What I Like America the Made in America About U.(S.A.) Frenemy ADVERTORIAL

A Huge Story is Breaking Right Now in the Financial World… I was originally the only analyst I know July 22nd. of covering this opportunity. So when you read my write up please In fact, you can click here to see the keep in mind that you need to act very email I sent to all the executives at my quickly. company about this… The last time this happened, you could But just this morning I saw articles by have made 400% in just 24 hours. Yahoo! Finance, CNBC and Retuers Then dozens of stocks started going up reporting similar findings. hundreds of percent. Mark my word, a mania is about And it’s about to happen again soon. to begin. I’ve called this “The Greatest That’s because you could double your Investing Opportunity of My money very quickly… if you act soon. Career”… but the window to get in is closing quickly. In order to see my full Please note… my original prediction was write up, including how to get all the that this would happen by August 13th. details on the #1 stock you should buy to But the most recent data points to take advantage of this trend, click here. JULY 2019 : ISSUE 26

CLICK CONTENTS LOST? HERE

46 36 58

84 62 6

4 Inside This Issue 46 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings AMERICAN BY STEVEN LONGENECKER BY ROBERT WYSS CONSEQUENCES 6 Letter From the Editor 52 Go To Your Happy Place BY P.J. O'ROURKE BY P.J. O'ROURKE Editor in Chief: P.J. O’Rourke

10 What Could Possibly Go Wrong? 58 Bison Are Back Editorial Director: Carli Flippen BY MATTHEW MORAN Publisher: Steven Longenecker 12 From Our Inbox 62 The Rust Belt Shines Assistant Managing Editors: 16 Made in America Chris Gaarde, Laura Greaver BY TOM BODETT BY BILL SHAW Creative Director: Erica Wood 70 Forever Stocks 22 What I Like About U.(S.A.) Contributing Editors: BY AUSTIN ROOT BY ALICE LLOYD Tom Bodett, Alice Lloyd, Matthew Moran, John Podhoretz, Austin Root, Nouriel Roubini, 30 America the Frenemy 76 2020 Recession and Crisis Risk Buck Sexton, Bill Shaw, Robert Wyss BY JOHN PODHORETZ BY NOURIEL ROUBINI NewsWire Editors: C. Scott Garliss, John Gillin, Greg Diamond 36 Oh Beautiful For... 80 Book Grump Cartoon Director: Frank Stansberry Some Expected Things 82 Read This BY P. J. O’ROURKE COMPILED BY P.J. O’ROURKE General Manager: Jamison Miller AND LAURA GREAVER 42 Summer Reading Advertising: Ricky D'Andrea, Jill Peterson BY AMERICAN CONSEQUENCES 84 The Final Word Editorial feedback: feedback@ CONTRIBUTORS BY BUCK SEXTON americanconsequences.com

American Consequences 3 INSIDE THIS ISSUE

rom Easy Rider to backyard fruit cannons, Journalist Robert Wyss looks at the history Fthis month we’re celebrating the things of America’s pastime as we celebrate the 150th that make America. So pack up the cooler, birthday of Major League Baseball... grab the shark repellant, and throw on your Our July contributors send us home American flag speedo, because our “America with some summer reading, and our resident Is Great” issue is now live... Book Grump offers rare praise for an author Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke kicks things you’ve likely overlooked. off by explaining the difference between We’ve uploaded a PDF suitable for printing patriotism and nationalism, why he loves to our archive page. traffic jams and urban sprawl, and how America was founded on happiness. And tell us what you think at feedback@ americanconsequences.com. Contributing Editor Alice Lloyd interviews Bill Ayers, Howard Dean, and more, to find Regards, out what the Left loves about the America Steven Longenecker they often rally against... Publisher, American Consequences Humorist Tom Bodett reflects on the “Must Do” spirit of American ingenuity, from the Apollo moon landing to a watermelon cannon in Michigan. Ecologist Matthew Moran looks at the As summer ripens around reintroduction of bison to the Great Plains, and how the return of the once abundant us, I find my American animal is good for the environment and “ mind turns to mini golf. economics in the region... Unselfconsciously tacky, Writer and film critic John Podhoretz open to everyone who can shows us how Hollywood and the box office front a small fee, likely to love to hate on America... end in tears for at least one Analyst Austin Root makes the case for three “set it and forget it” stocks with the member of the family – potential to boost your portfolio for years mini golf, more or less, to come... while analyst Bill Shaw sees the is America. signs of an economic rebirth in the Rust Belt. Alice Lloyd

4 July 2019 Due to Unexpected Demand, Stansberry Research’s most secretive analyst is sharing his most high- conviction idea one last time: "If I had to put ALL my money in one stock, THIS would be it."

he new bull market in gold is here. He considers it the single best gold business on the Since bottoming in August, gold has planet. And he makes the case right here why it soared past $1,400 an ounce. It’s up could return upwards of 2,000% in the coming nearly 10% in the last month alone. years. T And this analyst suspects this is only Keep in mind – you’ve likely never heard of the beginning of a much bigger move. this company. It’s not a miner. It’s not a fund or an ETF. And while it has a lot in common with Scotiabank predicted that gold would have far royalty firms like Royal Gold or Franco Nevada more buyers at $1,400 than its previous $1,300 – it’s better than those (with insanely high 85% level – with investors pouring in due to “fear of pre-tax profit margins). missing out.” This business is so stupidly undervalued that You see, this analyst has been predicting a similar it could triple from these levels even with no “pile-on” effect. And he says he wouldn’t be movement in the price of gold. surprised to see another 20% jump within weeks. But if gold takes off the way he’s expecting – the In short, this could be the best moment in gains could be far higher. decades to own gold investments. Bottom line: This analyst considers it a “one- In this presentation, this analyst explains why and-done” way to capture all the upside of the this is the best moment to own gold and he gold surge with minimal risk. shares the No. 1 move to make right now. But he doesn’t expect it to be available at this He recently said, “I can almost guarantee it will level for long. surprise you.” Get the full story while there’s still time, right See... physical gold moves slowly. here. And while the best miners can return hundreds of percent in a gold bull market – most of them It doesn’t matter whether you’re a “gold bug” are extremely risky. or not. This opportunity is a way to potentially see 10 times your money or more... along with However, this analyst has found something a nearly 4% dividend... and ultra-low risk. much better. That’s why this analyst has gone on the record It’s a business with the same kind of upside as saying it’s the single best opportunity he’s ever the very best miners... but the risk profile of a found. Take a look at THIS and decide for dirt-cheap value stock. yourself. From Editor in Chief P.J. O’Rourke

PATRIOTISMvs.NATIONALISM Patriotism is a warm and personal business. Nationalism is another business entirely.

6 July 2019 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

CLICK HERE TO READ THE WEB VERSION vs.NATIONALISM

American Consequences 7 LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

he difference between patriotism and on the other hand, is inseparable from the nationalism is the difference between the desire for power. The abiding purpose of love a father has for his family and the love a every nationalist is to secure more power Godfather has for his “family” – the Bonanno and prestige, not for himself but for the family, the Colombo family, the Gambino nation or other [ideological, theological, Tfamily, the Genovese family, the Lucchese racial, etc.] unit in which he has chosen to family... sink his own individuality.

Patriotism is a warm and personal business. Sinking your own individuality into anything Nationalism is another business entirely. It’s is not a prescription for happiness. Even if the kind of business Salvatore Tessio talks to what you’re sinking it into is beer. (Maybe Tom Hagen about after Tessio’s betrayal of especially if it’s beer.) But being a White Michael Corleone. Nationalist – or Black Nationalist or Hindu Nationalist or Islamic Nationalist or Gay Tessio: “Tell Mike it was just business.” Nationalist or Whatever Nationalist – is In 1945, George Orwell wrote an excellent worse than being drunk. essay, “Notes on Nationalism,” for the British At least if you’re drunk, you’re not part of magazine Polemic. The essay is too long to a mass movement. Although I have seen reprint here and too detailed in its analysis something close to that at O’Rourke family of Nazi, Stalinist, and Trotskyite political Irish wakes. But too many O’Rourke’s fall ideas that were put out with the trash long down or pass out, so it ends up being more ago (although sometimes, unfortunately, mass than movement. (And speaking of mass, recycled). we have to sober up and go to one the next But – in severe condensation – what Orwell day). had to say is: What makes me unhappy about mass Nationalism is not to be confused with movements is just what Orwell points out. You patriotism... By “patriotism” I mean lose your individuality in the “unit.” When devotion to a particular place and a you lose your individuality, other people – particular way of life, which one believes who aren’t part of your mass movement, who to be the best in the world but has no wish aren’t nationalists in your “nation” – lose their to force on other people... Nationalism, individuality to you. They cease to be people and become “Other People.” Sinking your own individuality into When that happens, you don’t see these others as individuals. It becomes easy to be afraid “ anything is not a prescription of them, hate them, regard them in a jealous for happiness. Even if what you’re way, and want to exert power over them. sinking it into is beer. As Orwell goes on to say:

8 July 2019 ... as soon as fear, hatred, jealousy and City Was Gone,” argue about whether WKRP power worship are involved, the sense in Cincinnati or The Drew Carey Show was of reality becomes unhinged... the sense the best TV program ever, and get suicidal if of right and wrong becomes unhinged something goes wrong in “The Game” and also. There is no crime, absolutely none, Michigan beats Ohio State at Homecoming. that cannot be condoned when “our” I don’t want Ohio to conquer the world, or side commits it... one cannot feel that it even Michigan. I don’t want everyone in the is wrong, Loyalty is involved, and so pity world to become an Ohioan. (We’d run out of ceases to function. miniature marshmallows.) And, come to that, Nationalism turns people into assholes or – as I haven’t personally lived in Ohio for almost we’re called everywhere in America except the 50 years, but I’m still a loyal Buckeye. part of New England where I live – Patriots And, reading further in Orwell’s essay, I fans. discover, to my surprise, that the way I feel Yeah, we call ourselves “Patriots,” but about Ohio means I’m engaged in a “moral everybody knows we’re really “Patriot effort:” Nation.” It’s Chicago Cubs fans who are Nationalistic loves and hatreds... are part patriotic. of the make-up of most of us, whether Cubs fan: “I hope our team beats all the other we like it or not. Whether it is possible teams.” to get rid of them I do not know, but I do believe that it’s possible to struggle Patriots fan: “What other teams? There aren’t against them, and that this is essentially any other teams. And if there are any other a moral effort. It is a question first of all teams, I hope they die in a plane crash!” of discovering what one really is, what I am also a patriotic Ohioan. Born and raised one’s feelings really are, and then of there. (“Round on the Ends and ‘HI’ in the making allowance for the inevitable bias... Middle!”) I am devoted to that particular [Boo, Wolverines!] The emotional urges place and to the Ohio way of life, which I which are inescapable... should be able to exist side by side with an acceptance of believe to be the best in the world. reality. [Okay, okay, Tom Brady played But I have no wish to force other people to for Michigan.] But this, I repeat, needs a go on family vacations to the birthplaces moral effort. of all seven U.S. presidents who were born So become a patriot and you, too, can turn in Ohio (William Henry Harrison, Ulysses into a more moral person than Michael Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Corleone turned into, not to mention those Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, fearful, hateful, jealous, power hungry people William Taft, and Warren Harding), eat salads who went to the University of Michigan. with miniature marshmallows in them, mist up when they hear Chrissie Hynde sing “My

American Consequences 9 WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

Financial follies and disaster in the making

Bracing for the worst... On July 10, Powell told us in no uncertain terms that it has not. Barring a sudden For months, the market has been anticipating improvement over the next two weeks, the that the Federal Reserve could begin to Fed will almost surely kick off a new rate-cut cut interest rates as soon as this month. cycle when it meets at the end of the month. But following a one-two punch of Fed In fact, according to the CME Group’s announcements July 10, it’s now absolutely FedWatch Tool, the probability of at least convinced. a 0.25% cut this month is now 100%. The During testimony before the House Financial only question is whether the Fed cuts rates by Services Committee, Fed Chairman Jerome 0.25% or a more extreme 0.5%. Powell warned that the bank’s view of Weathering the storm... the economy hadn’t changed. He cited “uncertainties around global growth and Uncertainty at the Fed isn’t the only red flag trade” as a significant factor in the decision to we’re seeing today. leave rates unchanged. The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond is the global That same day, the Fed released the minutes paper-currency financial system’s “barometer.” from its June policy meeting and these The yield on this bond sets the price on all painted a similarly “dovish” picture. Fed other risk assets. officials voted to leave rates unchanged in When this 10-year real yield is steady or June, but many were in favor of future cuts rising, you’ll see “clear skies” ahead. But if their outlook for the economy did not when the barometer turns sharply lower, improve... and especially when it breaks through key

10 July 2019 thresholds, a hurricane is coming. time. And believe it or not, this total now includes a significant amount of junk-rated When yields on the 10-year U.S. Treasury debt as well. According to Bloomberg, some bond pay at or near zero, you’ll find investors European junk bonds trade at levels where fleeing assets tied to the dollar and seeking investors have to pay for the privilege of safe havens like gold. The yield on the 10-year holding them. U.S. Treasury bond is currently just under 2.2% (and falling) while gold is about $1,400 Yes, you read that correctly... an ounce and on the rise since June. Investors are now paying some of the riskiest Now, the Fed doesn’t directly control treasury companies to take their money. rates, but a new round of rate cuts will almost It’s truly a lose-lose proposition. If the company certainly accelerate this trend. We’re not defaults on this debt, investors are likely to lose a surprised to see gold surging again. significant amount of their investment. But even if everything goes right, they’re guaranteed to Staying afloat... lose money on these bonds. If any of this sounds familiar, it should. Unfortunately, we fear this trend is likely just getting started... In 2016, there was a massive expansion of negative interest rate policy (“NIRP”). The central banks of Europe and Japan appear to have abandoned whatever caution about The idea of “negative” interest rates is NIRP they previously had. And now even the nonsensical. It’s like capitalism turned upside Fed is seriously discussing negative interest down. Instead of being paid to lend your money rates for the first time. to a bank, government, or company, you’re actually paying them for the “privilege.” In short, despite the current record high amount of negative-yielding debt, the Negative-yielding debt simply shouldn’t exist number and size of less-than-zero-return loans in a healthy, free economy. And prior to 2014 could still rise dramatically... which means or so, it was practically unheard of. new highs for gold and silver may not be But as the central banks of Europe and Japan far behind. If we see real yields on 10-year began to ramp up NIRP in 2015, that all Treasury securities fall back below zero, gold changed. will surge very quickly... some analysts predict it could hit $2,500 an ounce or more. Between late 2015 and mid-2016, the total amount of negative-yielding debt surged more And what if you’re one of the unfortunate than sixfold... from less than $2 trillion to investors paying for the “privilege” of holding more than $12 trillion. junk bonds or deposits with near-zero percent interest? Late last month, the total amount of this Well, consider yourself warned. debt broke through $13 trillion for the first

American Consequences 11 FROM OUR INBOX

Re: Our Newest Readers too have a connection to NW Ohio, in a way. Weigh In I grew up in a tiny lumber town in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California. What do I think of your magazine? In the After the lumber was cut and dried at the simplest, simplest way possible all I can say mill it would be loaded on flat rail cars and it is fantastic. – John P. hauled down the Feather River canyon to P.J. O’Rourke comment: John, that’s simple Oroville, and then to lumber yards through enough that even we can understand it! the west coast. The steam engine that pulled these big loads was built in the I truly enjoyed the articles from PJ O’Rourke. nineteen-teens in Lima, Ohio by the Shay Co. Americans have become so spoiled they From the WWII years until the rail line was can’t seem to appreciate anything anymore. inundated in the 1970s with the construction Being a Senior Citizen I can easily remember of the Oroville dam, these trains went down a time of a much lesser affluent society with that metal track several times weekly. For much harder work required to achieve even some of its path the train track ran parallel that! President Trump may rub many the to the windy, two-lane highway, and you wrong way, but give credit where credit is could see the dark smoke coming out of the due! Not one of us is perfect or always right stack. We loved that train. on either side of the fence! – Sandy B.

