Oren Cass On Curbing The Free Market

The conservative wonk urges the GOP to tack left on economics.

Oren is a writer and policy advisor. In 2012, he was the domestic policy director for Romney’s presidential campaign, and in 2018 he wrote The Once and Future Worker: A Vision for the Renewal of Work in America. In 2020, he founded the think tank American Compass, where he serves as executive director. He’s also a contributing opinion writer for the Financial Times.

You can listen right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For two clips of our convo — on how China cheats at free trade, and the possibility of Trumpism without Trump — pop over to our YouTube page.

Other topics: growing up in a stable family in suburban Mass; both American parents grew up in Israel; Oren’s progressive charter school; turning to conservatism at his very liberal college; studying political economy; working at Bain; the gap between wealth and happiness; the stagnant protectionist UK before Thatcher; Brexit; how London is almost unrecognizable to older Brits; Adam Smith and David Ricardo; how no one predicted the fall of the Soviet Union; Tiananmen Square; neoliberalism’s obsession with GDP growth; NAFTA and the WTO; the China Shock; how the success of the free market swung the pendulum too far; the meaning of populism; Oren working for the Romney campaign after the Great Recession; the growing trade deficit; Biden following the Trump playbook on tariffs and industrial policy; semiconductors in Taiwan; the CHIPS Act; the left’s disdain for patriotism; the cheap labor of open borders; E-Verify; how the college-for-all model is a “toxic disaster”; Biden’s loan forgiveness; Trump’s advantage in the 2024 election; his growing multi-racial coalition; his tax cuts and their looming expiration; Republicans rethinking labor unions; reformicons like Reihan and Ross; and me calling out Yglesias for never paying for The Weekly Dish. (Subscribe!)

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: Nellie Bowles on the woke revolution, Noah Smith on the economy, Bill Maher on everything, George Will on Trump and conservatism, Lionel Shriver on her new novel, Elizabeth Corey on Oakeshott, and the great Van Jones! Send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

From a fan of last week’s episode with Adam Moss:

I didn’t think I liked Moss, but turns out that I do. And in describing his early days in journalism, he brought back fond memories of my salad days.

Another fan:

I really enjoyed your conversation with Adam Moss and the trip down memory lane, reminiscing about the great era of magazines in the ‘80s, especially Esquire. I loved, loved, loved Esquire. I still have two papers torn from its pages. One is an article by Anthony Brandt, “Living with the Past,” and one by Bob Greene, “The Cut.” The first is Brandt’s account of reaching forgiveness with his mother; the other is about the pain that boys experience being cut from a sports team. So many of the articles were deeply psychological and well-written that they stand the test of time. I can’t think of any magazine or journal today of its caliber. God bless Adam Moss for his contribution to a great magazine and all the pleasure it brought its readers.

Another writes simply, “Grady West is a mad genius” — the genius behind Dina Martina:

Another elaborates:

Dina Martina is the greatest, most under-appreciated character since at least the 1980s. I will never understand how Dina never really exploded in popularity in the Internet Age the way Pee Wee Herman or Elvira did during the latter years of television. For those who don’t know, Dina is an absolutely genius performer who can make so much humor in a few sentences: the mannerisms, the mispronounced words, the inappropriate word substitution (because she’s always trying to sound more profound than her vocabulary will allow), and generally misreading the room, then being an unreliable narrator of her experiences.

There is so little of Dina on YouTube, and even then the view counts are appallingly low relative to the amount of pure talent on display.

The very first time I saw a Dina Show, I said I had no idea why she wasn’t at Carnegie Hall and I couldn’t get in. Here’s a clip on YouTube where Dina took questions from Daily Dish readers — and another clip, and another:

Here’s a listener on one of the most popular Dishcasts lately:

Quick note to concur with the praise of the Johann Hari episode! Kudos, particularly when you told him to “carry on with your Protestant bigotry.” What a line!

While I agree with some of your commentators that I don’t love when you rant and steamroll guests, and you can drift into aphorisms, it’s all vastly outweighed by your earnest and honest engagement on the most difficult of subjects. And your bravery at publishing feedback each week is remarkable — to see someone so strongly opinionated respectfully engage with equally passionate critics. So here is a vote for you to keep calm and carry on, especially with the British wit. Us Americans could stand more of it!

