Trump has a bridge to sell you
Do we really have to do this?
Welcome back to Cautious Optimism. Today we’re not talking stocks or startups. Instead, we’re discussing the confluence of Silicon Valley and former President Trump. — Alex
This week my friend and This Week in Startups cohost Jason Calacanis participated in an interview with former President Donald Trump on his other show, All In. The chat came about after two All In hosts — David Sacks and Chamath Palihapitiya — held an eight-figure fundraiser for the White House aspirant in San Francisco.
Trump answered questions on Ukraine, Israel, and economic topics. Most of what he said was not news, but one of his comments on immigration did cause a ripple of headlines.
Here’s Politico’s coverage of Trump’s remarks regarding foreign students of domestic universities and their ability to stay, live, and work in the United States:
I favor a more densely populated America, and one way to achieve that would be to allow any foreign student to stay in the United States after graduating. Heck, I’d offer them citizenship.
Trump’s campaign, however, quickly responded with a comment that reversed course (via Reuters’ Gram Slattery):
Gisting that down, there will not be a wide-open door for foreign students to stay in the United States after they graduate under a second Trump administration. Instead, only those who pass an ideological test that the administration designs and are deemed to be non-economically detrimental to the existing labor market will be allowed to stay. If then.
This is a good example of why trusting Trump on any matter is an error. He’ll b.s. you and then do whatever keeps him in power.
In this case, the All-In podcast features folks who fund and build companies that hire talent from foreign countries. We know this because Sacks and Palihapitiya are technology entrepreneurs and investors, and tech companies hire many foreign workers. So, Trump said something that would make the All In audience happy, and then his campaign ran cleanup for him so that he could continue to court nativists after collecting his Silicon Valley check.
This is not a one-off event; it’s business as usual. Trump once waved an LBGTQ flag, only to appoint a host of homophobic justices when in power. Trump was opposed to crypto but then decided it was more politically expedient to take the other position. Which he now has. Abortion? From pro-life in 1999 to shouting about how he helped the Supreme Court overrule Roe v. Wade, to now trying to say that he really does want it left to the states. (Look at the people who write policy for him; a second Trump administration will likely pursue aggressive anti-abortion rules if it wins the commanding heights of domestic government. This is what you are buying if you punch a Trump ticket.)
Critical Principles
I’m slightly perplexed how Trump has managed to court so many powerful Americans to his side. After all, what matters most in the United States? Or, what makes this country so economically and culturally powerful? The combination of democracy, capitalism, and secularism. And in each of these areas, Trump is a threat.
Democracy: The former President orchestrated a multi-state conspiracy to overturn a fair election. This came through a litany of specious legal challenges, asking sitting governors to find him votes, lying about the election itself, helping foment an end-run around the democratic process itself, attempted blackmail of ally nations regarding supposed dirt on a political rival, and instigating an attack on the nation’s capital to try and stop the electoral certification of the man who beat him. You cannot really do worse than that.
That Trump’s party consistently works to make it harder to vote if you are Black, a student, or live in an area where it doesn’t poll well matters here as well.
Capitalism: Capitalism whips because it is an engine of new ideas and capital formation, and when competition is properly enshrined, prices fall on goods thanks to businesses competing. Sure, it has issues, but it’s by far and away the best system that we’ve come up with for generating wealth. The competition point stretches to the international realm, something the President is leery of. For example, he’s currently floating the idea of massive tariffs around the United States to lower income taxes. Not only would the idea exacerbate inflationary pressure, but it would also lead to a regressive shift in our national tax base and reactionary tariffs around the world. It would be a hot mess on stilts. And yet.
Trump’s poisonous pettiness means that his whim is warping the market already, and he is willing to sell policy in exchange for votes.
Secularism: We could go to the tape and discuss his prior administration, but I think using a more recent example is more useful. The state of Louisiana just passed a comedically unconstitutional law requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in schools. Here’s Trump on Truth Social in response, as transcribed by CNN this week:
Trump is not religious, while both former President Obama and current President Biden are. Regardless, the United States is what it is today thanks to folks of all religious perspectives. Non-believers, including myself, people of faith and everyone else constitute the fabric of our nation. Pushing a particular religion at the state or federal level is as anti-American as you can get and provides fuel for those who want to make the United States a single-religion theocracy.
Even more, the above comments show that Trump is willing to do away with the founding documents of the country when it is politically expedient for him to do so. Principles? No. Pursuit of power no matter the cost, so long as he isn’t paying the tab? You bet.
Is this what people want?
The allure of strongmen
Don’t the people who are lining up to support Trump know better? I wonder. You might expect that very smart people are able to see through their own bluster. If you take that perspective, you probably share my view that much of the support that Trump has received lately from select wealthy tech types is predicated on a desire for lower taxes and nothing else.
You might also argue that incredibly wealthy people lining up behind a person who wants to conserve as much power to himself simply makes sense to them; masters of the universe don’t tend to be the compromising type, and the connection between business and fascism is hardly new. There are people accustomed to getting their way who consider views that cross their own to be worthy of deletion. So, it should not shock us that we’re seeing a buddying up of power centers to a leader willing to humor them so long as he returns to the throne.
For shame.
Not everyone in Silicon Valley is enthralled by Trump, it’s worth noting. Vinod Khosla, Reid Hoffman, and Jason, for example, are not.
p.s. The first draft of this post discussed Ukraine, gay rights, and other matters. I condensed to make it simpler and shorter, but there’s much more to say on this topic.