February 13, 2025
Has the Coronavirus Crisis Proved the National-Populist Case? (Not quite, but it’s certainly given national populists an opening.)
An employee wearing a face mask works on a car seat assembly line at the Yanfeng Adient factory in Shanghai, China, as the country is hit by the coronavirus outbreak, February 24, 2020.
An employee wearing a face mask works on a car seat assembly line at the Yanfeng Adient factory in Shanghai, China, as the country is hit by the coronavirus outbreak, February 24, 2020.

Nationalists and populists on the right, formerly a very small band, have spent decades arguing that offshoring was a danger to America’s independence of action and ability to take care of itself in a crisis. Some spent the same time arguing that the economic model marrying labor-rich China to capital-rich America was bad for American workers, and carried risks of strengthening Chinese authoritarianism or even making it attractive here at home. They argued that the Western belief that economic liberalization would lead to political liberalization had been proven wrong in Central Europe, and was a delusion when applied to Beijing.

Now the coronavirus crisis has given their case a fresh hearing. As Matthew Continetti writes:

The China hawks, economic nationalists, and advocates of industrial policy have found themselves playing the role of Cassandra, who saw the cost of war firsthand after her warnings were dismissed.

The young people on the right drawn to the agenda of national populism will come out of this experience more skeptical of China, more critical of the pre-crisis economic policy of the GOP, more suspicious of uncontrolled flows of labor, capital, and goods across borders.

Analyst Andrew Michta, meanwhile, argues that the coronavirus makes a “hard decoupling” from China imperative:

[Interesting Read]

See Also:

(1) THE NUMBERS JUST DON’T ADD UP: Nearly 500,000 Went to Hospital in 2018-19 Flu Season But Today There Are Not Enough Hospital Beds for Coronavirus Patients?

(2) Why Tom ‘Dr. No’ Coburn Was Truly ‘The Conscience Of The Senate’

(3) As Coronavirus Hits Hospitals, The Ugly Specter Of Euthanasia Raises Its Head

(4) Law Enforcement in a Time of Crisis

(5) COVID-19: A crisis fit for a new world order

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