded that the company degrade its operating system to allow government surveillance. He has called for a consumer boycott (fat chance of that!). This company has enabled billions of people all over the world to produce and “break smart” rather than languish with the tools around them.

The immigration issue figures into this as well. When I last visited Google in Silicon Valley and Uber in San Francisco, it was readily apparent that one of the great assets these companies have is the H1B visa, without which they would lose some of their mightiest minds. Of course Trump has thoroughly denounced this visa status: “I will end forever the use of the H-1B as a cheap labor program, and institute an absolute requirement to hire American workers for every visa and immigration program. No exceptions.”

Method to the Madness

What if Trump represents more than just an ideology? Of course, he is in politics and therefore represents some economic interest. If you consider the consistency of his attacks on the digital realm, and his attachment to old-model, physical-world property, we find a new rationale for why it is that he is as passionate as he is.

Certainly Trump’s constituents feel themselves to be left behind by the progress of the 21st century, and, in this respect, they have blamed the wrong forces. It is not free markets but rigged labor markets and bad policy at the top that have driven down their economic prospects.

As an exponent of protectionism, cronyism, surveillance, censorship, and migration restrictions, Trump has emerged as a consistent defender of a world gone by. With the power of the presidency behind him, he can’t turn back the clock but he could manage to slow the progress.

In this respect, is he worse than Hillary who has directly attacked the “gig economy” in a way that Trump has yet to do? It’s hard to say; she depends on old-world unions for political support. However, her targeted demographic is young and more technologically sophisticated. That alone might curb her desire to roll back digital progress. And yet she has never been in business and does not understand its complex dynamics.

Trump represents an old corporate guard that is increasingly furious about the revolutionary changes taking place in a digital-data driven age that points to a world without borders and without entrenched elites.

When you think about the underlying dynamic here, it gives new meaning to the campaign’s slogan, “Make America Great Again.” Make: government will act. America: the nation state and its borders, not the individual, are of highest value. Great: as in big buildings, symbols of power, and ostentatious mountains of brick and mortar. Again: an age gone by that, thankfully, will never return, no matter how many powerful people try to make it happen.

More by Jeffrey A. Tucker