Republicans embrace economic populism at the RNC

It's part of the GOP's pitch to working-class voters. Plus, get smarter about lunar caves. Subscribe to get the "Make Me Smart" newsletter every Friday!

A “hillbilly” pitch to working-class voters. Former President Donald Trump selected a relative unknown as his running mate: J.D. Vance, the venture capitalist-turned senator from Ohio. who fashions himself a champion of workers and a critic of corporate power. In his speech at the Republican National Convention, Vance explained how his poor upbringing in rural Ohio, which he wrote about in his 2016 memoir “Hillbilly Elegy,” positioned him and Trump to best serve the needs of working-class voters.

“We need a leader who is not in the pocket of big business, but answers to the working man, union and nonunion alike,” Vance said. 

Vance bucks the GOP establishment, at least when it comes to economics. The Republican Party has long been the party of free markets, but Reaganism is going out of fashion. Vance is among a group of conservative populists that support economic policies like higher tariffs, raising the minimum wage, strengthening immigration restrictions and breaking up the power of Big Tech.

Rather than limiting government regulation, Vance favors intervention to support and promote key U.S. industries. Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics and trade at the Cato Institute, described this approach to industrial policy as “picking winners and losers in the market to apply taxes and subsidies and whatever it takes to build that industry as the politician sees fit.” 

Populism knows no political party. Instead it broadly relies on an “us versus them” mentality, in which politicians promise to represent “the people” that the “establishment” has ignored or failed to serve. Because populism is more like a kind of logic than an ideology, it can make for strange political bedfellows.

Vance has even recently compared himself to populists on the left when he told The New York Times that he was open to the politics of “Bernie Bros,” supporters of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic socialist. (The comparison breaks down when looking at Vance’s and Sanders’ positions on key social issues like abortion.) Rhetoric vs. record: While Vance has voiced general support for workers and unions, labor advocates say his record isn’t all that pro-labor. He opposed a bill that would make it easier to unionize and introduced a bill that would provide an alternative to unions that advocates say would effectively dilute union power. Trump’s first term as president was also decidedly anti-union.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren called Vance a “faux populist,” whose policy positions largely benefit billionaires, not working people. At least one union is still ready to listen. Unions historically support Democrats, but International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien gave a fiery speech at the RNC this week. While O’Brien did not endorse the Trump-Vance ticket, he emphasized that the Teamsters were ready to work with “any lawmaker who would support union priorities, regardless of party affiliation.” Not all of the union’s 1 million members agree.

Smart in a shot

If it seems like Texas’ power grid is perpetually in a state of crisis, that’s because it is. Texas has had more weather-related power outages than any other state since 2000, and the trend is likely to continue as the state endures more severe weather. The Category 1 hurricane Beryl made landfall on July 9, cutting power for nearly 3 million people, mostly in Houston. Several hundred thousand Texans were still without electricity more than a week later. 

Previous outages, like the massive grid failure in February 2021, occurred because there wasn’t enough electricity available to meet demand — and demand could double by 2030. But the July outages were seemingly caused by a combination of downed trees, lightning strikes and strong wind, all of which damaged power lines and other infrastructure that distributes electricity (rather than generates it).“It won’t be possible to protect against every possible scenario at an affordable cost,” a regulatory attorney told The Texas Tribune, because the expenses of hardening the grid are likely to get passed down to consumers, whether they are preventative measures or repairs necessitated by severe weather.

The Numbers

A permanent base on the moon may be a lot easier and cheaper to build if we can utilize lunar caves deep underground. Let’s do the numbers.

250 degrees 

You think it’s hot outside on Earth? Temperatures on the moon are even more extreme. At its equator, lunar temperatures can reach as high as 250 degrees Fahrenheit in daylight and -280 degrees Fahrenheit at night. Caves are ideal spots for lunar base camps because they have more stable temperatures than areas on the moon’s surface.

200

Scientists have theorized for decades that some of the 200 known deep pits on the lunar surface could lead to underground caves networks. New research published Monday adds credence to those theories. Scientists used radar technology to observe a cave measuring 135 feet by 90 feet several hundred feet below the Sea of Tranquility, where NASA astronauts first landed in 1969.

$10,000 / 1 kg 

It costs at least $10,000 to launch 1 kilogram, or 2.2 pounds, of cargo into space. Utilizing existing structures on the moon could help reduce the cost of sending building materials from Earth.

$28 billion

Getting humans back to the surface of the moon would cost $28 billion, NASA estimated in 2020. Adjusting for inflation, that’s a fraction of what the government spent on the Apollo program.

September 2026

Artemis missions are already behind schedule. The earliest that we could see a moon landing is September 2026.

None of us is as smart as all of us

Tell us what’s making you smarter at smarter@marketplace.org. We’d love to include your recommendation in a future newsletter.

Making Amazon pay

Gas taxes fund most road maintenance, so what can states do when more cars go electric? Minnesota and Colorado are charging a fee for every retail delivery within the state. Host Kimberly Adams recommends a Stateline article about how more states may follow suit to shore up their transportation funding.

Deep space radio

On Wednesday’s “Make Me Smart,”  Kimberly  mentioned that NASA beamed Missy Elliott’s “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” to Venus this month (gift link). That got us thinking about the Voyager spacecraft launched to explore deep space in 1977. Its payload included a gold-plated disc containing 90 minutes of music intended to provide a snapshot of Earth and the human species.

Writer Ellen Rolfes is listening to some of those tunes curated for the “Golden Record” and recommends you take a listen too.

Stealing someone’s vibe

Imitation may be the highest form of flattery, but one social media influencer isn’t impressed. She’s suing an individual behind an account that she claims replicated her posts with uncanny precision, using the same products, poses and styling. Producer Nic Perez is reading a Bloomberg Law article about the first-of-its-kind lawsuit that could spawn copycat claims.