YOU WRITE, WE RESPOND YOU A few years ago I tried to find out what had P.J. O’Rourke comment: Right on, Sandy. And happened to that old Shay engine. I tracked while you and I are appreciating things, let’s it down to, of all places, San Diego, California not forget to appreciate how much fun it is where it had been housed in a railroad rubbing it in with young people about how museum. Then I found out that it had been much less affluent and harder-working the moved to the hills of West Virginia where it past was. One of my two high school age kids was being happily used on a short tourism is off on a foreign exchange program and the route. Once again, our Shay steam engine other is taking tennis, golf, and sailing lessons. was up in the mountains amongst the trees When I was their age, my summer job was doing its thing. No, Toledo and NW Ohio are working in an un-air conditioned appliance not and were never a failure. The Midwest warehouse with no forklift for $1.10 an hour. factories produced machines that worked, that hauled grain, cattle and people. Those Re: Toledo, Ohio machines enabled America to grow and put food on the table and money in the pocket. P.J., thanks for your long and informative And some of those machines are still running article about your hometown, Toledo, Ohio. I a century later. Thank you, Ohio! – Donald W.

12 July 2019 FROM OUR INBOX

Toledo’s famous sword-making. Also the P.J. O’Rourke comment: A great story, Donald. answer is “And vice versa!” I was walking And you speak the truth. In Ohio, by gosh, around in Toledo, Spain, and saw a street sign we don’t fail. We may “succeed by other for “Calle Toledo Ohio.” I went into a shop means,” but we don’t fail. I know Lima well – and asked in halting high school Spanish, 70-odd miles down I-75 from Toledo, just on “How do you say the name of this street?” The the other side of the old Great Black Swamp. shop owner replied, in a perfect Midwestern And not only was Lima the home of the Lima accent, “TWO-lee-dough oh-HI-oh.” Locomotive Works that produced the Shay engine (specially designed for steep grades and Re: Concerned about the sharp track curves), but it’s still the home of border the Lima Army Tank Plant where the M1A1 This is “fear mongering”. Trump has created Abrams tank is made. And that’s a reminder this amongst other things. When he took to coastal elites that when they make fun of office, the Republicans controlled everything, heartland America, they’d better do so from a and the border wasn’t an issue. If it was distance. as bad as he claims, they could’ve done Too bad you wrote such a (nice) long article something about it since they had the White without mentioning the exquisite Elvis House, Congress & Senate. They did nothing. Costello/Burt Bacharach song, while finding He’s just trying to scare as many people room for the John Denver hatchet job. – Jim M. as possible. He has moved the fear to, “if you don’t reelect me, the market will suffer P.J. O’Rourke comment: Jim, I nominate you it’s worse collapse ever.” More fear tactics. as Toledo’s Top DJ! EC’s and BB’s fabulous Since his tariffs seem to be causing the most “Toledo” – from their 1998 Painted From trouble, maybe he should look in the mirror Memory collaboration album – is, so to to see where he can “fix” things. Hell, he even speak, music to my ears. A sample of the has many Republican politicians scared, and lyrics: they don’t agree with him.

But do people living in Toledo So, let’s cut the crap, on both sides, and do Know that their name hasn’t traveled very well? what’s best for the people. Is that too much And does anybody in Ohio to ask? – David N. Dream of that Spanish citadel? P.J. O’Rourke comment: Too much to ask of The answer is “Yes!” Toledo, Ohio, politicians? Yes, alas, David, doing what’s (pronounced “TWO-lee-dough”) and Toledo, best for the people is way too much to ask of Spain, (pronounced “Two-LAY-dough”) politicians. But if you ask them to do what’s are official Sister Cities and my Toledo’s best for themselves, you’ll get a quick and newspaper, the Blade, is named after Iberian effective response.

American Consequences 13 FROM OUR INBOX

promote more humane treatment of animals I am most concerned about our open in the state of Colorado. Makes me want to borders, both Canada and Mexico, and they be either an illegal immigrant on the lam in both need a proper border wall ASAP. downtown Denver, or a junkyard dog. Either – Edward N. way, I’d have more rights.

P.J. O’Rourke comment: Beg to differ, Edward. Thank goodness for our president’s Walls do not have a history of efficaciousness. persistence and strength, despite constant The Great Wall of China didn’t prevent the harassment and redundant investigations. If Manchu invasion of the Ming Dynasty’s it weren’t for President Trump nothing would empire in 1644. The Maginot Line, the get done in Washington and ISIS would Siegfried Line, the Iron Curtain, and the still be making their vicious viral videos of Berlin Wall didn’t work either. To quote chopped off infidel heads. Robert Frost, “Something there is that doesn’t In short, just build the wall – with lots of love a wall.” lights and sirens. The whiz bang technology add-ons can come later. – Virginia L. Our border has become the world’s gateway to America. The situation is a travesty, a P.J. O’Rourke comment: Virginia, you make crime, an insult, an untold expense and total a number of good points. But, then, so do bastardization of American values, culture Calvin and Victoria below. and identity. Let them all in. they are just trying to survive. What’s just as appalling is that it’s an easy – Calvin S. fix. The problem is visible and stoppable, but the Democratic regime – turned extreme I’m concerned about the way we are treating left communists – need the headcount, aka asylum seekers. I am freaked out about votes. They don’t have a humanitarian bone in the stories coming out about the housing their bodies nor a brain to share among them. of children. What have we become? When did we become so hateful, resentful and I’ve written my Congressman, Jason Crowe downright mean? It is not against the law [D., CO], my Senators, Cory Gardner [R., to seek asylum here. I just don’t know what CO] and Michael Bennett [D., CO], as well to do about it. Seeing those cages with as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Cory children in them is making me sick... Gardner is the only one who replied. – Victoria F. I no longer feel represented. I live in Colorado, now a Sanctuary state, with 100% P.J. O’Rourke comment: In my own opinion, Democrat state government. Lots of new our only hope for a more rational, more residents from Californians now run our humane, and less politicized border policy government. Our new governor brags about is for America to realize that we don’t have his gay partner and how the “first man” will an “immigration crisis.” There’s nothing

14 July 2019 the next location of their protests and, to inherently wrong with immigration. Our hike and camp in locations that they feel are country was built on it. What we have is a sacred habitat. Apparently, created only for “refugee crisis,” with desperate people doing them by the God they don’t believe exists. desperate things to escape from evil elsewhere It’s a conundrum. in the world. Meanwhile our government is Our governor is trying cut our bloated stuck in a traditional “immigration” mindset budget and, not surprisingly, every non- and doesn’t have a clue how to deal with the profit, entitlement-receiving, public refugees, let alone the evil. employee union member and federal worker is up in arms. Re: America is Roaring There’s more but, I’d rather read your Buck Sexton’s email deposit was a perfect submittals. Thanks for keeping our lights on. way to start my day. P.J. O’Rourke entered Cranially speaking. – Brad S. my life when I was a young lad in Jr. High P.J. O’Rourke comment: Letter of the month, and High School enjoying the fruits of his labors, National Lampoon. I mean, who Brad! And thanks for the laughs. Maybe we WOULDN’T follow him on his adventures as should put you in touch with Edward N. and a clear-headed, fully oxygenated adult after Virginia F. above. Sounds like it’s Alaska that dosing myself with the aforementioned rag? needs the wall. Just sayin’. Send us a message, question, or criticism at Thanks for the concise analysis of today’s [email protected]. societal and political travails. It’s been creeping up here to Alaska for quite some time. Why? The greenies and leftists who shit in their own mess kits in the Lower 48 are running up here in droves to escape their own filth. Unfortunately, they want to save us from ourselves by giving us plastic instead of paper bags and... but wait... now they want to take away the plastic bags because they’re polluting our cities and choking seals offshore – who are only trying to escape the indigenous peoples wielding Adirondack Big Sticks in order to club them into submission. And, the same natural resource that built this buxom state is a target of their climate change scorn. Of course, they drive to

American Consequences 15 16 July 2019 By Tom B odett

g lin across city of Pontiac, Michigan, or through an w the bottoms automobile which is no longer made, and ra c of television news most importantly, which would be cooler to see? t broadcasts came into x That’s what I love most about my country. Of e play on September 11, t course somebody made a cannon that shoots 2001 for very good reasons, e watermelons – but what did he do with it? h and – for reasons unknown – T That’s the question that really matters. never went away again. Soon after

the original calamity was sorted out, Americans make things. Okay, everybody news people ran out of actual news makes things. Homo Faber – Man the Maker alerts to put into the endless crawl and – is a well-worn anthropological touchstone. began posting any scrap of evidence of What separates Man from beast is our use of life on Earth: “Senate convenes... Panda language and our propensity to make tools something... Atlanta temps seasonal... to make stuff to make our lives better. What DOW opens down... Something panda...” separates Americans from the rest of Homo Faberdom is the urge to make things for the Staring at a television one day in an airport sake of making them. The product need lounge somewhere in America, hypnotized by not have any useful application whatsoever, this dribble of nonsense, an alert caught my though they often do. It’s making it that attention, “Man fires watermelon through matters. Pontiac with homemade cannon...” NASA’s Apollo moon program is the Try as I did to find out more, it was the last prime example of American know-how, I heard of the story. determination, and resources martialed into The homemade watermelon cannon is common cause. In the end, these expeditions not what captivated me. Instead, it produced several hundred pounds of rocks was the ambivalence over whether – arguably more than what might be gained he fired the melon through the with a watermelon cannon, but not by much.

American Consequences 17 salt in 1641, and the court granted a patent for a mill for manufacturing scythes to Joseph Americans knew going in that a box of rocks Jenkes in 1646. (No rule or consensus has was going to be the likely payoff, and they did been issued to this day, however, on how to it anyway. pronounce “scythes.”) It wasn’t, “We are going to put a man on the Swim fins are cool. I didn’t know that was an moon by the end of the decade in order to American thing, but I will now flop down own and subdivide it like Florida.” We did it the beach in mine with new pride. As for the because no one had ever done it and that was Franklin stove, frankly, I cannot understand reason enough. The fact we got transistors and how it took so long to think of it. One has to Velcro out of the deal was just good luck. live with a stone fireplace for maybe half of a We did it because we couldn’t think of a good winter to realize what an efficient device they reason not to. Robert Kennedy summed us up are for emptying your home of heat while with, “Some men see things as they are, and consuming the woodpile. ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not.” Two or three thousand years of feeding forests When watermelon-cannon man’s wife asked him why, you know he shrugged, took a pull into chimneys to little effect from his long-neck Pabst, and replied, “Why and nobody says, “What not?” if we put the fire in an iron I credit this trait to the fact that when early box so we could control Americans, Homo “Detritus,” were first drawn it?” Pythagoras? Da Vinci? to, conned to, or dragged to the continent Galileo? Anyone? it was a simple fact of life that if they hadn’t brought it with them they were going to have You’d think that just by accident some to make it. Mesopotamian soldier on a cold desert night would have leaned a shield or something They must have been awfully busy making against the firepit and noticed how it radiated the things they neglected to bring because heat while keeping the smoke out of his eyes. a hundred years would pass from when the Spanish, English, and Dutch started nosing Two or three thousand years of feeding forests around North America in the late 16th and into chimneys to little effect and nobody says, early 17th centuries to the arrival of the first “What if we put the fire in an iron box so meaningful American inventions: Swim Fins we could control it?” Pythagoras? Da Vinci? in 1717, and the Franklin Stove in 1742. Galileo? Anyone? There were two earlier outliers: The It took an American, Benjamin Franklin, Massachusetts general court issued a patent to say, “This is bullsh*#t,” and pull out the to Samuel Winslow for a new way of making sketch pad and welding torch.

18 July 2019 Ben Franklin is also responsible for the all- Another what-took-you-so-long American American consumer tool, the mail-order invention is crash test dummies. What were catalog. (Amazon owes him royalties.) He they using before that? I doubt in their came up with the lightning rod, bifocals, and wildest dreams the inventors ever thought the flexible urinary catheter – in that order. they’d see one in Congress, but why not? You can mark “Poor Richard’s” life challenges And, of course, the most American invention by his innovations: First, his aging feet start of them all – the Global Positioning System getting cold – wood stove. Gets tired of going (GPS). We will never again have to stop and out and dealing with the idiots on the streets ask for directions. of Philadelphia – mail order. Keeps sitting on his reading glasses – bifocals. Alexander One could go on for pages on the Hamilton’s cursed central bank – lightning contributions, great and small, Americans rod. [Fill in your guess] – flexible urinary have made to the universe of stuff. But catheter. it would be chauvinistic, perhaps even nationalistic, to do that without also Americans are also problem solvers. Thomas acknowledging the innovations and expertise Jefferson invented the swivel chair so he could of the other nations and cultures who have begin spinning in his grave over what we were made so many amazing things while somehow going to do to the government he helped never landing men on the moon. Six times. create before he was even dead. But thank you, France, for the mayonnaise. Like the Apollo program, we make things to solve problems we don’t have. Truck Americans have been killing it in the nuts, for example, and video games. And we Department of Making Things for its entire make many things to solve problems we do tenure, but we’re by no means alone or even have: Chemotherapy, dental floss, cardiac always out front in these modern, global defibrillators, hearing aids, and traffic lights. times. A lot of the stuff we make we make in other places, and a lot of other places Granted, our innovators are not always pulling make their stuff here. But what America has in the same direction. Americans invented that these other places don’t have is a society radiocarbon dating and the Creation Museum. of “putterers.” (Does French or Russian or We also discovered that science could be Mandarin even have a word for “putter”?) invalidated simply by not believing it. That innovation will literally change the world. Americans can’t help but putter. We putter in our garages, and basements, and backyards. Speaking of the End of Days, Americans Armed with an arsenal of tools made in claim the invention of mobile phones, China and affordably priced at box stores personal computers, the Internet, and e-mail. strategically placed every six miles across the We also invented light-emitting diodes U.S., Americans are busy making things. A (LEDs) so we could see all of that stuff cannon that can shoot a watermelon through charging in the bedroom. a car, or mid-sized city – no one’s really sure

American Consequences 19 front of the TV. After a while, he’d come out with three or four vacuum tubes in his hand. – does not come out of thin air. It comes out They looked like light bulbs with pins for a of someone’s garage and is no less a miracle base. He’d mutter something about RCA and than Steve Jobs’ Apple computer. (While vertical hold, then disappear to the hardware impressive, the Apple computer was not store. I can’t remember him ever coming back actually made in a garage and could not then without the solution. nor today shoot fruit.) We often hear boasts of the I’m not sure if my father was a putterer. The American Can-Do spirit. We’ve label invokes some sort of leisurely pursuit. An aimless tinkering. I never saw a repairman earned it, but I don’t think or professional tradesman in our house. it’s entirely accurate. Can- Everything Dad did around the crumbling do implies expertise, which house I grew up in with my five siblings is pretty evenly distributed was purposeful and profoundly necessary. across humanity. What He never called a repairman or professional Americans have is more of a tradesman to fix anything. The garage was stuffed with tools, and whatever he didn’t Must-Do spirit. have for the job at hand would be acquired – He could finish concrete, mud sheetrock, a tradition I embrace to this day. wire circuits, and spent an entire summer We once jacked up the sagging center beam retrofitting a modern hot water heating system of our two-story house three inches with big throughout the house. I was sent into the dark screw jacks and cheater bars in the basement. little places with a flashlight to get the other My job was to run upstairs every time we end of whatever he was pushing through the took a turn on the jacks to see if the plaster wall. This is what we did on weekends. was falling off the walls anywhere. I was nine Dad seemed to know everything, but looking or 10 when I learned that with determination, back on it now, I realize he was figuring it three rented screw jacks, and some amazing out as he went. He worked all day as an swears, you could move worlds. The house engineer at a plant that made heaters and air settled and groaned in the night all the rest conditioners. He’d never built anything or of my youth. The little kids thought it was worked in a trade of any kind. He grew up ghosts. I knew it was my dad and me. during the Depression in Chicago without a father. He was put to work on weekends My dad fixed everything – even our television. fixing things, I suppose, for his mother and When the set would go on the blink, he’d sister. They didn’t do a lot of family picnics. unscrew the back and poke around with some Neither did we. Weekends were for working. kind of tester while looking at the scrambled picture in the reflection of the hall mirror In high school, when I wanted a cabinet to he’d take down and propped on the sofa in lock up my record albums and protect my

20 July 2019 controlled substances from invasive brothers He’d watched Chicago improvise its way and sisters, it never occurred to me not to through the Depression. He joined the Navy build it myself in the basement. By the time and helped his country improvise its way I got a car, I was 19 and in college, but that through a war that left it at the top of the summer I lived at home making roadworthy food chain for the rest of his life and mine. a 1955 Pontiac Star Chief I bought with Once you do that, how hard can jacking up a chickens still living in the trunk. I plugged stupid house be? rust holes (you could have safely fired a We often hear boasts of the American Can-Do watermelon through that Pontiac), rebuilt spirit. We’ve earned it, but I don’t think it’s the carburetor, rewired the lighting, and tore entirely accurate. Can-do implies expertise, the dead radio apart. I went down to the which is pretty evenly distributed across hardware store with a handful of questionable humanity. What Americans have is more of a tubes and came back with the solution. Must-Do spirit. NASA landed the Viking 1 spacecraft on the Dad could have left the sag in the floor. We surface of Mars in the summer of 1976 – the wouldn’t have minded. At least we knew same summer I landed in Alaska, where I where to find our marbles. But dad couldn’t would spend the next 23 years. We didn’t stand it anymore than his generation could even get a box of rocks out of Viking. I got stand the fact that the moon was just circling everything I would ever be out of Alaska. out there with nobody on it any more than a Alaska in the ‘70s was still the wild west. The man, perhaps in Michigan, could stand the oil pipeline was hosing the state with cash and absence of a watermelon cannon in his life there weren’t enough people there to build all once he’d thought of it. the houses, schools, and bridges to nowhere “Man fires watermelon through Pontiac with that needed building. homemade cannon...” I lied my way into every job I took – cannery I could watch news like that crawl by all day forklift driver, high-iron construction long. monkey, logger, commercial fisherman, marine electronics technician, construction Tom Bodett is an author and broadcast contractor. I had contracts to build three personality heard regularly on NPR’s houses in 1979 without ever having actually satirical weekend news quiz Wait, built a house. Wait…Don’t Tell Me. He has been the national brand spokesman for Motel 6 But I figured it out. Like I’d watched my since 1986, which allows him to live in dad figure it out. The most important thing the middle of a hayfield in Windham I learned from him was, “Anything that has County, Vermont, rather than near an been done is doable.” Where he learned it actual job. from, I can only imagine. My best guess is he Headshot of Tom courtesy of Beowulf Sheehan. got it as his American birthright.

