Exclusion: What the Black Lives Matter and Trump Supporters Have in Common

I've read a ton of history and it has made me think that I know something about the dominoes that fall across a generation. Even history has a history and things in one generation define another. For example, Sir Edward Coke introduced patent law in 1624, a Brit invented the first steam engine in 1699 and by 1800 the West was in the midst of an industrial revolution that raised productivity and wages for the first time since the ancient Greeks. A string of dominoes that fell across generations.

It goes the other way as well. John Maynard Keynes protested the Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI. He was British but knew that the allies' insistence that Germany pay for World War One would be an impossible burden for Germany and would devastate its economy. A big reason Hitler came to power was because Germans were impoverished and humiliated by their defeat and were susceptible to the rantings of a madman who promised a return to greatness. A string of dominoes that fell across a generation.

The people who elected Donald Trump and the Black Lives Matter protesters have something in common. Both are protesting exclusion, showing disdain for systems they think don't benefit them.
Globalization - the shift away from the nationalism that fueled two world wars - has been a clear success. It has made rich nations richer and drastically lowered poverty in poor nations and dramatically reduced deaths from war.

But progress is always disruptive and while globalization has made goods cheaper for everyone and profits and wages higher for some, it has also meant the loss of jobs and industries for some people and regions. Globalization is wonderful but we have not done enough to make its benefits widespread. Trump supporters protest this globalization that they feel excluded from.

Our law enforcement and legal system has been a clear success. Crime rates are lower than at any time in history. The odds that you will be killed go down every decade. But these benefits have not been evenly shared. Blacks still disproportionately get arrested and even killed by police. This weekend people have protested this legal and law enforcement protection from which they feel excluded.

I am so upset when I see Trump destroy, vandalize or attack another institution that supports globalization, that makes the world and not just our country better. Last week he announced - in the middle of a pandemic - that he would stop funding the World Health Organization. Nothing could be more destructive and stupid and yet his supporters cheered him on. Same when he has attacked the WTO, NAFTA, NATO and the UN. He's wantonly destroying these international alliances that support a better world in which we trade goods rather than bullets across borders. As I mentioned, I have a strong opinion about how dominoes fall. Unchecked, his vandalizing international organizations will mean less prosperity and more warfare in the future. It might happen within a year or two. It may take a generation. It will lead to tragedy. You either move in the direction of more harmony between nations or less. Nothing is static. I know that almost no one believes me in this but I'm horrified and gut sick at what Trump is doing and even more so by the fact that all the Trumpbros are cheering him on.

To a lesser extent - because riots and a few buildings is so much less destructive than war and the cost to national economies from trade wars - I'm horrified by the looting and rioting in cities this weekend. But it comes from the same place. People who don't feel like they are benefiting from something don't care if it burns. Trumpbros cheer the destruction of international institutions and some protesters cheer the destruction of businesses or police stations.

We have to do a better job of inclusion. The difference between how fast I can run and how fast you can run is trivial compared to how much faster we both can go riding in a car or plane. Prosperity is not about individual self-reliance. It is about the systems individuals are included in, from education and financial systems to business and legal systems. When a country does better from trade, it needs to do more to include the communities hurt by trade, to heavily subsidize their re-training, re-location and even pump huge sums into the area in the form of startup funding to let that community of talent find a new market, new set of products that can provide wages and a sense of pride.

The same thing needs to occur within our minority communities. These communities need to feel like this is "our police force," not a group of strangers who view them suspiciously and treat them badly. 

The same thing with the courts.

When people feel excluded from an institution or a privilege or a system, they won't care if it gets destroyed. They might even cheer as it burns down.

My visceral reaction to Trump supporters and protesters destroying things is one of incredulity and anger. I'm trying to change that, to figure out what we need to do to make those people feel included in the story of progress that transformed our grandparents' lives and will transform our grandchildren's lives. Progress is a beautiful thing. Rather than get angry at the people who are angry about not being included in it, I need to figure out how we better include them in it rather than tell them that they should care about the systems they don't believe care about them.