In this week’s episode with Oren Cass, I talk about my experience with Ozempic after being on it for three weeks. Cartman’s story is forthcoming:

Here’s a serious correction from Johann’s book peeps:

A statement about a food critic taking Ozempic leading to a loss of joy in eating was incorrectly attributed to Jay Rayner. In fact, Mr. Rayner has never taken Ozempic and last year wrote an article explaining that he would not use the drug because it would risk him losing his pleasure in food. Mr. Hari apologizes for this error.

Another episode:

I’m not a huge podcast person. I’m a good 25 years behind the times when it comes to most technologies and media innovations, so I prefer the written word over podcasts. Still, once in a blue moon I listen to a podcast, and recently I listened to your conversation with Jonathan Freedland, mainly because I think the topic of anti-Semitism is vitally important.

What I loved about the episode was that it was a conversation in the best sense of the term. Two people — one sort of on the right, the other sort on the left, but neither dogmatically so — listening to each other, giving each other time to speak, and then offering complementary perspectives. Sometimes harsh disagreement is necessary when there are major differences, but most conversations work best when people come at issues from various perspectives that, although not the same, enrich the other person’s viewpoint. This episode was a masterclass in that sort of conversation.

Shucks. Here’s a guest rec:

Thanks as always for the Dish — I look forward to reading every Friday, and I listen to 90 percent of the episodes. Recently you were getting recommendations for guests you might disagree with, then you mentioned you may need to rethink your stance on drug legalization, at least when it comes to hard drugs. Gabor Mate might check both boxes. Most of his expertise is in trauma and addiction, but he occasionally discusses current events. He’s very “woke” but not a mean wokie at all. He worked in Vancouver with the most troubled and incorrigible addicts imaginable — street people, primarily. He’s very good at discussing the trauma that causes addiction and at helping us foster a compassionate mindset for those at rock bottom. His book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, was profoundly important to me.

He’s not very good, however, at addressing the costs to society that arise when hard drugs are legalized or tolerated. It’s unrealistic to hope or expect people to always respond with compassion. And he might be a little kooky in the extent of his rejection of Western medicine (though I’m not in a position to know; it’s just a hunch). Some may find him a bit soporific. But I would love to hear you two in conversation.

Another rec:

I want to suggest Padraig O’Tuama as a guest on your pod. He’s a peace activist, theologian, and gay Catholic poet, who brought together Protestant police and Catholic Irish citizens for peace and reconciliation talks during The Troubles at Corrymeela. Here’s a New Yorker piece on O’Tuama and his book Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World. He’s also a wonderful person; I took a peace-building class with him that centered on the use of poetry for bridge building.

Thanks! Will look him up. Next up, a few dissents over my column on the lawfare campaign against Trump:

As a lawyer, it doesn’t surprise me that you have gotten it wrong. The judge in NYC went out of his way on the second motion for a mistrial to put on the record that the fucking testimony by Stormy Daniels was only because Trump’s lawyers opened the door and, most importantly, because they didn’t object. Failure to object is fatal on appeal. The judge has covered his bases. NYS courts don’t dilly-dally. We’ll see how settling into a NYS prison before Labor Day works for Trump’s campaign.

We’ll see, I guess, what happens on appeal. Another dissent comes from a “retired (non-criminal) government attorney”:

Judge Cannon’s delay of the Florida case is not at all “fishy.”

It turns out the special prosecutor’s office lied to the court in representing under oath that the documents in the boxes were in the same order that they were in when the boxes were taken from Trump. Not only will the court have to deal with the consequences of that lie, but also the issue of whether, in rearranging the documents, the FBI or DOJ have messed with the evidence sufficient to prejudice Trump’s ability to have a fair trial. There are many scenarios in which the order of the documents in the boxes may have bearing on any possible guilt. Indeed, it’s possible that such tainting of the evidence may cause the entire case to be thrown out.

Whether one chalks up the problems in the Georgia case to hubris, greed, or lust, the conflict of interest is real and palpable — not merely a “chance to delay the trial,” as you put it. The evidentiary hearing conclusively showed that Fani Willis was in a romantic relationship with Wade prior to his coming on board and working for her; that he paid for many trips and other things for her (unless you believe that she paid him back in cash from the large sums of cash she keeps at home); that she hired him despite having no experience in this type of case; and that she paid him much more than other prosecutors on the case who have experience in such cases. The judge found that there was no actual conflict of interest, but rather the appearance of a conflict requiring one of the two to leave the case, but he was allowed an interlocutory appeal of his ruling (i.e. while the case is still ongoing), which is very unusual.

