There’s a new Reason Roundtable podcast up, with Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Matt Welch, and me talking about the issues of the week. At top of mind was last week’s National Conservatism Conference (NATCON 5 to the initiated), which included two senators from Missouri denouncing the future in different ways.
Josh Hawley, he of the most pathetic fist bump in recent history, railed against autonomous vehicles and AI because such things displace current workers and don’t have ‘empathy.’
His junior partner, Eric Schmitt, gave a speech reportedly written by a guy fired from the DeSantis presidential campaign for inserting Nazi imagery in a campaign ad (let that sink in). Titled ‘What Is an American?',’ Schmitt’s remarks drove screaming away from the points made by Jean de Crevecoeur in the original 1782 essay of the same name. A French emigre to New York, Crevecoeur stressed how in America, ‘individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men,’ one that results in a ‘strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country’ yoked together by beliefs in freedom and the future. Crevecoueur’s essay used to be required reading and it really showcased how America was the best sort of multicultural, self-renewing society predicated upon creative destruction not just in an economic sense but in a cultural one as well. Always in a state of becoming—and that’s a good thing!
Schmitt was having none of that, instead talking about how ‘true Americans’ are the Scots-Irish and Germans from which he is descended, ‘the sons and daughters of the Christian pilgrims that poured out from Europe’s shores to baptize a new world in their ancient faith.’ More recent immigration has ruined all that, says Schmitt, and so has the emphasis on America as an propositional nation rather than as one settled by his forefathers (and those of J.D. Vance, whom he namechecks). America has been ‘gutted’ by free trade, too. Schmitt isn’t wrong that some left-wing critiques of America veer into self-hatred, but he’s too blinded by own fixations to seriously think about the future as something other than a return to (his) imagined past.
As we discuss on the Roundtable, the NatCons are kind at odds with Trump on AI and a lot of tech stuff. The reason why Silicon Valley bros defected from the Democrats and supported him in 2024 was because he said he’d pull down the guard rails that the Biden admin had put up regarding AI and related issues. He’s mostly done that, to his credit (same with his embrace of crypto). While the NatCons love Trump (the organizer of the conference and the broad movement, Yoram Hazony, has called Trump’s ‘the greatest administration we've ever seen’), they are not in synch here.
Ironically, the anti-tech right does have an ally—the labor left, which is reliably against all sorts of automation and inventions that put any single person out of work (amazingly, Hawley calls for legislation mandating AI companies list everyone who loses a job due to it). And of course, many on the left are pro-tariff and skeptical of mass immigration too, if for different reasons. Which means that politics, like the future more generally, are muddied at best.
We also talk about the proposition floated by Attorney General Pam Bondi to strip trans people of their Second Amendment rights in the wake of the recent church shooting in Minneapolis. This is, of course, blatantly unconstitutional but worse than that, it reflects the worst sort of bigotry and culture-war opportunism. I note in passing that there was a time when Donald Trump not only welcomed Caitlyn Jenner’s support but said she could use whatever bathroom she wanted to while visiting him. Conservatives, whether national or not, tend to have a problem with systems that allow for mixing and change and the destruction of easy binaries (native vs. immigrant, say, or male vs. female). But creative destruction is predicated upon a constant churn, one in which all sorts of traditions and ostensibly settled truths and realities are constantly be upended and transformed.
Tradition has its place—and encodes some real wisdom occasionally—but it is never fixed and certain. I think libertarians are generally more comfortable than either conservatives or progressives with the churn, the mongrelization, the hybridization of everything. If conservatives want to stop this process, progressives want to control it and bend it to only a few approved ends. That’s just not how a free society works.
Politics would be funny if it wasn’t so serious. The silver lining, I suppose, is that as people weary of the extremes of right and left, a sensible libertarian alternative presents an attractive way forward, though one still seriously lacking political actors with the sort of clout and charisma to advance a ‘free minds and free markets’ agenda.
Here’s Reason’s writeup of the episode. Below that are links to YouTube, Apple, and Spotify versions.
This week, editors Peter Suderman, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Matt Welch dig into Sen. Josh Hawley's (R–Mo.) speech at the National Conservatism Conference, where he denounced artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies as threats to liberty. They debate why MAGA populists are embracing anti-tech rhetoric, how this mirrors parts of the labor left, and what it means for President Donald Trump's simultaneous push for AI investment and closer ties with Silicon Valley.
Our editors also break down the latest jobs report, analyzing labor force participation, manufacturing losses, and whether tariffs and immigration limits are holding back growth. They then turn to New College of Florida's talk of privatization following its clash with Gov. Ron DeSantis, and what that would mean for university governance. A listener question prompts each editor to explain how they came to identify as libertarian and why the label matters to their work. Finally, the panel examines the Justice Department's move to ban transgender Americans from gun ownership.
How can we make The Reason Roundtable better? Take our listener survey and get a chance to win $300: http://reason.com/podsurvey
0:00—Does AI threaten liberty?
11:53—AI social anxieties
20:01—Abundance agenda embraces AI
23:40—Trump jobs report raises alarms
32:37—New College of Florida talks privatization
44:31—Listener question on becoming libertarian
52:15—Gun ban for transgender Americans
1:04:33—Weekly cultural recommendations
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