Political Hopeful: Beto O’Rourke

On Friday May 10^th, yet another Democratic Presidential candidate made their way to Hanover in order to get an early foothold in the important New Hampshire primary. On this particular occasion, it was Beto O’Rourke, former U.S. Representative for Texas and U.S. Senate nominee, who came to speak to the Dartmouth Community. After being narrowly defeated by incumbent Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), O’Rourke became a household name for the Democratic Party. Then, in March of this year, the El Paso native declared his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential Nomination.  

Hanover has been crowded with a circus of Democratic Presidential speakers recently. After attending a couple different rallies, one must wonder: what makes this candidate unique? It’s difficult to stand out in a Democratic field that includes former Vice President Biden, the presumed establishment favorite, Senator Sanders (D-VT), who started a political movement of his own in 2016, and Andrew Yang, a candidate pushing for Universal Basic Income. However, as O’Rourke took the stage and began to speak to an at-capacity crowd at the top of the Hop, it seemed the candidate was speaking through a checklist of issues, as opposed to positioning himself as the new hope for the Democratic Party.  

“I know that if I fail to say this somebody will bring it up,” O’Rourke said of climate change to the crowd of supporters and students, “because it’s the very youngest in this country, who on so many important issues like this one, are leading the charge of forcing those in positions of trust or who seek your vote to account for themselves.” 

Though it’s certainly important for each and every Democratic candidate to discuss their government focused solutions for man-made climate change, it seemed a bit odd for O’Rourke to explicitly tell his supporters and viewers how he has catering to them. It was also beyond bizarre to hear a political actor talk about how a rally he was giving would be received, during the rally. 

Nonetheless, O’Rourke touched on a number of different standard Democratic policies, including stricter gun laws, higher minimum wages, and an increase in the progressive tax rate. These all are quite standard for the party platform, so it would have been nice to hear him present the set of values and ideas in an exciting or at least unique manner. However, O’Rourke seemed to keep running through his checklist for most of the speech. He received applause whenever he hit any of these key phrases, but for a candidate to be elected president, they need more than just buzz words like “Universal Healthcare.”  

O’Rourke made a number of promises to his supporters if he were to be elected, as most political candidates do this early on in the campaign trail. However, as with most big-government advocates, Beto seemed to dance around two fundamental challenges to the promises he made. The first is the typical libertarian-minded attack on big-government spending, “With what money?” As a proud owner of numerous pieces of “Don’t Tread on Me” memorabilia, I find myself asking this question quite frequently. Beto, along with a number of the other Democratic candidates, have adopted the well-developed response of condemning the wealthy for “not paying their fair share.” This is a typical populist tactic which many candidates have used as it’s remarkably easy to turn envy into political vengeance, especially in a material-based society like the U.S.  

“The economy today is roaring, firing on all cylinders, but doing so well for so few,” claimed O’Rourke during the rally. “This is a time of record income and wealth inequality unseen since the last Gilded Age, and it is completely inimical to our democracy. Any hope we have of true political representation, of ensuring that this democracy works so that everyone is counted, is through an economic democracy where everyone counts.” 

O’Rourke floated around a dangerous idea here of defining the roles of the public and private sectors. One of the main principles of this country is having a restricted government which will not infringe upon the liberty of its citizens to conduct business. The phrase “economic democracy” is a bit of a misnomer, because it assumes that the public has the right to control private corporations and property. Implementation of this rhetoric would be a categorical seizing of corporations by the state, something that is dangerous in implementation and antithetical to America’s unique liberty. States seizing the means of production is a textbook way to limit freedom levels within a society, yet O’Rourke and his Democratic opponents alike seem to care very little about this prospect.  

Beyond this principal attack on liberty, property rights, and industry as a whole, it seems that O’Rourke has not read the economic reports regarding the effects of similar economic policies. Minimum wage laws have been proven time and again by Thomas Sowell, amongst many others, to drive the demand for participation in the work force through the roof, while also severely limiting the supply of jobs to the work force. By pinching the workforce with high standard minimum wages, there is a greater net negative associated with government enforced wage increases as they often leave many jobless. 

This closely relates to a larger societal economic problem which liberal policies attempt to solve, yet often miss the mark. With the price of public universities increasing dramatically, and the price of private college tuition continuing on its trajectory towards 100 thousand dollars a year, college graduates are increasingly incurring debt, while also having a tough time finding a job upon graduation. Many Democrats, including O’Rourke, have supported plans to provide free, government provided college educations to each and every U.S. citizen. However, this does not address a number of problems with the system which are outside the realm of obtaining a college degree.  

In fact, a majority of the jobs being created within the United States currently are careers which do not require a college degree, but rather a trade school degree. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the enrollment rate in traditional U.S. colleges raised 28% from 13.2 million to 16.9 million students between 2000 and 2014. During this same time period, trade school enrollments also received a jump from 9.6 to 16 million students. This jump can be attributed largely to the growing emphasis on education within the country, but the enormous bump in trade school enrollment can also be tied to a severe need for tradesmen in the 80s and 90s. With over 77 million baby boomers retiring however, the number of skilled labor positions we need to fill in the U.S. has remained fairly stable. To put this into more graspable terms, an astounding 32.4% of the skilled workforce in the US is made up of people aged 45-54. As these people look to retire and move on from their careers, skilled labor positions are opening across the country, and offer far more stable sources of income than those which require college degrees. Trade school is far and away the most surefire path to the middle class, but no politician campaigning on free college for everyone would tell you that. 

A number of the policy prescriptions that Beto gave during his speech seem to operate under the notion that the economy is rigged against those who are less fortunate. Though most could agree that the system isn’t perfect, it seems a bit far-fetched to argue that wide swathes (or even a majority) of people in the U.S. are disadvantaged at birth, especially on a global scale. When one takes into consideration that there are still countries in which the government and religion are synonymous, it seems worthwhile to consider the numerous privileges and liberties associated with a U.S. citizenship. It’s hard to argue that the system is rigged against the less fortunate considering the number of success stories which this country has produced. However, to avoid cherry picking, I will discuss societal economic success within the context of individual choices, rather than the stories of individuals. According to the Brookings Institute, a well-regarded economic source which generally is associated with left leaning tendencies, there is a 98% chance that you will not be perpetually poor in America if you follow three simple rules. These rules are as follows: get an education, have a job, and don’t have children out of wedlock. This may seem surprising, but these three basic decisions all help ensure that people make the economic decisions necessary to supporting themselves, and eventually, a family.  

In all, Beto’s visit to campus was fairly uneventful. In a political climate bloated with demonization of opponents, as well as a general implicit trust in the government to solve societal issues, O’Rourke did little to separate himself from the rest of the field. Though bashing Donald Trump and checking off policy buzzwords will often result in a strong crowd reception at rallies, these actions do little to separate a candidate from a sea of faces. If Beto wishes to pull a large percentage of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, he must make several political changes in order to create his own lane towards the nomination.