American Consequences 21 Even #Resistance feels patriotic sometimes, doesn't it?

What I Like About U.(S.A.)

It’s not necessarily a rational feeling, the patriotic stir. It has too many triggers to count, the strongest of which catches us unawares and doesn’t make much reasonable sense. Hearing Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers’ “Islands in the Stream” on the radio in a fussy Breton Village boutique did it for me once. The Shriners in By Alice the Memorial Day parade get me every time: There’s just something about the Lloyd synchronicity of fraternity, philanthropy, tiny cars, and silly hats. And, as summer ripens around us, I find my American mind turns to mini golf. Unselfconsciously tacky, open to everyone who can front a small fee, likely to end in tears for at least one member of the family – mini golf, more or less, is America.

22 July 2019 Even #Resistance feels patriotic sometimes, doesn't it?

What I Like About U.(S.A.)

Scholars, activists, and overthinking left even likes what we love most about the politicians doubt the utility of sentimental homeland. President Donald Trump, who American patriotism. But it is my strong hasn’t helped matters much, has a habit of suspicion that even they feel it sometimes, if hugging the flag. Meanwhile, his supporters not at parades or mini golf courses then, at see the many various members of the least, in solemn contemplation of the space #Resistance – the latter-day flag burners, the program and the national parks. Partisans polite Republicans turned anti-Trump talking dependably disagree, with conservatives heads with cable-news contracts, the socialist tending to doubt whether anyone to their youth and its septuagenarian framers – and

American Consequences 23 read their disdain for reactionary nationalism have hosted the Obamas in their community as a blanket disregard for the nation. organizing era.

Some on the left do seem readier than ever to Maybe misunderstanding the assignment, reject the American idea outright because its Ayers sent me an exuberant 4,558-word authors were white men who owned people. e-mail – an explosion of patriotic sentiment, Others see signs of late-capitalist decay in you might say. And which, according to an every corner of American society and publicly online plagiarism-detection service, was partly decry blind patriotism as a ploy to placate the an amalgamation of his Facebook posts from proletariat. Sure, they say these things – but over the years. do they really mean it? Unconvinced, I asked “The American Dream is mostly tubular (I them... like that word!), a pipe dream,” he writes, I asked lefty activists, perennial firebrands, apparently winking at his own historical preference for pipe bombs. He contrasts progressive politicians, former conservatives lofty ideals and ugly realities, like “rampant now living in a perpetual state of Trump- consumerism, unchecked acquisition, being fueled crisis, and one retired domestic bigger and badder than anyone else,” and terrorist what they love about America. I then adds – sarcastically, I think – “We are asked what, in 2019, gets their patriotic the chosen people, we’re building that city on sap rising? I asked them to tell me what, if the hill, and we are definitely number one. anything, makes them feel the way I feel USA! USA! USA!” about mini golf.

Bill Ayers Loves Bo Diddley “We are the chosen people, we’re building The longest answer came from Bill that city on the hill, Ayers, who you may remember as the and we are definitely founder of the Weather Underground number one. – the group that bombed the Capitol USA! USA! USA! building, the Pentagon, the State Department, and a long list of corporate headquarters, city courthouses, cop cars, and In the less-than-fresh section that follows, police stations in the 1960s, 1970s, and even he quibbles with former Secretary of State for a little bit of the 1980s. Ayers lived as a Madeleine Albright’s famous line, “If we have fugitive for most of his tenure as a terrorist to use force, it is because we are America. but never went to prison for his crimes. We are the indispensable nation. We stand These days, he’s an education professor in tall. We see further into the future” – taking his native Chicago and enough of a pillar this 1998 soundbite as proof that patriotism of the conventionally liberal community to is “an arrogant myth that blinds people to

24 July 2019 global reality; it’s a big lie covering aggression, letter to the country whose Senate invasion, and occupation.” Ayers’ dream barbershop he once blew to bits was for America, he then reveals, isn’t actually environmentalist Bill McKibben. American at all, but universal: “for a world McKibben teaches at Middlebury College, at peace and in balance, infused with joy and writes prolifically about climate change and justice, and powered by love.” its causes, leads protests and marches to save At that point, I nearly stopped reading. But the planet, and is widely believed to be a top then came the most appealing stretch of choice for Bernie Sanders’ presidential cabinet the sprawl: A paean to Chicago, from “the should the gravelly voiced Vermonter win the Chicago Cubs who teach us humility and big cheese next fall. perseverance,” to The Blues Brothers, Lake McKibben also let me know – at a more Michigan, and Bo Diddley. “Chicago is one manageable length – what he loves most of the things that’s so awesomely great about about America: Beer... He loves beer. America,” he effuses. “In 1979, America was down to 44 breweries, Further down the line, Chelsea Manning almost all of them producing the same swill,” and Edward Snowden join that list. But McKibben answers, via e-mail: “Americans then so do the Marx Brothers. And so – in a began fighting back, with the local spirit surprisingly sharp turn from wokeness – does that has marked America since the battle Christopher Columbus and his crew: “We all of Lexington. Now there are more than know the story by heart, that foundational 7,000 breweries, and while the market for fable, and whatever else it represented, big tasteless lagers keeps falling, the market that exploit – part myth and part symbol for craft beers seems to keep expanding – took a surplus of imagination and vision, endlessly.” resourcefulness and courage on the part of that wild and somewhat random crew.” American beer is the best in the world, he adds, and his adoptive home state of Vermont Wild courage is what you need, Ayers boasts the best of the best: “Open a Heady eventually concludes, to love this country Topper and then tell me I’m wrong,” he enough to plant explosives in its public challenges, referring to Waterbury, Vermont’s buildings. cult-favorite craft brew. In craft beer, the men and women who make it, and the many more The Environmentalist You’d who consume it, McKibben sees a model for Wanna Have a Beer With, a brighter American future. “If only we could figure out how to do the same thing with and Other Burlingtonians every other crappy industry in America,” he concludes, “we’d be getting somewhere.” Among the dozens of other activists Ayers name-checked in his long-winded love Burlington, Vermont’s long-serving former

American Consequences 25 mayor Peter Clavelle says it’s not his are any little things that remind him of his state’s premium, but its willingness to boundless love of country – as beer does admit refugees from war-torn nations, Bill McKibben – he tells me, in a distinctly that sets his patriotic heart aflutter. “The mellow tone, that he prefers “to think about early patriots of the United States of America big things instead.” were refugees or immigrants,” Clavelle says. “I’m proud, and feel patriotic, when I consider how my city and the state of A Mountain Man, a Vermont have welcomed uprooted people, Baseball Fan helping the world’s most vulnerable to rebuild their lives.” Evan McMullin, the CIA veteran turned anti-Trump politico who Elsewhere in Burlington – as good a place as ran as an independent challenger in any to set out in search of aging hippies 2016, waxed wanly about American values. who love their country – Howard “We’re a country centered on values,” he Dean reveals his favorite thing about said in a recent phone interview. “We’re not America: How much it’s changed, he perfect at living up to them all the time, but says, since he was my age. He tacks the we aspire to certain values that define us #MeToo movement onto his list of what when we live up to them and we’re unique as makes him proud to be an American, a country for that reason.” along with the fact that the majority of students at elite universities these days are Particularly in contrast to Syria and Russia, women, whereas his Yale was almost entirely where his CIA service took him, we are richly white and exclusively male. The various free. “In many other countries the opposition accomplishments of nonwhite people – doesn’t get to have a voice, but in this “There are a whole lot of African American country we can compete in that way. Ideas and Hispanic millionaires because of sports, can compete, leaders can compete,” he says, and other things,” he observes – fill him with conjuring memories of his own campaign. patriotic pride. “That’s still the case,” he assures me, and Back when the former governor and one-time himself. “We’re living in a time when there’s presidential contender was the progressive a rise in authoritarianism in the U.S., but candidate from Vermont – before Bernie, we could be having this conversation in in other words – it was Dean’s exuberance another country where even to have this (recall the “Dean Scream”) that torpedoed conversation would be a tremendous risk to his campaign. He served as chairman of the both of us.” Every time we speak out against Democratic National Committee for years authoritarianism, we honor our values, he afterward, and now sits on the board of instructs. Even when we disagree, say, about one of the world’s fastest-growing cannabis the extent to which democracy has dissolved, companies. When I ask him whether there “There are things that unite us, these values

26 July 2019 form the core of our cultural fabric.” When Richard Painter was an ethics I ask him whether, in addition to our values, attorney in the second Bush White any earthly thing – like a particularly good House, but now he’s a “Resistance baseball game, the beacon of a Waffle House icon,” according to the Huffington Post sign seen from the interstate, or the life and – having spent a generous portion of the works of Glen Campbell – has ever made him last two years prophesying Trump’s demise proud to be an American, he says, “It’s more on MSNBC. (Remember the emoluments gratitude than it is pride. Although those clause?) He ran for (and lost) the Democratic sentiments can be related.” Senate nomination to succeed Al Franken in After a moment’s pause, he reconsiders. Minnesota, where he teaches corporate law at “Well, I grew up in Seattle. I like mountains.” the University of Minnesota. But what are mountains, he then explains, if But he still loves America. He loves baseball not a testament to our values? Not because, – he roots for the Minnesota Twins and the as I initially thought, they predate and Red Sox – and his kids’ school, a hotbed of promise to outlast our national attempt religious pluralism. “I am a white Christian at self-government, but because they’ve but my children go to school with Muslims stood witness to it for nearly two and a half and Hindus: That makes me proud to be an centuries. American,” he tells me, adding that while his family has been here for hundreds of Ayers roots for the Cubs, years, some of his best friends are recent and McKibben immigrants. has his favorite craft brew. Mostly, though, Painter loves the McMullin’s a Constitution for making all this pluralism Mount Rainier man. possible. In the #Resistance, and on campus, he finds “They endure, they stay where they are. They cause to worry that Millennials and Zoomers stand above everything else; they’re the first – the sub-millennial generation, born in 1995 to catch the morning light and the last bits and after, is about to start its third year of of our land to keep the evening sun. Our law school – don’t respect the Constitution values do the same for us,” he says. “Whether as they should. Not even the emoluments you’re on them looking down, or below them clause. looking up, they guide us.” “Overemphasizing the negative aspects of McMullin even has a favorite mountain, he our history not only leads to a decline in tells me, the sight of which conjures that patriotism but an increased willingness to familiar old fatherland feeling. Ayers roots for tolerate undemocratic behavior,” he observes. the Cubs, and McKibben has his favorite craft “All of that’s very hard to communicate to brew. McMullin’s a Mount Rainier man. the younger generation convinced that the

American Consequences 27 Constitution was just drafted by a bunch loves his own data projections of the Trump of dead white men and is not relevant to coalition’s demographic doom. modern life.” Maybe sentimental patriotism sets in with age... I have a year on McElwee. Or it could Even Socialists Get Sick be that reverential regard for our common of Feta past comes with experience. Even a one- man movement-maker like McElwee owes a large share of his success to his forebears. Among other pied pipers leading these There would be no ascendant socialism for worryingly woke youth is Internet him to steer, for instance, if 86-year- socialist Sean McElwee, who, old activist and political scientist at 26, runs a leftist think tank and Frances Fox Piven hadn’t helped launches viral “thought campaigns” straight found the Democratic Socialists of from his Twitter feed to the platforms of America in 1982. far-left progressive politicians. The resiliently unpopular – per his think tank’s own polling Piven crafted voter registration reform in data – but rabidly retweeted push to “Abolish the first half of the Clinton administration ICE” was born on McElwee’s feed. The Green and has since reemerged as a leader of the New Deal was his dream before he handed Sanders-fueled socialist resurgence. In the it off to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whom he 1960s, she and her late husband Richard prefers to oldster Bernie Sanders. Automatic Cloward devised a platform that would vastly voter registration is the next big craze, expand welfare benefits, and they decided the McElwee believes. sole impetus for all meliorative policy was activist uprising. Their so-called Cloward- Before he was planting his far-left policy ideas Piven formula – while still too radical into progressive candidates’ stump speeches, for most liberals – has a growing body of he attended the evangelical King’s College adherents in the under-30 set, and still serves during Dinesh D’Souza’s brief tenure as its as a unifying bête noire for Republicans in president and worked for deficit hawk Dave disarray. Walker’s Comeback America Initiative. His leftward drift came later. Piven, who was born in Canada but moved to Jackson Heights, Queens as a small child, Does McElwee love America? I asked via his must love America – at least as much as Bill preferred medium – Twitter. And he said, Ayers, I reason – what with all the work “The thing I love about America is that racial she’s put into convincing its revolutionary attitudes and economic attitudes are highly fringes theirs is the best plan for the nation. correlated, which means it’s harder for a right- As it happens, I’m wrong: “Attachment to wing populist party to emerge.” My follow-up abstractions like nation, flag, and the symbols questions – among them, a simple “Huh?” – of patriotism can lead to tragic delusions,” remain unanswered. But I think he’s saying he Piven told me, when I asked what in

28 July 2019 particular motivates the love – or so I thought Konst, a New Yorker, wanders the graffitied – that propels her political activism. side streets missing her hometown storefronts. “I’m a bad socialist!” she jokes. “In New The founders don’t deserve our admiration, York, you walk right outside your door and she adds, proving Richard Painter right. you have access to everything, from the best Although “some of the founders might qualify Indian food outside of India to the best Thai as aspirational democrats,” they “never made food outside of Thailand.” In a turn toward amends, if amends are ever possible,” for the ideologically consistent, she then adds the sin of slavery. “It is natural to have an that Trumpian nationalism – “I consider it emotional attachment to home,” she allows. fascism,” Konst clarifies – puts America’s rich “But the ideological clap trap that builds on consumer-driven culture of culinary pluralism that attachment to create fanatical patriotism at risk. But then again, so might leaving the leads only to tragedy.” socialists in charge until they run out of other “The ideological clap people’s money... trap that builds on that “This is where the socialism in me has to attachment to create be questioned,” she admits, “because I’ve fanatical patriotism leads been conditioned to be able to have access only to tragedy.” to anything at any time.” In the Athenian neighborhood where she’s staying, every cafe Patriotism, per Piven, is a delusion, a has its quaint specialty, but none of them dangerous indulgence: “It’s not healthy,” has whatever you want, all the time. “You she says, “to wax sentimental about origins, throw a rock out your window in New York because it divides us from the rest of and hit whatever it is you need, like a vegan humanity.” At which point I feel a helpless restaurant or a good pizza place,” says Konst, swell of pity for her, my fellow human after starting to sound fed up with feta. all. And I have to wonder whether Piven, being Canadian by birth, isn’t perhaps a little It makes a strange sort of sense that the most jealous. genuinely affectionate answer should come from a homesick socialist on vacation in the Nothing makes self-affirmed socialist debt-ridden bedrock of democracy. She’s and perennial democratic-socialist talking about its food specifically, but Konst candidate Nomiki Konst love the seems to speak for – and about – the whole land of plenty more than leaving it. country. When we talk, Konst is visiting family in Athens, where the far-left party fell out What’s to love? “It’s not only the best,” she of favor when the Greek economy crumbled says, in sum, “but there’s the most of it.” into a protracted fiscal torpor. In 2012, it went from parliament’s largest party to its smallest. Still now, the Greek debt crisis Alice Lloyd is a writer in Washington, D.C. rumbles on.