The DC case — and immunity for criminal acts committed while in office — is a very important issue. Unlike absolute immunity for civil cases, which was decided in Nixon v. Fitzgerald, the extent of criminal immunity is not well-settled. The Court of Appeals held that a president may be prosecuted for a criminal act committed while he is president, but that cannot possibly be a correct statement of the law. If it is, all the presidents, including Carter (Iran rescue) and Obama (drone attacks on American civilians), would be liable for prosecution for murder. It’s likely that SCOTUS will use the same official/personal distinction employed in Fitzgerald to delineate which criminal actions a president may be held criminally liable for. Of course, since neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals analyzed the case in this manner, the case will have to go all the way back to the start to analyze it under the proper legal standard.

In the NY case, Trump may well be guilty of some misdemeanors, but Bragg’s attempt to stretch those into federal election law violations (which had been previously rejected by the FEC and DOJ) is a bridge too far. The judge, in his mission to try to destroy Trump, has committed numerous evidentiary errors (including letting Stormy Daniels get on the stand at all), which will mandate reversal of any guilty verdict. As you pointed out, Trump cannot lose this case, whatever way it turns out.

Finally, the delay in bringing these cases, which you questioned several times, is a feature, not a bug. They wanted guilty verdicts while the election race was going on the maximize the shock value.

A great analysis. Thanks. One more dissent:

Your latest on the lawfare front seems — to this recovering lawyer — mostly right, and definitely right on the politics of icky testimony. But on the legal part of the absurd NY case, I recommend you listen to and read Andy McCarthy at National Review. He is a real-world lawyer with decades of courtroom experience and, even more importantly, a lawyer first and political animal second, who calls them as he sees them.

Another reader is opposed to lawfare:

I fully agree that Trump will not be taken out by the various legal cases against him. And, in fact, I don’t want him taken out that way. Imagine if at the end of a horror movie, before the hero can slay the monster, it slips on a banana peel and falls off of a cliff. It would be the most unsatisfying anti-climax possible. And it would leave the chance of a sequel open. Did the monster actually die at the bottom of the cliff, or could he come back?!

For America to be fully rid of the orange monster, we must go through him — at the voting booth — not around him. He must be slayed by voters, not juries or judges. Trump’s supporters would feel robbed and alienated by the judicial system, rightly or wrongly. God help us if some flinty-eyed, Timothy McVeigh-type decided to take matters into his own hands.

Electoral defeat is the only way the Trump Era truly ends. Conviction makes him a martyr, and even if he is put in a jumpsuit that matches his makeup, he will still find a way to call the shots for gutless GOP politicians, whereas his losing another election would free them from him.

I wholeheartedly agree. I’m just beginning to believe a Trump Electoral College landslide could well be the result this November. Another looks to the electoral process:

Regarding the last of your reader dissents last week, I disagree that Trump will have a hard time winning the suburbs. The reader specifically mentions that the trend-breakers in reelecting incumbents are crises, and the suburbs of America are exactly where inflation remains a “crisis.” I throw quotes around that because I don’t think it’s actually a crisis for most suburban Americans. I think they just got comfortable earning way more money than their basic needs and now don’t like the feeling of that gap closing. But we’re not really talking about losing housing or being unable to feed their families. At worst, maybe they can’t sign Billy up for travel team for soccer this year.

My context here is living and working in one of the swing-iest suburban counties in one of the swing-iest states: Chester County, PA. The vibe here compared to 2016 is very different. In 2016, no one was willing to admit they’d vote for Trump, and even around the office — where political talk is usually modest or completely eschewed — people openly ridiculed Trump or the idea that someone would vote for him. Even after he won, you were hard pressed to find anyone willing to acknowledge supporting Trump, other than the people wearing his hats. And even after 2020, the vibe tended to be an assumption that we were all relieved that Trump was gone.

