of Follow 2 Tweets Things that caught my eye:
In a way, these are both “gotcha” tweets, implicitly alleging that J.D. Vance mistakenly made the case for increased immigration. But I’m more interested in something else: what Vance’s motivation was for making this claim.
Political statements can be evaluated in different ways. Some may see them as expressing the politician’s opinion. However, it is also important to consider why the statement was made. Politicians have different views, but what determines which views are expressed in a political campaign?
It is plausible that successful politicians tend to express opinions that they believe will persuade voters, but I am not commenting on the politician’s sincerity. Whether they believe “X is true” or not, they are not going to campaign on “X is true” unless they think the message will be effective.
I’m not particularly interested in what Vance believes on this subject. But I am very curious. what Vance thinks the public believesThe fact that Vance is making this argument on the campaign trail indicates that he doesn’t think people see America as one of the richest countries in the world.
It would be interesting if pollsters asked the public whether the United States or China was the richer country, and I suspect a significant percentage of respondents would say “China” (though not a majority), although the United States is, of course, many times richer.
Another good question is, “Does the United States follow international trade laws even though other countries cheat?” This one will likely get a lot of wrong answers (yes, the United States often cheats).
It seems to me that nationalist ideology is less appealing when people are optimistic about the state of the country. If you look back to times when the United States was clearly number one, say 1965, the public mood was much more favorable toward international institutions. If people believe that other countries are overtaking the United States, they are more likely to become nationalistic, especially if they believe that other countries are cheating to overtake the United States.
A few months ago, I Posted Vance’s statement points out the curious fact that the United States is both the country that accepts the most immigrants and the richest country at the same time. Taken literally, Vance’s statement could be considered essentially the same as my post. However, despite his use of the “if” phrase, what is clear from his statement is that the United States is not the richest country. However, Vance and I at least agree that one fact implies the other. The correlation between the United States’ high immigration rate and its position on the list of the world’s richest countries is probably Causation.
Now what we need to understand is whether America is really a very rich country.