American Consequences 29 A Y RIC NEM ME FRE A THE

30 July 2019 ICA EMY MER REN F HOW HOLLYWOOD JUST CAN'T QUIT A HE LOVING THE COUNTRY IT WANTS TO HATE BACK IN THE 1980S, a writer-director left-liberal industry that sought to advance T a worldview unambiguously hostile to the friend of mine was pitching a World War II movie to development executives at a United States. Hollywood production company when an After the old studio system had collapsed By John executive piped up. “This is great,” he said. under the weight of behemoth pictures like Podhoretz “But who’s the enemy?” My friend was Cleopatra and Doctor Doolittle, the only flustered: “Well... the Axis,” he said. visible path to success for the business was “No,” the executive said. “Who’s the real to hand the keys of the kingdom over to enemy?” hotshot young directors influenced by the French New Wave – grittier, cheaper movies The “real enemy” meant, of course, some filmed on location that challenged bourgeois malign force inside the United States or the sensibilities rather than reinforcing them. Allies that was actually responsible for the war. The executive in question may have The production companies that made these been a dolt, but he was speaking in the voice movies became known not only for their films of post-1960s Hollywood, an unabashedly but for their 1960s views of America as a foul

American Consequences 31 and malign place prosecuting a monstrously evil war in Vietnam. A hotshot producer of the day, Bert Schneider set the stage by making Easy Rider in 1969, featuring a couple of wonderful motorcycling hippies who end up being gunned down by a redneck for no reason other than that they don’t conform to society’s rules, man. He followed it up with Five Easy Pieces, a highly regarded picture about a scion of the upper middle class so disgusted by bourgeois life that he becomes a day laborer. “Keep telling me about the good life,” says the scion of the America he is rejecting, “because it makes me puke.” While all this was happening, Schneider hid Black Panthers on the lam from murder charges and helped smuggle Huey Newton into Cuba on another rich guy’s catamaran. The cognitive dissonance of people making millions of dollars living in paradisiacal conditions and yet determined to believe the worst of the country in which they were reaping such a bounty was not dissonant to them. In 1975, Hearts and Minds – a pro- Hanoi documentary Schneider produced about the Vietnam War, even as Americans were dying by the thousands fighting for their country – won an Oscar. Schneider took the stage and announced he was delivering “greetings of friendship to all the American people” from the lead North Vietnamese negotiator at the Paris peace talks. This was less than a month before the last helicopter would fly away from the American

From Top: Easy Rider, Nashville, Apocalypse Now. Image source: IMDB.com

32 July 2019 A Y RIC NEM Embassy compound in the city that would E RE never again be called Saigon. AM E F Schneider’s literal peddling of Stalinist TH propaganda led Francis Coppola, the director of the Godfather movies, to speak wistfully: fires him for having long hair. “You don’t “Getting this positive, human, optimistic belong in Nashville,” he says. Why would he message was such a beautiful idea to me,” he want to? Nashville is terrible, like the country said, especially since “after what we did to the it represents. Vietnamese people, you’d think they wouldn’t forgive us for 300 years.” Two generations ago, this casual yet ever-present attitude was standard issue. Even so, the mystic “We must be doin’ something right to last chords of anti-Americanism stretching from 200 years” is the key line from the song every multiplex to every living flat screen and that opens Nashville, released in 1975. In Xbox all over this broad land are still touched this unjustly celebrated piece of tedious by the worst angels of our pop culture. flapdoodle, director Robert Altman made the title city’s supposed provincialism and But there is nothing unmixed, even when we taste for casual violence a metaphor for the hit our nadir. Four years before Schneider’s America he reviled. Altman makes it clear shameful performance, Coppola won the first immediately that we are to think America has of his Oscars for the screenplay of Platoon, a done “nothin’ right” – the singer who warbles film made at the height of the Vietnam war “200 Years” turns on his session pianist and utterly unironic in its celebration of American fighting virtues. It offered a bold portrait of its morally problematic title character as exactly the kind of man we needed to save civilization from the Nazis. Two generations ago, this casual yet ever- Four years after Schneider, Coppola showed he had the capacity to grow following his idiotic present attitude was praise of the “beautiful” North Vietnamese standard-issue. Even so, propaganda message. The release of his own the mystic chords of anti- Vietnam movie, Apocalypse Now, demonstrated Americanism stretching a far more complex understanding of the war from every multiplex to and America’s role in it. every living flat screen and Even more striking, the year Apocalypse Now Xbox all over this broad was released, Hollywood gave the best picture land are still touched by Oscar to The Deer Hunter, a movie about the worst angels of our Vietnam and its effect on people who would, pop culture. four decades later, hand the presidency to

American Consequences 33 Donald Trump. Its characters go through hell in the course of its three hours, and yet the film concludes with them sitting at a bar mourning the loss of a friend to the madness of Vietnam. Slowly and quietly, then not so quietly, they break into “God Bless America.” The Deer Hunter also beat out Coming Home, a movie about a California housewife with a martinet military husband who does not fulfill her sexually. She only finds satisfaction with an anti-war Vietnam vet in a wheelchair. Her husband intends to kill them but instead drowns himself in the Pacific Ocean in a happy ending that could only have warmed the heart of its star and producer, Jane Fonda. But Coming Home did not go away empty- handed. Fonda won the Oscar, as did Jon Voight for playing the paraplegic. (Decades later, Voight would proclaim Donald Trump the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln, suggesting there will be no reboot of Coming Home anytime soon.) Nothing, save Trump-hatred, has ever united the American cultural left the way hatred of the Vietnam conflict did. But even Hollywood could not resist the siren song of a bunch of wounded steelworkers intoning “God Bless America,” an anthem written by an immigrant boy named Izzy Baline who spoke only Yiddish for the first six years of his life before growing up to become Irving Berlin. And so it would be over the next 40 years, as the anti-Americanism of Oliver Stone and Michael Moore was garlanded by

From Top: Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, Stripes. Image source: IMDB.com

34 July 2019 A Y RIC NEM If the search in Hollywood ME RE was for the “real enemy,” A F time and again audiences HE told the industry that T what they wanted was Stripes is about a rudderless man afflicted by to see movies about the a horrible problem with authority who finds “true friend” – that secret manhood by becoming part of something friend being the country larger and greater – the United States Army. itself that Hollywood so After he mouths off one too many times, often seemed to find so Murray’s drill sergeant says, “You think distasteful, even as it swam you know something about everything, in the lucre American don’cha, but you don’t know nothing about capitalism rained down soldiering... I’m talking about something upon it. important, like discipline and duty and honor and courage. And you ain’t got none of it!” The sergeant then invites Murray to take a swing at him. Murray does, and misses, and Oscars upon movies more or less forgotten the sergeant knocks the wind out of Murray today, while more populist fare like Stripes with a punch to the midsection. The post-’60s starring Bill Murray turned into cable classics jerk gets his. with every single line of dialogue memorized At the end of the movie, both men salute each by millions. other with admiration. No wonder everybody loves Stripes and no reasonable human being “This is America,” Murray says as he rallies on Earth would watch Stone’s Platoon a the troops to a dazzling performance at their second time. graduation from basic training. “We’re 10 and 1!” Later, Murray and his fellows will If the search in Hollywood was for the “real kind of win the Cold War by invading and enemy,” time and again audiences told the then exiting Czechoslovakia in an RV. Harold industry that what they wanted was to see Ramis, who co-wrote and starred in the movie movies about the “true friend” – that secret and fancied himself an anti-establishment friend being the country itself that Hollywood type, scoffed at the third-act turn and blamed so often seemed to find so distasteful, even it on director Ivan Reitman. “That was just as it swam in the lucre American capitalism Ivan grinding his anti-Communist ax,” Ramis rained down upon it. told GQ. “His family were Czech refugees.” Yeah, an anti-Communist ax. Could you imagine such a thing from a refugee from, you know, Communism?

American Consequences 35 OH BEAUTIFUL FOR... SOME UNEXPECTED THINGS THREE THINGS I LIKE ABOUT AMERICA ARE FAST FOOD, SUBURBAN SPRAWL, AND TRAFFIC JAMS.

No, I’m not writing this from the mental health facility where my family has sent me to get some “rest.”

Not that I couldn’t use a little psychiatric treatment... But my own personal form of taking Prozac is listening to “Traffic on the 3s” every 10 minutes on WBZ Boston news radio – 1030 on my AM dial.

36 July 2019 OH BEAUTIFUL FOR... By P.J. O'Rourke SOME UNEXPECTED THINGS

American Consequences 37 THE TRAFFIC JAM But Boston has something called “the Leverett AS SEROTONIN Connector.” This is where I-93, Rt. 1, Rt. REUPTAKE INHIBITOR 3, Rt. 28, Storrow Drive, the Charles River, Boston Harbor, the Zakim Bridge, the Nothing cheers me up more than a Boston Callahan Tunnel to Logan Airport, and the traffic jam – when I’m not in it. Rose Kennedy Greenway all meet. If you’re coming into Boston from the north... or I live to heck and gone in the New England south... or east... or west... you will end up in back country where there isn’t any traffic. the Leverett Connector. You may not mean However, I get lonely out here and feel isolated to, but you will. and down in the dumps sometimes, especially when New England weather is crap the way it And if you want to go to Faneuil Hall, Old was this spring... and last winter... and so far North Church, the bar that inspired Cheers, this summer... and probably this fall. Fenway Park, or a Celtics or Bruins game, you’ll end up in the Leverett Connector. Good weather is so rare here that we don’t even have a word for it and just stand around Even if you’re headed someplace that’s with our mouths gapping open, rendered nowhere near the Leverett Connector, such as speechless by sunshine. Gillette Stadium, you’ll end up in the Leverett Connector. It’s the Murphy’s Law of driving Anyway, when I get depressed, I tune into the in a city where a lot of people have the last WBZ traffic report, and I’m instantly full of name Murphy. optimism, good feelings, and love for life... Compared with the people in Boston who However, if you’re not in Boston – the way are stuck in traffic... which would be all of I’m not in Boston – it doesn’t matter into them. WBZ has a slogan for its traffic report: what depths of despair you may have fallen. “Boston – it’s an hour’s drive from Boston.” You can turn on WBZ any time, night or day, even 3:03 AM on a Monday morning, and Why Boston traffic is so bad, I don’t hear those wonderful inspiring words that will know. Boston isn’t a huge city. In fact, it’s snap you out of your gloom and put joy back less populous than Columbus, Ohio, or into your heart: “It’s a sea of brake lights in Charlotte, North Carolina. And Boston the Leverett Connector.” drivers are notoriously aggressive – curb- jumping, left-turning-on-red, one-way- Actually, I like traffic jams even when I am in wrong-waying, lead-foot lane-hopping lions one. (Though not in the Leverett Connector. in the zebra crossing. People have gone through puberty, grown to adulthood, and gotten old between the exit They should, by all rights, be able to hot rod from the Zakim Bridge and the entrance to their way out of any traffic tie-up. (Why don’t the Callahan Tunnel.) Boston drivers use turn signals? That would be giving classified information to the enemy.) I like traffic jams because they give me a OH BEAUTIFUL FOR... OH BEAUTIFUL

38 July 2019 Is it possible that Fiat 500 with a mattress and a box spring parents are using bungee-corded to the roof, a back seat full of moving cartons and kitchen appliances, and a SUVs to drive their sectional couch hanging out of the hatchback. children deep into the Do we need to introduce these folks to each wilderness to feed other? them to wolves? Also, where did minivans go? You see fewer and fewer of them. Almost every family used chance to look at my fellow Americans to have a minivan. They’re inexpensive and while they’re doing what most defines us as space-efficient with room for six or eight Americans – being stuck in a traffic jam. kids in the back and all of their skateboards, And what a land of equal opportunity this is! terrain park skis, mountain bikes, lacrosse Seeing hundreds of my fellow countrymen in sticks, and a regulation soccer goal net. their cars makes it clear that, in America, no But minivans seem to have been replaced one is too intellectually challenged, differently by much more expensive and much less abled, emotionally fragile, beset by anger space-efficient SUVs with the kind of off- management issues, encumbered by dementia, or burdened by obsessive-compulsive road capability I had no idea that ordinary disorders involving personal communications parents needed. We know America’s average devices, burritos, and Grande caffè lattes to family size is getting smaller. Is it possible that have a car. (And – presumably – a driver’s parents are using SUVs to drive their children license.) There may be discrimination in this deep into the wilderness to feed them to country, but not on the highways. wolves? It’s better for everyone that these people are stuck in traffic – you don’t want them at SUBURBAN SPRAWL – home. Traffic jams ensure they’ll never get BEAUTY IS IN THE ME there. OF THE BEHOLDER

And the cars are interesting. Pickup trucks I like suburban sprawl because it all looks have grown enormous. They’re full-size, four- alike. When we leave our rural home and door luxury sedans except as tall as a house “go into town,” we go to a commercial strip and with doorsills so high that you have to on Rt. 101A in Nashua, New Hampshire. stand on a Prius to get inside. What are these It looks exactly like every other commercial pickup truck drivers picking up? The pickup strip in America – same big box stores, gas beds are the width and depth of a backyard stations, franchise restaurants, car dealerships, above-ground pool, and there’s never anything vape shops, nail salons, and hairdressing in them. establishments with “funny” names... Curl Up Yet, in the next lane over, there will be a & Dye.

American Consequences 39 You’d have no idea you were in New England And, unlike the country, you’ve got fresh air unless you happened to catch sight of the and sunshine without your only friend being leaves turning orange in the fall on the couple Lassie, who has to rescue you from a well of sickly maples that Target has planted in its every week. (I know about these things. We parking lot islands. You could be anyplace – raised our kids in the country and, lacking a Los Angeles, Phoenix, Orlando. collie with a Mensa IQ, had to do it ourselves standing on the back steps yelling, “Get the This cuts down greatly on travel expenses. No @#$% out of the well!”) need to take a flight to Los Angeles, Phoenix, or Orlando.