But now, everyone is mad about inflation and it’s completely normal to suggest that Biden is at fault, plus he’s too old to keep being president. So while you still might not find many people willing to say they’re for Trump, there are waaaay more people willing to let you infer it, by saying that now it’s ridiculous that Biden could or should win the election. The border and wokeness are secondary issues, but here in the still-mostly-blue suburbs, most people avoid taking on those subjects as direct complaints. So in many ways I’m seeing a variation on the 1992 Clinton theme — it’s inflation, stupid — and a willingness to let other people deduce that you’re voting for Trump this fall.

To the extent that these people care about the plight of immigrants at the border or the self-determination of transgender people, etc., all of the protesting and liberal screams are having the opposite of their intended effect. They’re convincing people that no one is right and no one is being fair. This will give them the excuse to vote according to their self-interest. And because of how inflation is infiltrating their tranquil suburban lives and affluence, I think these voters will flip for Trump in mighty numbers.

As you know, suburban Americans are a famously risk-averse lot. They tend to stick with professional jobs that supply them with security and modest pay raises that (usually) keep their wealth growing a little better than each year before. This is the land of steady progress and no surprises, please. That means that during the frenetic past year or so of rapid job growth and worker leverage, the average suburban voter did not capitalize on it. Meanwhile, their modest pay raises have left them well behind inflation. This is why these people so terribly put out by the economy right now.

All this is why I so strongly agree with your lead essay last week. The only thing that would really snap swing voters out of their ennui about inflation would be an impossible-to-look-away-from conviction in one of Trump’s substantive trials. Alas, that won’t happen now. I think our best case scenario is that Trump once again loses the popular vote, and that our allies in Europe and elsewhere take some heart in that fact and decide to be patient with us for another four years. Because great googly-moogly is this country fucked if the rest of the world decides they’ve had enough of our shit.

Amen. I think many voters have simply written Biden off. Another reader looks to Israel:

I haven’t ever commented before and hesitate to do so this week — no one really needs yet another comment on the Middle East. Having grown up in Australia and having lived in London before I came to the US, I have always watched the US obsession with Israel with some bemusement. I pretty much agree with your take on the whole thing, and one thing you wrote last week especially resonated with me:

I think you’re right, though. We cover the question out of all proportion to its salience to America’s self-interest. And I don’t see Israel as an “ally”, let alone a solid one. I think it’s a client state that has never been at America’s side in any war, and will tell the US to fuck off if we don’t subordinate our every interest to theirs.

100% correct — except I am not sure “client state” is entirely accurate, since client states do what they are told. Israel has received more foreign aid that any other country ever, have unlimited military support, the US is fine with Israel getting nuclear weapons, and on and on. The US is a true ally of Israel and does so despite its own interests.

But the favor is not returned: Israel has never fought with the US in any war; doesn’t really host any military bases; has its prime minister insult the president in front of Congress and actively campaign for one political party; and behaves like a toddler throwing a tantrum any time the US has the temerity to act in its own interest. Just last week, Michael Oren complained in The Free Press, “Is America Still Israel’s Ally?” — only because Biden said he may slow down some bomb deliveries. Also in The Free Press, you have these “never Trump” folks having a cow over the same issue: “The Rise of the ‘Never Bidens’”.

On a lighter note, the UK (and generally the Australian) approach to the Middle East always struck me as fairly well captured by Yes Minister:

To be fair to Israel, their weapons were used in the US fight in Afghanistan. But that’s about it. Another reader on Biden:

You wrote, “My main point is that Biden has backed his party’s woke, neoracist and homophobic extremism in every area.” Nonetheless, the underlying point remains that Biden comes across not as an elder statesman, but as a tired, feckless old politician. I agree with you on the issues and their merits — but Biden himself might or might not deeply believe in those nefarious tropes (if indeed he believes deeply in anything beyond the institutions themselves). He almost had his Sister Souljah moment when he spoke of “illegals” during his SOTU, but he was all apologies the next day.

The takeaway for voters is not only that he lacks the eloquence and presence of an Obama or a JFK, but also (deeply intertwined with this vacuity!) he lets himself get pushed around. And THAT is the saddest part.

One more email for the week:

I was so sorry to hear about Bowie — such a hard loss. I’m glad she will live on as the haloed Dish mascot. I’m also very happy for you (and Chris) that Truman is in the picture now. He’s adorable! I recently got a new puppy too — this is Gus:

Truman is curled up on my toes as I write this.

Thanks as always for the dissents and other great emails. Send yours to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

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