One of the most memorable moments of the 2024 Republican primary debates was an exchange in the first debate between former Vice President Mike Pence and political newcomer and Donald Trump copycat Vivek Ramaswamy about the state of the people.
Pence, who is known for his embrace of Reaganesque Republicanism with a strong adherence to social conservatism, repeatedly said the United States just needs a government “as good as our people,” while Ramaswamy responded by saying “It’s not morning in America,” pejoratively invoking Ronald Reagan’s famous line.
It’s a stark disagreement on the state of the country, especially for two men who, at the time, were running to lead the nation. But it is worth revisiting as Pence launches the “American Solutions Project” at Advancing American Freedom, a new $20 million project to promote “traditional American values” through his brand of conservatism.
As was evidenced by that exchange and his critiques of populism, Pence is increasingly out of touch with the people of a nation who feel angry and forgotten as the inexorable march of progress has turned their once-prosperous towns into ruins of a bygone industrial age while drugs and broken families have become the primary community attraction.
It is why Trump’s message of imposing tariffs on foreign goods to prevent the offshoring of jobs and cutting down on funding foreign aid resonated. Voters feel angry and insulted by the very people who were supposed to lead them to prosperity. Yet Pence has described this attitude as “unprincipled populism” that has taken over the conservative movement and Republican politics at large.
While much of the policies that Pence and Advancing American Freedom plan to promote are good conservative policies, the failure to recognize the darkness of the moment will be the project’s undoing.
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One can wax poetically all they want about “unleashing the free market,” eliminating regulations, and adopting free trade, but if these policies fail to restore the broken towns and communities of the Midwest to places that people are proud to live and work in, they cannot be described as a success.
A smaller tax bill and cheaper gas are little comfort to a family that is watching their out-of-work son wither away from an opioid addiction he developed from taking a painkiller his doctor prescribed and the free market said would heal him. It’s not “unprincipled populism” to think the government has a role in preventing that.