What’s so bad about suburban sprawl In the suburbs, you’ve being so much alike? People are alike. They got fresh air and should be treated the same no matter their sunshine without your gender, sexual preference, race, ethnicity, only friend being Lassie, or religion. So why is it a bad thing when people act alike? And what’s wrong with who has to rescue you them being treated the same at the same big from a well every week. box stores, gas stations, franchise restaurants, car dealerships, vape shops, nail salons, and hairdressing establishments? My only worry about suburban sprawl is that Internet shopping will drive malls out of Yes, Suburban sprawl is ugly... Or is it? I’ve business. Without malls where will suburban been to Venice, Italy. A great beauty spot, kids hang out? (Kids hate fresh air and I’m told. All I saw in St. Mark’s Square was sunshine.) a waving field of selfie sticks from 10,000 Chinese tourists. The sickly maples in the Malls are good places for kids... compared Target parking lot are attractive by comparison. with the Internet. There are no “Alt Right” shops at the mall. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez And just try parking in Venice. There are doesn’t have a retail outlet where she sells limits to the off-road capabilities of even the socialism to young people. The “messaging” best SUV. Bring your snorkel. (And get a at malls is inclusive and all about good old- tetanus shot.) fashioned capitalism. Parking is easy in the suburbs. Everything There’s no porn at the mall, if you don’t is easy in the suburbs. It’s the best place to count Abercrombie & Fitch shopping bags. grow up. You’ve got lots of other kids to play There’s not much that’s truly loathsome, with (unless their parents have been feeding unless you hate the Marvel superhero movies them to wolves) and, unlike the city, you’ve at the Cineplex as much as I do. At the mall got places to play where you aren’t constantly the scope of evil is pretty much limited to being run over by Uber drivers. shoplifting, which is bad, but, according to OH BEAUTIFUL FOR... OH BEAUTIFUL

40 July 2019 Barnes & Noble, it’s something that Jeff Bezos At least when I emerge from between the has been doing for years. golden arches, I’m just fat – not fat and broke. Would you rather have your kids hanging out Plus, some fast food is delicious by any at the mall or hanging out on the Internet? standards – In-N-Out Burger, Chick-fil-A, Zara is closed at 2 a.m. when kids are Whataburger. supposed to be asleep. The Internet isn’t. I fondly remember when that icon of suburban sprawl, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, FAST FOOD – IT’S FAST first came north. It was in the 1980s, when AND IT’S FOOD I lived in New York and was dating a stylish young lady from New Orleans who was full Anyone who complains about American fast of scorn for Yankee cooking. She claimed a food is too young or too dumb to recall the decent meal could not be had north of the greasy spoons that came before franchise Mason-Dixon line. Every few weeks she’d restaurants. have a dinner party, inviting guests for “a real You’d be driving down the highway and southern treat.” everybody in the car was hungry, and you’d But the stylish young lady could not cook. have to pull over to whatever was along the What she did was sneak down to the only roadside with a big sign out front that said, Popeyes in the city, which was in a scary “Eat and Get Gas.” neighborhood on 42nd Street. She’d come And, depending on the circumstances, pricier home with her Vera Bradley bag full of spicy sit-down restaurants aren’t necessarily what white and dark, biscuits, Cajun Fries, red we want instead of McDonald’s. Now that beans and rice, and jambalaya. She’d stick legalized marijuana has become ubiquitous, them in silver serving dishes and everyone we can be frank about this... Has anyone would rave. ever smoked a joint and had a “pâté foie gras attack?” IT’S A FREE Fast food may be contributing to America’s COUNTRY obesity problem. But take me to a Michelin And I like that. We Americans are supposed 3-star French bistro, and I’m going to order to be able to do what we want to do. And things that are much more fattening than a what we want to do is obvious. Big Mac. Starting with that pate foie gras, and going straight to escargots in garlic butter Fifty-two percent of us live in the suburbs. sauce, roasted duck breast (1,500 calories On any given day, 37% of us will eat fast and 25 grams of fat), asparagus hollandaise, food. And, as far as I can tell, 100% of us potatoes au gratin, crème brûlée, and a big are stuck in a traffic jam in the Leverett wedge of cheese washed down with two Connector. bottles of 1996 Chateau LaTour.

American Consequences 41 SUMMER READING BURN (On Your Beach Blanket) AFTER READING

FIVE OF THE BEST WRITERS AT AMERICAN CONSEQUENCES (AND P.J.) TELL YOU THEIR FAVORITE WRITERS

CLICK HERE TO READ THE WEB VERSION

42 July 2019 Tired of being dry and in fine and completed his last in 1974, temperatures, last summer we took our when he was 93. In between he family vacation in Ireland where there are averaged one novel a year – more more Nobel Laureates in Literature per capita than 70 of them – maintaining such than any other country. (But I didn’t read any a high level of hilarious excellence of them.) that millions of fans revere him as a kind of miracle worker. Instead, I went straight for the grimy crime genre where, it turns out, the writing is The miracle I finished most recently pretty darn good too. I have only one is one of his last books – Much recommendation because it comes with about Obliged, Jeeves, from 1971. Like most a dozen books: Adrian McKinty. There are of Wodehouse’s plots it takes place two of his series in particular that kept me in an imaginary Britain between rapt during and well after our trip to the “Old the wars... a world of roadsters and Sod.” gentlemen’s clubs, country houses and evening dress. It features The Sean Duffy series follows a supremely Wodehouse’s recurring heroes: flawed detective in Northern Ireland during the foppish and feckless Bertie “the Troubles.” True to history, though Wooster and his “gentleman’s often fictionalized, the stories are a blend of gentleman,” the valet Jeeves. mystery, political thriller, Irish humor, and Much Obliged proved to me that solid writing. Musical and literary references Wodehouse never peaked. As an bridge the action as if Nick Hornby teamed artist he reached a pinnacle early up with Tom Clancy. More than a guilty on and turned it into a plateau. pleasure, it’s as if an ice cream sundae had Get the handsome Overlook nourishment. Press edition and bask in the The Michael Forsythe books, three in all, are a miracle. variation of the theme with the hero this time Andrew Ferguson appearing as a young Irish criminal exported to New York City to work with the mob. It’s a Daniel Silva writes spy novels “Hitman with a Heart of Gold” story with the about terrorism and cynical same nourishment we got from Sean Duffy. Israeli heroes. These books bounce Tom Bodett around Europe (even to places like Corsica) as their protagonist, If you haven’t read anything by P.G. art-restorer Gabriel Allon, cracks Wodehouse, I envy you the fresh pleasures wonderfully sardonic jokes under you’ve got coming. And you can start with the tutelage of the ancient wiseman, just about any book. Wodehouse published Ari Shomron. There are 18 books in his first novel in 1902, when he was 21, the series (the newest comes out this

American Consequences 43 SUMMER READING

month), but you can really deeply *Or, you could drink pick any one and start there. exhilarating Shackleton Blended Malt. I love them all so much I about tales Available in better liquor stores, it supposedly can’t even remember their of other men recreates the whisky that individual titles. So I looked escaping Shackleton brought on his expedition. (He brought a it up – the first one is called predatory lot.) P.J. tried some (okay, The Kill Artist. sea lions and a lot) over the 4th of July weekend. He says it’s, John Podhoretz subsisting “Urp... Pretty good!” off whale I recently dusted off an blubber in old classic that is truly subzero temperatures while you stir timeless: Endurance by a margarita* in the sunshine and ponder your Alfred Lansing. If you stock portfolio. Enjoy. haven’t read this tale of polar Buck Sexton explorer Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 ill-fated attempt to Social Creature is a diabolical debut traverse Antarctica on foot, you from Tara Isabella Burton, a theology PhD need to add this book to your and religion journalist. Ambitious, penny- stack. It’s a poignant real-life pinching Louise’s whirlwind friendship with reminder of Murphy’s Law in glamorous party girl Lavinia spirals toward action. Based on the detailed violent obsession, cast against a biting parody journal entries of survivors, this of Manhattan’s self-absorbed literary set. is an entirely true story that’s Often compared to a digital-age Patricia hard to believe. First, the ship Highsmith thriller – we learn early on that carrying Shackleton and his men Lavinia’s days are numbered – Burton’s book becomes stuck, then crushed, is devilishly diverting like Highsmith’s The in the ice pack. With rapidly Talented Mr. Ripley, and no less morally dwindling supplies, Shackleton agnostic. But, in a new twist on the classic and his men must journey across form, it has High Church theology expertly hundreds of miles of ice flows sprinkled throughout. in open rowboats through the most inhospitable, frozen Honestly, We Meant Well, a new comic novel corner of the globe. You get by Grant Ginder, takes an unhappy family — to read all about the bone- a philandering writer, his classicist wife, and chilling, heart-pounding their untalented son — and jets them off to escapades from the comfort of the sun-washed Greek island of Aegina for your favorite rocking chair, on four weeks of redemptive togetherness. Or the beach, or in the airport that’s the idea, anyway... Surrounded by the lounge. There is something same crumbling columns and porticos the

44 July 2019 classicist studied for her dissertation decades Your DIRECT LINE before, when the love of a strapping young innkeeper diverted her from Delos, their to Wall Street three interwoven lives only fall — tragically, Receive up-to- hilariously — further into ruin. the-minute news, Alice Lloyd market research, and expert commentary Kate Atkinson writes... What does she that typically costs write? She may be the best literary novelist $50,000 a year, CLICK TO SIGN UP alive. And I mean literary as in Middlemarch. and requires a net (Though she’s more fun to have around the house than George Eliot.) However, worth of at least $1 Atkinson also writes the best thrillers since million…100% FREE. Elmore Leonard’s characters fired their last .357 Magnum. And, in her Jackson Brodie series, Atkinson both at the same time. I suggest the Brodie books be read in chronological order, to keep abreast with Jackson’s rich and varied emotional life: Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News?, Started Early, Took My Dog, and the newly published Big Sky. “ Practical. Insightful. Among the manifold virtues of Kate Atkinson Helpful. Educational. are Gordian Knot plots that she, like Can’t ask for much Alexander the Great, slices through with the more.” HHHHH stroke of a (proverbially mightier –GAMECOCKS44 than the sword) pen. And wit. E.g., from One Good Turn: “‘Calm Down?’ never say that CLICK TO LISTEN to a woman, PODCAST it was on the first page of the MORE REVIEWS: Best Investment Podcast Is Back! - HHHHH handbook that I’ve enjoyed every episode to date - HHHHH didn’t come Must listen if you invest in the U.S. - HHHHH with them.” One of the best podcasts available - HHHHH P. J. O’Rourke

American Consequences 45 By Robert Wyss

How the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings Turned

RED STOCKINGS Baseball Into a National Sensation CINCINNATI

46 July 2019 This Major League Baseball season, fans may notice a patch on the players’ uniforms Above: A drawing that reads “MLB 150.” from Harper’s Weekly depicts a The logo commemorates the Cincinnati Red Stockings, who, in 1869, became the first game between professional baseball team – and went on to win an unprecedented 81 straight games. the Red Stockings and the Brooklyn As the league’s first openly salaried club, the Red Stockings made professionalism – Atlantics. which had been previously frowned upon – acceptable to the American public. New York Public Library But the winning streak was just as pivotal.

“This did not just make the city famous,” John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s official historian, said in an interview for this article. “It made baseball famous.”

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American Consequences 47 PAY TO PLAY? THE CINCINNATI In the years after the Civil War, baseball’s EXPERIMENT popularity exploded, and thousands of In the years after the Civil War, Cincinnati American communities fielded teams. was a young, growing, grimy city. Initially most players were gentry – lawyers, bankers and merchants whose wealth allowed The city had experienced an influx of German them to train and play as a hobby. The and Irish immigrants who toiled in the National Association of Base Ball Players multiplying slaughterhouses. The stench of banned the practice of paying players. hog flesh wafted through the streets, while the black fumes of steamboats, locomotives and At the time, the concept of amateurism was factories lingered over the skyline. especially popular among fans. Inspired by classical ideas of sportsmanship, its Nonetheless, money was pouring into proponents argued that playing sport for a the coffers of the city’s gentry. And with reason other than for the love of the game was prosperity, the city sought respectability; it immoral, even corrupt. wanted to be as significant as the big cities that ran along the Atlantic seaboard – New Nonetheless, some of the major clubs in the York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. East and Midwest began disregarding the rule Cincinnati’s main club, the Red Stockings, prohibiting professionalism and secretly hired was run by an ambitious young lawyer named talented young working-class players to get an Aaron Champion. Prior to the 1869 season, edge. he budgeted US$10,000 for his payroll and

RED STOCKINGS After the 1868 season, the hired Harry Wright to captain and manage national association reversed the squad. Wright was lauded later in his its position and sanctified the career as a “baseball Edison” for his ability to CINCINNATI practice of paying players. The find talent. But the best player on the team move recognized the reality that was his 22-year-old brother, George, who some players were already getting played shortstop. George Wright would end paid, and that was unlikely to up finishing the 1869 season with a .633 change because professionals batting average and 49 home runs. clearly helped teams win. Only one player hailed from Cincinnati; the Yet the taint of professionalism rest had been recruited from other teams restrained virtually every club around the nation. Wright had hoped to from paying an entire roster of attract the top player in the country for each players. position. He didn’t quite get the best of the best, but the team was loaded with stars. The Cincinnati Red Stockings, however, became the exception. As the season began, the Red Stockings and

48 July 2019 their new salaries attracted little press attention.

“The benefits of professionalism were not immediately recognized,” Greg Rhodes, a co-author of Baseball Revolutionaries: How the 1869 Red Stockings Rocked the Country and Made Baseball Famous, told me. “So the Cincinnati experiment wasn’t seen as all that radical.”

The Red Stockings opened the season by winning 45 to 9. They kept winning and winning and winning – huge blowouts.

At first only the Cincinnati sports writers had Above: AMERICAN IDOLS The picked caught on that something special was going nine of the Red Stocking on. Then, in June, the team took its first road The Red Stockings had become a sensation. baseball club. trip east. Playing in hostile territory against They were profiled in magazines and Left: Unidentified what were considered the best teams in serenaded in sheet music. Ticket prices baseball player baseball, they were also performing before the doubled to 50 cents. They drew such huge New York Public Library most influential sports writers. crowds that during a game played outside of Chicago, an overloaded bleacher collapsed. The pivotal victory was a tight 4-to-2 win against what had been considered by many Most scores were ridiculously lopsided; the best team in baseball, the powerful during the 1869 season the team averaged New York Mutuals, in a game played with 42 runs a game. Once they even scored 103. Tammany Hall “boss” William Tweed The most controversial contest was in August watching from the stands. against the Haymakers of Troy, New York. The game was rife with rumors of $17,000 Now the national press was paying attention. bets, and bookmakers bribing umpires and The Red Stockings continued to win, players. The game ended suspiciously at 17 to and, by the conclusion of the road trip in 17, when the Haymakers left the field in the Washington, they were puffing stogies at sixth inning, incensed by an umpire’s call. The the White House with their host, President Red Stockings were declared the winners. Ulysses Grant. At the time... playing sport for a The players chugged home in a boozy, reason other than for the love of the satisfied revel and were met by 4,000 joyous fans at Cincinnati’s Union Station. game was immoral, even corrupt.

American Consequences 49 ADVERTORIAL

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O 52 July 2019 go to your By P.J. O'Rourke HAPPY PLACE

THE UNALIENABLE PURPOSE OF AMERICA

American Consequences 53 HAPPY PLACE Other nations are founded on battle, blood, territory, nationality, culture, and language. Not America... We’re founded on happiness. It’s right there in America’s IPO, in the first as anyone knows who’s spent a holiday sentence of the main body of the Declaration dragging whiney children on a tour of UN of Independence: “We hold these Truths headquarters. to be self-evident, that all Men are created The New Testament, arguably the founding equal, that they are endowed by their Creator text of Western Civilization, cites happiness with certain unalienable Rights, that among just seven times and never in a happy these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of way. Peter’s First Epistle to persecuted Happiness.” Christians in Asia Minor says, “If ye suffer We can search the rest of the world’s for righteousness’ sake, happy are ye.” Jesus is proclamations, covenants, protocols, quoted as using the word “happy” only once, compacts, treaties, and bodies of law – written on the occasion of washing his disciples’ feet. and unwritten, ancient and modern – and not We admire the Son of Man, but we sons of find the word “happiness.” a gun who populate America do not pursue happiness in this manner. No talk of happiness appears in England’s Magna Carta. The French Revolution’s The United States is the first – and so far, only Declaration of the Rights of Man and the – among happy nations. “Happy the people Citizen fails to address the subject. The whose annals are blank in history books,” European Union’s proposed constitution never wrote Thomas Carlyle. Just ask Americans a mentions happiness, although, at 485 pages, it question about American history, watch them mentions practically everything else, including draw a blank, and you’ll see that we are the regulatory specifications for “edible meat offal” happy people indeed. and “lard and other rendered pig fat.” Not that Americans seem happy at the When the EU constitution was rejected by moment. We are in a very fussy mood. But French voters (“Sacré bleu! Vous ne pas tell us we’ve been through that before – when Fort how to make ze lard!”), it was replaced by the Sumter got shelled, when the stock market Treaty of Lisbon that also makes no reference crashed in 1929, when Coca-Cola introduced to happiness (or even edible meat offal). New Coke. Happiness itself isn’t the point.

The UN’s Universal Declaration of Human “Happy” is often used as a none-too- Rights does state, in Article 24, that, complimentary modifier: “happy go lucky,” “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, “slap happy,” “happy horseshit, “happy as including... periodic holidays with pay.” a pig in same.” The catch phrases “One big But a holiday is not the same as happiness, happy family,” “Is everybody happy?” and

54 July 2019 HAPPY PLACE

“I hope you’re happy now” are never spoken directly to Chapter IX of the Second Treatise without a happy smirk of irony. in which Locke says that men are “willing to joyn in Society... for the mutual Preservation Happiness is elusive – hard to attain, harder of their Lives, Liberties, and Estates, which I to maintain, and hardest of all to recognize. call by the general Name, Property.” Recall the time when you were happiest. You didn’t know how happy you were at the Every educated person at the time time... when the kids were little and you understood Jefferson’s reference. hadn’t slept in three years... that first job in And many educated people must New York sharing a one-bedroom apartment have wondered about Jefferson’s with six people on a salary that wasn’t even substitution of laughs for land. “making your age”... those bright, shining The fact that property isn’t mentioned in days at college that you flunked out of. the Declaration of Independence still seems And, let us note, the Declaration of odd. The French Revolution’s Declaration of Independence reads, “Life, Liberty, and the the Rights of Man lists property second only Pursuit of Happiness,” not “Life, Liberty, and to liberty. And the French revolutionaries Whoopee.” had less respect for other people’s property (and less property) than the signers of the The happiness that America is founded on is Declaration of Independence. our freedom from being told that we should Jefferson may have been trying to convey the shut up and be happy with what we’ve got. idea that our new nation wasn’t going to be a And this is pretty much how the words European kind of place. America wouldn’t be “Pursuit of Happiness” got into the parceled into aristocratic estates kept intact by Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was primogeniture and passed down from eldest semi-quoting John Locke’s 1689 Second son to eldest son with titles like Duke of Treatise of Government in which the phrase Schenectady, Baron Hackensack, and Count “Lives, Liberties, and Estates,” appears several Plymouth Rock. times. “Pursuit of Happiness” also may have Locke was one of the Enlightenment’s supplanted “Property” because of definitional foremost proponents of natural law and the concerns. Locke died in 1704, when “Estates, rights it naturally bestows – rights that are so which I call by the general Name, Property” much a part of our nature that nothing can The happiness that America is take them away, and we can’t get rid of them. Unalienable rights. founded on is our freedom from being told that we should shut up When Thomas Jefferson drafted the and be happy with what we’ve got. Declaration of Independence, he was referring

American Consequences 55 HAPPY PLACE was still synonymous with land and land was Property has to be, in a legal sense, alienable – still synonymous with riches. Until Adam “capable of being transferred to a new owner” Smith succeeded in improving the world’s – or you can’t sell it. understanding of economics (if he ever did), If we lived in a country where property was land was considered to be the only ultimate unalienable, Steve Wozniak and the heirs source of profit. of Steve Jobs would still own the pocket The Declaration was written by Jefferson, calculator they sold to raise the money to but it was revised and edited by John Adams start Apple. Therefore, when we went to and Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson was a work, there’d be nothing on the screen of the devotee of property in the sense of land and computer that didn’t exist at the job we don’t chattel (of animal and other kinds). But have because we’re still farming the 20-acre Adams, though a farmer, had no Jeffersonian tobacco patch that our ancestors cheated vision of America as a pure, agrarian society. the Indians out of for beads and trinkets the Perhaps this was because Adams, unlike the last time anybody was allowed to buy or sell perpetually debt-plagued Jefferson, made a anything... during the reign of George III. living from his farm. Roger Pilon maintains that Adams and Franklin understood that “Pursuit of Happiness” trade, manufacturing, and finance would replaced “Property” be as significant to America as “real” estate. in the Declaration of And Franklin had a personal interest in a Independence not type of ownership different from a land to denigrate material title, ownership of what we would call wealth but to expand the intellectual property. idea of materialism to include every (Franklin’s influence made it no coincidence kind of material – mental, physical, that the power to approve patent rights would metaphysical, whatever. be granted in Article I of the forthcoming America was established as a way for Constitution, and that the first act passed by Americans to make and do things. What the new Congress of the United States would sort of things Americans make and do and concern patent law.) whether these things lead to great riches, Roger Pilon, preeminent Constitutional pious satisfactions, or transitory pleasures is scholar at the Cato Institute think tank, nobody’s business but our own. believes there was a further reason that Locke’s America has a purpose... But we Americans natural law concept of property was fudged get to individually, personally, separately slightly in the Declaration of Independence. decide on what that purpose is. Whether Pilon concludes that Jefferson saw a flaw we find happiness or not, it is our duty as in the logic of Locke’s “unalienable” rights. patriotic Americans to go chase the thing.

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58 July 2019 his is the Flint Hills. For over a century it has been cattle country, a place where cows grow fat on Tnutritious grasses. More recently, a piece of this landscape was transformed in 1989 when the nonprofit Nature Conservancy bought the Barnard Ranch. It created a nature reserve there, the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, which now covers almost 40,000 acres.

A central element of the group’s conservation strategy was reintroducing the American bison (Bison bison), which had been eradicated from the land in the mid-1800s. Releasing the first bison in 1993 was a step ultimately to deprive Native Americans of Bison skulls toward restoring part of an ecosystem that collected once stretched from Texas to Minnesota. vital resources. By 1890 fewer than 1,000 during the slaughter, mid- bison were left, and the outlook for them was 1870s. Today some 500,000 bison have been bleak. Two small wild populations remained, restored in over 6,000 locations, including in Yellowstone National Park and northern public lands, private ranches and Native Alberta, Canada; and a few individuals American lands. As they return, researchers survived in zoos and on private ranches. like me are gaining insights into their substantial ecological and conservation value. RECOVERY

NEAR EXTINCTION Remarkably, a movement developed to save the bison and ultimately became a It was not always certain that bison could conservation success story. Some former rebound. Once numbering in the tens of bison hunters, including prominent figures millions, they dominated the Great Plains like William “Buffalo Bill” Cody and future landscape until the late 1800s, anchoring a President Theodore Roosevelt, gathered the remarkable ecosystem that contained perhaps few surviving animals, promoted captive the greatest concentration of mammals on breeding and eventually reintroduced them to Earth. That abundance was wiped out as settlers the natural landscape. and the U.S. government engaged in a brutally effective campaign to eradicate the ecosystem With the establishment of additional and the native cultures that relied on it. populations on public and private lands across the Great Plains, the species was saved from By Bison were shot by the millions, sometimes immediate extinction. By 1920 it numbered Matthew for “sport,” sometimes for profit, and about 12,000. Moran

American Consequences 59 Bison remained out of sight and out of IMPROVING PRAIRIE LANDSCAPES mind for most Americans over the next half-century, but in the 1960s diverse groups Bison feed almost exclusively on grasses, began to consider the species’ place on the which, because they grow rapidly, tend to out- landscape. Native Americans wanted bison compete other plants. Bison’s selective grazing back on their ancestral lands. Conservationists behavior produces higher biodiversity because wanted to restore parts of the Plains it helps plants that normally are dominated ecosystems. And ranchers started to view by grasses to coexist. bison as an alternative to cattle production. Because they tend to graze intensively on More ranches began raising bison, and Native recently burned zones and leave other areas American tribes started their own herds. relatively untouched, bison create a diverse Federal, state, tribal and private organizations mosaic of habitats. They also like to move, established new conservation areas focusing spreading their impacts over large areas. The in part on bison restoration, a process that variety they produce is key to the survival of continues today in locations such as the imperiled species such as the greater prairie Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas chicken (Tympanuchus cupido) that prefer to and the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana. use different patches for different behaviors, such as mating and nesting. By the early 2000s, the total North American population had expanded to 500,000, with Grazing by Studies have shown that bison on a about 90 percent being raised as livestock bison-induced changes stretch of – but often in relatively natural conditions prairie has in vegetation composition produced – and the rest in public parks and preserves. an increase and quality grazing can in forbs For scientists, this process has been an (nongrass increase the abundance flowering opportunity to learn how bison interact with plants). their habitat. and diversity of birds and insects in tallgrass prairies.

Bison impacts don’t stop there. They often kill woody vegetation by rubbing their bodies and horns on it. And by digesting vegetation and excreting their waste across large areas, they spread nutrients over the landscape. This can produce higher-quality vegetation that benefits other animals. Studies, including my own research, have shown that bison-induced changes in vegetation composition and quality grazing can increase the abundance and diversity of

60 July 2019 birds and insects in tallgrass prairies. Bison the grasslands. Bison helped us regenerate the also affect their environment by wallowing land,” Mimi Hillenbrand, owner and operator – rolling on the ground repeatedly to avoid of the 777 Bison Ranch near Rapid City, biting insects and shed loose fur. This creates South Dakota told me. She adds, “I love the long-lasting depressions that further enhance animal. We are lucky that we brought them plant and insect diversity, because they are back. I learn every day from them.” good habitats for plant and animal species that are not found in open areas of the prairie. THINKING BIGGER In contrast, cattle do not wallow, so they do Will bison live on in relatively small, isolated not provide these benefits. herds as they do now, or something greater? It is hard to determine the ecological role that The American Prairie Reserve, a Montana- bison played before North America was settled based nonprofit, has a big and controversial by Europeans, but available evidence suggests idea: creating an ecologically functioning 3 they may have been the most impactful animal million acre preserve of private, public and on the Plains – potentially a keystone species tribal lands in northeast Montana, with a whose presence played a unique and crucial herd of over 10,000 bison – the largest single role in the ecology of prairies. population in the world. Although this would be small compared to the millions that once THE GROWTH OF BISON existed, it still would be something to see. RANCHING Bison were saved through the combined The return of the bison has generated a new efforts of conservationists, scientists, ranchers industry on the Plains. The National Bison and ultimately the general public. As their Association promotes these animals as long- comeback continues, I believe that they can lived, hardy and high-quality livestock. teach us how to be better stewards of the land The group hopes to double bison numbers and provide a future for the Plains where through its Bison 1 Million commitment, a ecosystems and human cultures thrive. program designed to increase interest in bison Originally published at The Conversation. ranching and consumption. Matthew Moran is Professor of Biology Advocates cite health, ecological and ethical at Hendrix College in Arkansas. He arguments in support of bison ranching. has received research funding from Bison meat is lean and has a high protein the National Science Foundation, the content. Many bison ranchers are committed Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, to ethical and sustainable ranching practices, the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission, and the Arkansas which sometimes are lacking in modern Department of Higher Education, as well industrial livestock farming. his employer, Hendrix College. He is also a volunteer fundraiser for the Children’s “I have a love of nature and want to protect Eternal Rainforest based in Costa Rica. it. It was one of my family’s goals to restore

American Consequences 61 By Bill Shaw THERUST

THE INDUSTRIAL GETS MIDWEST AGAIN T INDUSTRIOUS BEL SHINES

62 July 2019 THERUST egion y 150 years, the r For nearl enter of flourished as the epic owth... American gr

THE INDUSTRIAL It started with the Erie Canal’s completion GETS in the 1820s. The 363-mile, man-made MIDWEST AGAIN waterway – which took about eight years to T build – connected the Great Lakes to the INDUSTRIOUS L E Atlantic Ocean. B This vital link opened up a world of opportunity for American industry... Bulk goods could now be shipped faster and S cheaper from inland areas to the coastline NE in New York City. After the canal opened, it HI only took a week to move flour from Buffalo S – instead of three weeks. And the cost to ship a ton of flour plummeted from $120 to $6.

American Consequences 63 THE RUSTBELT SHINES Towns and farms sprang up all along the The country’s manufacturing hub soon canal’s path in New York... as well as in the mutated into its “Rust Belt”... nearby states of Pennsylvania and Ohio. In the 35 years since Democratic presidential Hundreds of thousands of folks set out to candidate Walter Mondale used that phrase start new lives. in 1984 to describe the region’s abundance And it didn’t stop with the Erie Canal... of rusting former factories, there hasn’t The folks Railroads came next. They brought iron been much reason for hope. An era of in the Rust ore, coal, and other raw materials from the deindustrialization swept through the Belt so surrounding areas. Steel mills and factories region... Hundreds of thousands of employees desperately were built. lost their jobs. Thousands of factories need help shuttered their doors. that they For generations, the region thrived as the hub don’t care of America’s industrial revolution... Overall, the number of U.S. manufacturing which jobs fell by a third from 1969 to 1996. With By 1950, 38% of the U.S. population lived side of the no jobs available, people had little choice but political in this region. It included eight different to flee the Rust Belt. And they continue to do aisle it states – New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, so... The city of Detroit alone lost nearly 30% comes Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and of its population from 2000 to 2018. The from... as West Virginia. U.S. opioid epidemic and two generations of long as it But the boom times didn’t last forever... hopelessness have taken a tremendous toll, too. does. As the decades marched on, American It’s why Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan manufacturing companies grew more and are considered “swing states” that often tip more complacent with the monopoly over presidential elections one way or the other. The folks in the Rust Belt so desperately need help U.S. goods. Plus, the increasing number of that they don’t care which side of the political job-entitlement obligations and onerous aisle it comes from... as long as it does. union contracts pushed these companies’ costs higher. But today, parts of the Rust Belt finally have something to look forward to... America’s Eventually, overseas competition caught shale revolution. up... Countries like China and Taiwan could exploit cheap labor to produce steel and other ‘HOOKED INTO JUST ABOUT goods at lower costs than the U.S. companies. EVERY PART OF THE ECONOMY’ Even worse for these manufacturers, the Oil and natural gas deposits are full of Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to 20% in “hydrocarbons” – a combination of hydrogen 1979 and 1980 to fight inflation. That meant and carbon atoms. U.S. products were much more expensive for foreign buyers, and foreign products – like Methane is the smallest and most common Japanese cars – were cheaper for Americans. hydrocarbon. It contains one carbon atom and

64 July 2019 BELT SHINES LOBAL ETHYLENE CONSUMPTION THE RUST Consumtion (in miions o metric tons) 3

25

2

5

5 78 84 6 22 28 24 22 226 232 238

Source United States Department of Energy

four hydrogen atoms. Methane is best known These materials are hooked into just about as the primary component in natural gas. every part of the economy, from housing to electronics to packaging... Today, the world Beyond that, other hydrocarbons are needs six of these [processing] plants to be built known as “natural gas liquids” (“NGLs”). every year to keep up with demand growth. They include ethane (two carbon atoms), propane (three carbon atoms), and butane In short, experts predict that we’ll soon see a (four carbon atoms). These NGLs often get massive boom in global ethylene demand... produced alongside both oil and gas in the The above chart from IHS Markit shows energy sector. historical ethylene consumption, as well as the All these hydrocarbons have one thing in projected consumption into the 2030s. Notice common – a single chemical bond between how it starts to rapidly rise around this year... the carbon atoms. While these single bonds The companies that will meet this huge new aren’t highly reactive, they can be modified demand for ethylene in the decades ahead into more useful compounds for everyday use. will be the ones that can do it the cheapest. Ethylene is one such component, and that That’s because – unlike the latest tech gadgets, can be further processed into polyethylene, cars, or even foods – the end products in this the world’s most commonly used plastic. industry, like all commodities, don’t change from one manufacturer to another. Ethylene Polyethylene is found in everything from is the same no matter where it comes from. water bottles and plastic bags to paint additives and construction materials. And as In this industry, a company’s only competitive Dave Witte, a senior vice president at global edge comes from keeping its production costs data service IHS Markit, told online news as low as possible. That’s where America’s publication InsideClimate News in February... shale boom comes into play...

American Consequences 65 THE RUSTBELT SHINES You see, ethane production has more than in revenue growth for the U.S. economy tripled in the past decade – from roughly between 2018 and 2040. 600,000 barrels per day (“bpd”) in 2008 to A massive, multidecade American more than 1.9 million bpd today. Thanks to this manufacturing boom... abundance of supply, U.S. chemical makers pay some of the lowest costs on the planet... Chemical makers gain an edge with lower costs, so they want to build processing plants The shale Before the shale boom, a gallon of ethane near the cheapest source of ethane. revolution typically ranged from $0.80 to $1. But since has 2012, the price of ethane has generally stayed Historically, that led these companies to the upended between $0.20 and $0.40 per gallon. Today, Gulf Coast because of all the oil and gas in the balance it costs a little more than $0.20 per gallon – states like Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. of power in near the lowest level in more than a decade. From 2004 to 2016, every new ethylene plant America’s was built in either Louisiana or Texas. Today, energy These record-low prices have helped chemical the Gulf Coast is home to more than 95% of landscape. makers overcome higher costs for American U.S. ethylene capacity. materials and labor. And those companies have seized this opportunity... But the shale revolution has upended the balance of power in America’s energy Since the prices of ethane and other NGLs landscape. And now, the hard-hit Rust Belt started falling in 2012, roughly $200 section of the country is getting another billion has been committed to chemical chance to thrive. projects in the U.S., according to the American Chemistry Council (“ACC”). U.S. If you’re looking for a steady supply of NGLs, Department of Commerce data show the the Rust Belt is a good place to start... chemical industry’s share of the country’s total Thanks to the prolific Marcellus and Utica manufacturing sector soared from 18% in shale formation, the Appalachian Basin – 2011 to 45% in 2017. spanning Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, In other words, a significant chunk of U.S. and Kentucky – has become one of America’s manufacturing can now be traced to the shale largest sources of low-cost NGLs. Since 2010, revolution. And with so much supply, this production of NGLs in this region has grown trend shows no signs of slowing down... sixfold – from roughly 100,000 bpd to more than 600,000 bpd today. By the end of next year, the U.S. plans to add 8.7 million metric tons of petrochemical Going forward, the U.S. Energy Information production capacity. Ethylene plants will Administration (“EIA”) expects this torrid pace make up more than two-thirds of this new of growth to continue... In the following chart capacity. Based on U.S. Department of from the EIA, you can see that the eastern U.S. Energy estimates, ethane-based petrochemical states are expected to be the leading source of investments will generate $716 billion production growth through 2050...

66 July 2019 THE RUSTBELT SHINES US NLS PRODUCTION East Southwest Other 7

6 Production (miions o d)

5

4

3

2

2 2 22 23 24 25

Source U.S. Energy Information Administration

The Appalachian Basin’s fast-growing supply where many chemical makers are located... of NGLs is one reason that, in 2017, Shell The Department of Energy lists more than Chemical Appalachia – a subsidiary of oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell – began 7,500 chemical makers in this region. constructing the Rust Belt’s first ethylene These companies account for more than plant on the Ohio River. $300 billion in annual revenue and employ 900,000 workers. Appalachian Basin This $6 billion facility is about 30 miles chemical makers total nearly a third of all northwest of Pittsburgh. It will consume up to U.S. petrochemical industries – the primary 96,000 barrels of ethane per day to churn out consumers of ethylene. 1.6 million metric tons of ethylene per year. According to a 2018 study from IHS Markit, But Shell’s reason for building in the Rust a hypothetical $3 billion ethylene plant in the Belt region instead of along the Gulf Coast Appalachian Basin would lead to hundreds goes beyond just the cheap input costs. of millions of dollars in additional earnings As Shell spokesman Ray Fisher told the for chemical plants versus a facility along the construction trade publication Engineering Gulf Coast. With lower-cost inputs and closer News-Record back in November... location to consumers, the region delivered The top two reasons Shell decided better returns under every scenario. on Pennsylvania were proximity and In the base-case scenario, the study showed abundance of [ethane], and proximity to the Appalachian Basin plant would create a customer base. Seventy-five percent of all net present value of $700 million in EBITDA the polyethylene demand is within a 700- (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, mile radius of our facility. and amortization) in 2020. A Gulf Coast In other words, the Rust Belt region is also plant would only bring in $217 million in

American Consequences 67 THE RUSTBELT SHINES EBITDA in 2020. This economic advantage in the Appalachian Basin would reduce the is why Shell is building its ethylene plant in current risks of the highly concentrated the Rust Belt. petrochemical industry along the Gulf Coast. Remember, just a couple of years It’s only a matter of time before other ago, Hurricane Harvey showed that one bad companies follow Shell’s lead... weather event can cripple the U.S. chemical Two additional ethylene plants are in the sector for weeks. This manu- planning stages for potential construction in facturing Both President Donald Trump and Department the Rust Belt region – a facility in West Virginia renaissance of Energy Secretary Rick Perry have voiced with a capacity of 1 million metric tons per will create strong approval for building out an ethane and year and one in Ohio with a capacity of 1.5 tens of petrochemical hub in the Appalachian Basin. million metric tons per year. The Department billions of At a recent meeting of the National Petroleum of Energy expects these plants could start dollars in Council, Rick Perry commented... economic operating sometime in the early 2020s. activity and There is an incredible opportunity And that would be just the beginning... A at least to establish an ethane storage and 2017 study from the ACC suggested the 100,000 jobs distribution hub in the Appalachian Appalachian Basin could support at least six for folks region and build a robust petrochemical “world-scale petrochemical complexes, in who’ve been industry in Appalachia. As our report addition to a number of smaller facilities.” down on shows, there is sufficient global need The ACC believes these plants could create their luck. and enough regional resources to help roughly 100,000 jobs and nearly $30 billion the U.S. gain a significant share of the in direct economic output for the region. global petrochemical market. The Trump If these plants were created, they would also administration would also support an create billions in ancillary economic activity. Appalachia hub to strengthen our energy That could include a multibillion-dollar and manufacturing security by increasing ethane-storage facility and trading hub... our geographic production diversity.

In late 2018, the Department of Energy – at The bottom line... All signs point toward a the request of Congress – released a 91-page coming chemical boom in the Rust Belt. report, “Ethane Storage and Distribution In the decades to come, this manufacturing Hub in the United States.” As the name renaissance will create tens of billions of implies, the report studied the potential dollars in economic activity and at least economic impact of creating infrastructure 100,000 jobs for folks who’ve been down on for large-scale storage and distribution of their luck. ethane feedstock. Specifically, it looked at the Appalachian Basin. And yet, almost no one is paying attention... at least not yet. Among the many findings, the report concluded that establishing this infrastructure

68 July 2019 ADVERTORIAL THE RUSTBELT SHINES Retired Goldman Sachs Trader Explains The Secret To Collecting More Money

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American Consequences 71 In fact, the “American Express” name is one of the most valuable parts of the company. This won’t go away as a bear market approaches.

I’ve gathered three of my favorite “forever” stocks: Market-research firm Interbrand estimates that the American Express brand name was Forever Stock No. 1 the 24th-ranked brand in the world in 2018, AMERICAN EXPRESS worth $19 billion – or about 20% of its (NYSE: AXP) current market capitalization.

Let’s go back to August 1914, when American Brand value encapsulates a variety of fuzzy, Express earned a tremendous amount of hard-to-value qualities – a company’s economic goodwill... reputation, competitive moat, loyal customer base, and so on. These are the characteristics As Europe hurtled into World War I, some that Warren Buffett lumps together under the 150,000 American tourists were stranded umbrella of economic goodwill. and unable to get cash to go home. But word began to spread that American Express was Don’t confuse that with the “goodwill” you still cashing checks and even honoring “letters might find on a company’s balance sheet, of credit” from U.S. banks. though. Accountants derive “accounting goodwill” based on how much a company The company wasn’t a bank... But it had cash pays for the businesses it acquires. and a presence in every major city in Europe. It’s economic goodwill that will keep Ultimately, nearly all the 150,000 tourists American Express growing through good ended up getting home safely. And many of times and bad. We trust the company, them remained grateful to American Express and we’ll keep using its cards to fund our for the role it played in their escape. purchases year after year. Note that even Today, we know American Express as a in the Great Recession of 2008, American $100 billion credit-card colossus. About 115 Express still grew its card spending volume million American Express cards are in use by 5% that year. Expect to see more robust around the world, with cardholders racking up growth in the future, as electronic payments more than $1 trillion in charges every single continue to gain share over cash and check year. “AmEx” also collects nearly $3 billion transactions over time. per year in “annual dues” from its customers And even before that future growth, simply for the right to carry the card. American Express is already a great company But its reputation for safety and reliability with impressive financials. Analysts expect remains American Express’ most valuable it to generate $43.5 billion in revenue this asset. year. That’s $4 billion MORE than Visa and 72 July 2019 ForeverSTOCKS MasterCard combined. Its operating margins saw a 0.5% decline. In those 10 years, it has are attractive at more than 20%. And it grown its earnings per share from $1.88 to generates nearly $8 billion of free cash flow $5.39 – a 187% increase. And they were up (“FCF”) each year. every year.

These are all things we like to see in a Over the past 12 months, Hershey generated company that is built to weather a market record sales of $7.8 billion. It grew its gross storm. profits to $3.5 billion. And its net profit margins are at an all-time high of 15%. Forever Stock No. 2 Hershey also pays a more than 2% dividend HERSHEY that has grown over the last five years at an (NYSE: HSY) average of 8.5%. And the company is trading at a reasonable price. We like chocolate and candy in good times In 2018, Hershey’s sales have grown to and bad. $7.8 billion, but capital investments remain We continue to like Hershey today as well. It’s incredibly small – just over 4% of sales. And a world-class business that isn’t much affected with FCF of more than $1.2 billion, Hershey by the “slowing global growth” story that’s had plenty of resources to return capital to popular today. Its stock trades at a reasonable investors. price. And it has been incredibly strong in the In 2018, shareholder dividends totaled $563 face of recent market volatility. million, or 17% of gross profits. Moreover, Hershey is a roughly $25 billion giant in the Hershey is also returning capital through sweets market. The company makes the iconic repurchasing its own shares and doing it chocolate “Kisses.” And it sells sweets under consistently. about 80 other brand names, including Reese’s, As long-term investors, one of the biggest Twizzlers, Milk Duds, Jolly Rancher, and reasons we like a company like Hershey is Whoppers. It also makes savory snacks like that it will be around when we retire. And it Skinny Pop popcorn and Krave beef jerky. will be much bigger than today. In 2018, 84% of Hershey’s business was in the U.S., so slowdowns in other countries won’t play much of a role in its results. And because Forever Stock No. 3 Hershey sells food products that folks buy in STARBUCKS good times and bad – chocolate sales may even (NASDAQ: SBUX) go up in bad times – it’s relatively resistant to Starbucks needs little introduction to an economic downturn in the U.S. most Americans. The ubiquitous chain of Over the past 10 years, Hershey has grown its coffeeshops is one of the great success stories sales every year but one – 2015, in which it in American business over the past 50 years.

American Consequences 73 That’s In just the past decade (2008-2018), its share Starbucks executives are convinced that China one key to price has soared by more than 1,200%. And the can become the company’s largest market in Starbucks’ company has solidified its brand. According to the world. And we agree. success... Forbes’ ranks, Starbucks’ $16 billion brand the The company’s goal is to operate 6,000 stores You can find 34th most valuable in the world. one of its in 230 cities across mainland China by the coffeehouses As we’ll show you, Starbucks uses that brand end of fiscal 2022. It plans on adding about just about to generate loads of cash and create huge 600 net new stores per year in China. That’s a anywhere. shareholder value. It’s a classic example of frenetic pace. Think of it this way... Starbucks what we call a “Global Elite” stock. is opening a store every 15 hours in China.

Today, Starbucks is a $100 billion company With its big push in China, Starbucks will with more than 14,000 locations in the U.S. soon have more international than domestic About 60% of those stores are company- stores. Despite slowing same-store sales operated. The rest are licensed or franchised. growth, international expansion has fueled top-line growth. That’s one key to Starbucks’ success... You can find one of its coffeehouses just about Given that China only represents about 18% anywhere. And you know what you’re going of Starbucks’ $25 billion in total annual to get, be it in New York City or Hong Kong. revenue, it’s an exciting time in the company’s development. Starbucks’ market cap is around Starbucks has about the same number of U.S. $101 billion. And we believe it has plenty of stores as McDonald’s (MCD). Those two room to grow due to its China expansion. companies lag behind only sandwich chain Subway, which has around 25,000 locations China and further international expansion in the U.S. will continue to drive FCF at the company. Over the past four quarters, Starbucks has Few legal products hook their users like generated $3.4 billion in FCF – 14% of its Starbucks’ coffee. And revenues at the revenue. company have more than doubled from about $10 billion to over $25 billion. Moreover, it has committed to returning $25 billion to shareholders through buybacks and One of our favorite parts of the Starbucks dividends through fiscal 2020. That’s about story today dovetails with a documentary one-fourth of its current market cap. The we recently released on the floor of the New company returned more than $8 billion in York Stock Exchange... China and its “New 2018 alone. Money.” Starbucks deals an addictive drug. It has an With growth slowing in the U.S., you might iconic brand that it will be rapidly spreading think Starbucks’ brightest days are behind across China for more than a decade. And its it. They’re not. Its biggest potential market – fantastic financial returns translate into stellar China – is still largely untapped... shareholder returns. 74 July 2019 ForeverSTOCKS ADVERTORIAL This Socialist Scheme Should Worry You

e are witnessing a raging Socialist movement in America today. Just Wfor starters…I’m sure I don’t have to tell you…

Three U.S. Senators have proposed a new plan to guarantee every American a government job.

America’s new political star, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pushing for free medical care, free college, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is pushing for free medical care, free college, and 70% tax rates. and 70% tax rates.

And a recent Gallup poll says more understand what’s really happening Democrats now have a “positive and what is most likely coming next. view” of Socialism (57%) than Capitalism (47%). I guarantee you, this written analysis, by my friend and business But what no one’s really talking partner, Porter Stansberry, will help about in the mainstream press is you see these events in a different WHY this is happening… and light. WHERE it’s all headed. I strongly encourage you to check Well, one wealthy businessman out his short written analysis says there’s a secret reason behind here… this trend… and it’s all leading to a Porter says what is about to happen political event unlike anything we’ve will “reset” the financial system in a seen in our country in more than 50 way most of us can’t even imagine. years. If he’s even half right… it’s going If you care about your health… to have a huge impact on you and your wealth… your family… and your money. See Porter’s write- your future… it’s critical for you to up here… It wouldn't be an American Consequences issue without a little bit of gloom and doom...

RECESSION AND CRISIS 76 July 2019 It wouldn't be an American Consequences By Nouriel issue without a little bit of gloom and doom... Roubini

Across the advanced economies, monetary and fiscal policymakers lack the tools needed to respond to another major downturn and financial crisis. Worse, while the world no longer needs to worry about a hawkish U.S. Federal Reserve strangling growth, it now has an even bigger problem on its hands. THE GROWING RISK OF A 2020 RECESSION AND CRISIS American Consequences 77 RECESSION Beyond the U.S., the fragility of growth in debt-ridden China and some other emerging AND CRISIS markets remains a concern, as do economic, policy, financial, and political risks in Europe. Last summer, my colleague Brunello Rosa and Worse, across the advanced economies, the I identified 10 potential downside risks that policy toolbox for responding to a crisis could trigger a U.S. and global recession in remains limited. The monetary and fiscal 2020. Nine of them are still in play today. interventions and private-sector backstops used after the 2008 financial crisis simply Many involve the United States. Trade wars cannot be deployed to the same effect today. with China and other countries, along with restrictions on migration, foreign direct The 10th factor that we considered was the investment, and technology transfers, could U.S. Federal Reserve’s interest-rate policy. have profound implications for global supply After hiking rates in response to the Trump chains, raising the threat of stagflation administration’s pro-cyclical fiscal stimulus, (slowing growth alongside rising inflation). the Fed reversed course in January. Looking And the risk of a U.S. growth slowdown has ahead, the Fed and other major central banks become more acute now that the stimulus are more likely to cut rates to manage various from the 2017 tax legislation has run its shocks to the global economy. course. While trade wars and potential oil spikes Meanwhile, U.S. equity markets have constitute a supply-side risk, they also remained frothy since our initial commentary. threaten aggregate demand and thus And there are added risks associated with consumption growth, because tariffs and the rise of newer forms of debt, including higher fuel prices reduce disposable income. in many emerging markets, where much With so much uncertainty, companies will borrowing is denominated in foreign likely opt to reduce capital spending and currencies. With central banks’ ability to investment. serve as lenders of last resort increasingly Under these conditions, a severe enough constrained, illiquid financial markets are shock could usher in a global recession, even vulnerable to “flash crashes” and other if central banks respond rapidly. After all, disruptions. One such disruption could come in 2007-2009, the Fed and other central from U.S. President Donald Trump, who may banks reacted aggressively to the shocks that be tempted to create a foreign-policy crisis triggered the global financial crisis, but they (“wag the dog”) with a country like Iran. That did not avert the “Great Recession.” Today, might bolster his domestic poll numbers, but the Fed is starting with a benchmark policy it could also trigger an oil shock. rate of 2.25%-2.5%, compared with 5.25% in September 2007. In Europe and Japan, central banks are already in negative-rate territory and will face limits on how much further below

78 July 2019 With the current tensions already the zero bound they can go. And with bloated denting business, consumer, and balance sheets from successive rounds of investor confidence and slowing quantitative easing (QE), central banks would global growth, further escalation face similar constraints if they were to return to would tip the world into a recession. large-scale asset purchases.

On the fiscal side, most advanced economies have even higher deficits and more public Both Trump and Chinese President Xi debt today than before the global financial Jinping know that it is in their countries’ crisis, leaving little room for stimulus interest to avoid a global crisis, so they have spending. And, as Rosa and I argued last year, an incentive to find a compromise in the next “financial-sector bailouts will be intolerable in few months. Yet both sides are still ratcheting countries with resurgent populist movements up nationalist rhetoric and pursuing tit-for- and near-insolvent governments.” tat measures. Trump and Xi each seem to Among the risks that could trigger a recession think that his country’s long-term economic in 2020, the Sino-American trade and and national security may depend on his not blinking in the face of a new cold war. And technology war deserves special attention. if they each genuinely believe the other will The conflict could escalate further in several blink first, the risk of a ruinous clash is high ways. The Trump administration could indeed. decide to extend tariffs to the $300 billion worth of Chinese exports not yet affected. It is possible that Trump and Xi will meet for Or prohibiting Huawei and other Chinese talks during the G-20 summit on June 28-29 firms from using U.S. components could in Osaka. But even if they do agree to restart trigger a full-scale process of de-globalization, negotiations, a comprehensive deal to settle as companies scramble to secure their supply their many points of contention would be a chains. Were that to happen, China would long way off. As the two sides drift further have several options for retaliating against the apart, the space for compromise is shrinking, U.S., such as by closing its market to U.S. and the risk of a global recession and crisis in multinationals like Apple. an already fragile global economy is rising. Under such a scenario, the shock to markets © Project Syndicate around the world would be sufficient to bring on a global crisis, regardless of what Nouriel Roubini, a professor at NYU’s Stern the major central banks do. With the current School of Business and CEO of Roubini tensions already denting business, consumer, Macro Associates, was Senior Economist and investor confidence and slowing global for International Affairs in the White House’s growth, further escalation would tip the Council of Economic Advisers during the world into a recession. And, given the scale Clinton administration. He has worked for the of private and public debt, another financial International Monetary Fund, the U.S. Federal crisis would likely follow from that. Reserve, and the World Bank.

American Consequences 79 THE BOOK GRUMP We all know that the fundamental gear and designed the first effective anti- component of success is hard work. submarine missile. He was also a successful It won’t kill you. But there are very businessman whose company, Airspeed few business-advice books on the Limited, produced the standard multi-engine actual subject of hard work. This is trainer for the U.K.’s Royal Air Force. because writing about hard work is... hard work. But Nevil Shute chose to write novels. The abiding theme of his fiction is the dignity Some business-advice writers would have us of hard work. His books were very popular “pull a sneak”... “Work smarter, not harder.” in the 1940s and 1950s. They are almost Try this with yard chores. “Honey, I paved forgotten today. the lawn.” This is no coincidence, considering how Other business-advice writers think a poster popular hard work once was and the way slogan will suffice... “1% Inspiration, 99% people feel about it now. Don’t get the Perspiration.” Grump started on trying to make the teenager The kind of But hard work is not a hot yoga mow the lawn until the Grump gave up and hard work that class. The kind of hard work blacktopped the house lot. that brings success is a slow brings success Shute works hard at turning hard work into a is a slow accumulation of knowledge and good story. He succeeds by creating engaging accumulation skills, a diligent pursuit of wisdom plots and empathetic characters so that of knowledge about using what’s been learned, readers care as much about the hard work and and skills... and a steady application of savvy and sagacity to meaningful goals. This is as exciting as watching the asphalt settle and crack where the grass used to be. And no writer alive can make a good story out of it. But there’s a dead writer who could – Nevil Shute (1899-1960). Shute did not write business- advice books, although he could have. He was a successful aeronautical engineer who helped develop hydraulic retractable aircraft landing

80 July 2019 THE BOOK GRUMPreviews business best-sellers success in the novel as they care about their woebegone sheep station in the Australian own hard work and success. outback and, again with hard work, turns it into a thriving community using the only In Ruined City, Shute describes the resources available – crocodiles. “Willstown” unglamorous side of working hard in becomes a center of crocodile purse and shoe investment banking. He makes it fascinating production that’s almost as prosperous as by showing what happens to a capitalist central Australia’s largest city, Alice Springs. who begins to realize what capital means to ordinary hard-working people. The banker And in Trustee From the Toolroom, risks everything to reopen a closed shipyard Shute’s protagonist, Keith, is – dull as it gets and revive a town devastated by corporate – an expert adviser to hobbyists who make scale-model precision machinery (tiny steam cronyism and misguided government policies. boilers and the like). Keith works hard at his He goes to jail for his free-market principles. job. He also helps his wealthy brother-in- When he’s released, he travels back to the law hide a fortune in diamonds in the town, anonymously, and finds a statue of Shute works engine of his yacht – to escape post-war himself at the shipyard gate inscribed: “He hard at turning Britain’s confiscatory taxes and export Gave Us Work.” hard work into restrictions. The yacht breaks up on a a good story... In A Town Like Alice, Shute’s heroine reef in the South Pacific. Keith’s niece readers care first survives capture in Japanese occupied (for whom he is guardian and trustee) as much about Malaya by working hard with the local is orphaned. Keith must retrieve her the hard work peasant women. After the war, she goes to a inheritance. This is hard work for a man and success of modest means. But it turns out the in the novel slightly nutty (and bolty) fraternity of as they care model machine-makers is far-flung, and about their Keith is their hero. own hard work and success. There are 20 other Nevil Shute novels and novellas. They’re mostly out of print but readily available thanks to Vintage Books reprinting them all in 2009. Every one of them is delightful to read – Nevil Shute did the hard work for us – and all but one feature hard work. The exception is On the Beach, which is about people taking the easy way out and having a nuclear war. It kills everybody. – TBG

AmericanAmerican Consequences Consequences 8181 READ THIS Get Me a Quote on That

For we must consider that we shall be as a Let us have done with British-Americans city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are and Irish-Americans and German- upon us. Americans, and so on, and all be John Winthrop, first governor of Americans... If a man is going to be an Massachusetts Bay Colony, sermon before American at all let him be so without any embarking to America qualifying adjectives; and if he is going to " be something else, let him drop the word I have derived a good deal more benefit of American from his personal description. the civilizing as well as of the inspirational Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, speech, 1888 kind from the admirable American bathroom than I have from the cathedrals of Europe. Edmund Wilson, A Piece of My Mind

Americans. Willing to cross a frozen river to kill you. In your sleep. On Christmas. Totally not kidding. We’ve done it. Internet meme caption to Emanuel Leutz’s painting, “Washington Crossing the Delaware”

To be happy one must be (a) well fed, unhounded by sordid cares, at ease in Zion, God has a special providence for drunkards, (b) full of a comfortable feeling of superiority fools, and the United States of America. to the masses of one’s fellow men, and Attributed to Otto von Bismarck (c) delicately and unceasingly amused Our country! In her intercourse with foreign according to one’s tastes. It is my contention nations may she always be in the right; but that, if this definition be accepted, there is our country, right or wrong. no country in the world wherein a man... can Stephen Decatur, toast given at Norfolk, be so happy as he can in the United States. Virginia, April 1816 H. L. Mencken, On Being an American And, in her intercourse with foreign nations, I like to be in America! may our country always carry condoms in O.K. by me in America! her purse. Everything free in America Anonymous For a small fee in America! “America,” West Side Story

82 July 2019 LITERARY INSIGHT from PRESENT & PAST

WHAT WE’RE READING

The notion that marriage is the best answer with everyone’s head down, buried in their to the deep human desire for connection cellphone, what would that moment feel like? and belonging is incredibly" seductive... But The Moon Landing United People Around what if marriage is not the social good that the World. That Was Then… The Wall Street so many believe and want it to be? Journal What You Lose When You Gain a Spouse " The Atlantic

Holding a ‘fake’ funeral can help to get a fresh perspective on life, face up to the inevitability of death and, in the case of those suffering from a terminal illness, give people a chance to say goodbye to loved ones. Oh, and just maybe listen to all the nice things people might say about you when you’re gone... ‘I attended my own funeral’ BBC

The author and his family tried a new kind “Little did I know that, by the time we of adventure vacation – wild swimming. Like landed, a TV crew would be at the airport bike tours, but in the ocean, these trips have to talk about ‘the flight from Venice,’ that daily swims of varying distances in exotic the plane would be taken out of service, or places like Croatia and the Maldives. that the story would have gone viral around My Family Vacation Swimming in the Open the world. Nor did I expect to find myself Sea Outside embroiled in a freedom of press issue with United Airlines." Mad magazine, the class clown of American What happened when my flight was publishing, is being shuffled off to the invaded by ants The Guardian periodical equivalent of an old-folks home at the age of 67. If you haven’t seen the Netflix showSalt, Fat, Mad Magazine, Irreverent Baby Boomer Humor Acid, Heat, run to your TV... Samin Nosrat is a Bible, Is All but Dead The New York Times self-taught, approachable, kooky chef with a boisterous laugh and unruly hair... and most On July 20, 1969, the entire country was full recently, sudden fame after her books and of awe and shared amazement... A man was show have thrust her in the limelight. about to set foot on the moon. In today’s world, Everybody Loves Samin Bon Appétit

American Consequences 83 THE FINAL WORD

THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE GREATEST TIME

84 July 2019 By Buck Sexton

THE GREATEST COUNTRY IN THE GREATEST TIME

ngrates, snowflakes, and the perpetually Public figures on the Left claimed that the aggrieved got far too much media attention sight of American tanks and a B-2 bomber Iin the run-up to Independence Day this flyover were worrisome signs that martial law year. could be upon us. Seriously.

For some people, it’s not enough that they That the American Left has largely gone can’t enjoy America. They don’t want anyone insane is a subject that requires another else having too much fun on behalf of “We essay (or a book series). But the anti- the People” either. American lunacy on display from liberals over the Fourth of July holiday is even more A dispiritingly influential Colin Kaepernick inexplicable when set against the backdrop of was able to scuttle a new Nike shoe that an increasingly undeniable reality: featured the Betsy Ross version of the American flag. The has-been NFL star felt America is kicking ass right now. that the iteration of our national symbol from back in 1777 had somehow become a For some people, it’s not symbol of white nationalism – never mind that former President Barack Obama had two enough that they can’t enjoy such flags on stage behind him at his 2013 “ America. They don’t want inauguration. anyone else having too much Reality doesn’t matter when “social justice” is fun on behalf of “We the at issue. People” either. Then there were the hysterical before-and- after reactions to the Trump Independence Day rally on the National Mall... I mean it. We are not fighting a major war. We are not faced with the serious possibility Allegedly serious journalists were comparing of nuclear annihilation at the hands of the this family-friendly patriotic celebration to Soviet Union. Jihadist terrorism has, for the the Soviet Union and North Korea. Professor moment, receded. For the foreseeable future, Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School China will be more concerned with economic intoned on Twitter that the “resemblance to espionage than kinetic warfare. There is not a the days before Tiananmen Square is chilling.” single, massive, destabilizing conflict on the

American Consequences 85 THE FINAL WORD

face of the earth – thanks in no small part to America is a truly great place. the American military’s hegemony. Rejoice. Relax. Enjoy...Because That’s just the security foundation for our “ it’s not going to last forever. American awesomeness. There is so much more... with economic, political and social costs that Our economy is roaring. If anything, we are impossible to calculate. Many expect a are in danger of becoming spoiled by an major recession to hit sometime in the next economic engine that keeps churning out two years, which could upend the political prosperity, year after year. Unemployment is landscape and much of the last decade’s under 4%. Workforce participation and job prosperity. creation are in great shape. The stock market Nobody can predict the future. But we can keeps hitting new highs. These are the best of celebrate the present. And we should. times by any reasonable standard. Right now, you are probably walking around How much of this is attributable to President with a supercomputer in your pocket that Donald Trump? Well, if jobs losses were lets you run a business, order from dozens skyrocketing, terrorists were hitting our major of nearby restaurants, and even buy a car cities, and there were race riots in the streets, with a few pushes of a button. Anyone you can be sure that the media and the who grew up taking long road trips knows Democrats would blame Trump for all of it. that food across America has become much And since he would get blamed under those more sophisticated, fresh, and delicious. circumstances, he deserves praise today. Our entertainment options are endless. We live in a society where material wealth is no Cutting taxes was the right move. longer about basic needs. Deciding how best Deregulation was a huge help for businesses. to enjoy our abundance has become its own And his generally pro-commerce, pro- daunting task. capitalist attitude has an overall positive So yes, America is amazing right now. If you impact that, while hard to measure, is still are fortunate enough to be reading this within very powerful. U.S. territorial boundaries, you’re living in the Yes, there are risks ahead. Nobody in either freest, most powerful, most incredible society party seems to care anymore, but our $22 to have ever existed. In the full scope of trillion dollars in national debt is a ticking human history, you have been blessed beyond time bomb. Support for socialism is rising comprehension. at an alarming rate. Our southern border America is a truly great place. Rejoice. Relax. is a mess – perhaps the worst it has ever Enjoy. been. Hundreds of thousands of migrants continue to illegally pour across our border, Because it’s not going to last forever.

86 July 2019 SUBSCRIBE NOW! CLICK HERE Make sure you subscribe by clicking here. We’ll send you valuable updates and always send an alert when the next issue is published. When you subscribe, you’ll be the first to know when future issues are published. SUBSCRIBE NOW! THIS ISSUE’S FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS

American Consequences is edited by Buck Sexton is host of the nationally P.J. O’Rourke, author of 19 books syndicated talk radio program, including Eat The Rich and The Buck Sexton Show, heard How the Hell Did This Happen: more than 100 stations across The Election of 2016. P.J. cut his the country. He’s also a former teeth as an editor-in-chief of the CIA and NYC police department National Lampoon and a foreign affairs intelligence officer. correspondent for Rolling Stone. He’s since written for The Weekly Standard… The Atlantic… and many other magazines. P.J. is the H. L. Mencken fellow at the Cato Bill Shaw travels the globe searching Institute, a member of the editorial board for the best investment ideas in of World Affairs and a regular panelist on the commodities and natural NPR’s Wait… Wait… Don’t Tell Me. He lives resource space… As editor of with his family in rural New England, as far two natural resource focused away from the things he writes about as newsletters, Commodity he can get. Supercycles and Stansberry Gold & Silver Investor, he focuses on oil & gas, base and precious metals, agriculture equities, and gold bullion. Austin Root is editor and portfolio manager of the Stansberry Portfolio Solutions products, a set of four distinct, fully- allocated model portfolios designed to take the guesswork out of investing. Prior to that, he co- founded and ran North Oak Capital, a New York-based hedge fund with a strategic And what a land of equal investment from Tiger Management. opportunity this is!... Austin has also worked as an investor “ There may be and analyst at world class investment firms including SAC Capital, Soros Fund discrimination in Management, and The Blackstone Group. this country, but not on the highways. P.J. O’Rourke

88 July 2019 AMERICAN CONSEQUENCES

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