Victor Davis Hanson
American Greatness
The left weighs in on anything that Trump is against, which drives it to lionize criminals like Abrego Garcia, champion open borders, and oppose increased oil and natural gas production. And they are against anything Trump is for. So often, they did not care much about big-city crime rates, supported biological men’s usurpation of women’s sports, and opposed taking out the Iranian nuclear threat.
However, recently, some former and, no doubt, current Trump opponents now seem to support both what Trump is for and what he is against—at least in a few areas. So this past week, Donald Trump hosted some of the richest, most powerful—and most liberal—high-tech CEOs in the country at the White House.
Their shared goal ostensibly is to ensure U.S. dominance in artificial intelligence, robotics, genetic engineering, cryptocurrency, and nearly every other breakthrough field that has both sparked global competition and involves U.S. national security.
In this regard, Trump seems to be channeling Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who, during the early years of World War II, enlisted his ideological foes, mostly the nation’s CEOs, to rearm the virtually defenseless U.S. He tasked them to jump-start the moribund American economy to produce in a matter of months the best and most plentiful ships, planes, vehicles, communications, and new military technologies.
Despite their ideological differences, both FDR and Trump knew that only private enterprise could rearm and reboot the nation, and only if the captains of industry were infused with patriotic zeal, guaranteed freedom to innovate and adapt, and able to make a profit on their investments, would they become partners with and not adversaries of the government.
So last week, Trump assembled Michael Kratsios, the administration’s director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, along with David Sacks, the billionaire investor and Trump’s cryptocurrency and AI czar. Joining them were Big Tech CEOs like Google’s Sundar Pichai, Arvind Krishna of IBM, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Elon Musk was not there, though he said he was invited but had a scheduling conflict.
Their joint challenge is to ensure that the U.S. dominates these emerging fields and thereby ensure American prosperity and national security.
A subtext follows that China must not be allowed by hook or crook to steal U.S. research and development breakthroughs and thereby take a lead in these fields. The CEOs are tasked with investing their huge profits inside the United States to ensure jobs for Americans and, to the greatest degree, minimize offshoring and outsourcing whenever possible.
Trump’s duty, in turn, is to reassure the CEOs that under his watch, the government will not pick winners and losers but let them all compete on a level playing field. They will be protected by the government both from European Union ankle-biting regulatory interference and censorship and Washington’s own efforts to micromanage them into stasis. That is the quid. The quo is that the tech leaders must awaken a somnolent U.S. to the technological revolutions underway that will determine the fate of nations in the second half of the 21st century—and then begin producing state-of-the-art products that lead to a more secure and richer U.S.
We should remember what FDR accomplished. World War II broke out on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. At that point, the U.S. military was smaller than those of eighteen other nations. The U.S. Army was less than 200,000 soldiers in size, with only 125,000 sailors in the Navy. In contrast, the German military was already over 1.5 million strong. Its soon-to-be wartime ally, Japan, had under arms 2.5 million combatants, and Italy had another 1.5 million soldiers.
On maneuvers, the American army was short on rifles and used broomsticks. Even after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. lacked both the quality and quantity of German planes, tanks, and artillery. The Japanese Navy roughly matched the American but enjoyed advantages since it was not responsible for a two-ocean deployment, as were the Americans in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Its fighters, torpedoes, and destroyers were deemed superior to their American counterparts.
Yet when the war ended four years later, the U.S. military was well over 12 million soldiers in size. Its navy had more ships and tonnage than all the navies of the world combined.
The U.S. Army Air Forces were larger than all the air forces of the world combined. It possessed the most lethal weapons of the war—the atomic bomb, the massive B-29 bomber, and an array of thousands of superb fighter planes. The Navy grew to over 125 fleet, light, and escort aircraft carriers. At the end of the war, American battleships, carriers, submarines, fighter aircraft, and transport vehicles were the most numerous and best in the world. By 1945, the American gross domestic product was likewise larger than all the economies of all the belligerents combined.
How did the U.S. go from an isolationist and disarmed country mired still in the Great Depression to the most powerful and best-armed nation in world history—and in less than four years?
The neo-socialist president Franklin Delano Roosevelt pivoted. He abandoned the New Deal statist control of the economy and instead unleashed the captains of industry to rearm the United States in the way that they thought best.
FDR tasked General Motors president William Knudsen to round up corporate CEOs, allot them areas of industry, and then, with Roosevelt’s blessing, turn them loose.
Roosevelt appointed his former political enemies to a variety of boards—the War Production Board, the Office of Production Management, and the National Defense Advisory Commission. The great corporations responded. Charles Wilson of General Electric, Henry Kaiser of Kaiser Steel, and Henry Ford of the Ford Motor Company quickly built new factories or recalibrated older ones into huge weapons industries.
Soon, Henry Ford was building one B-24 bomber an hour at the huge Willow Run plant in Michigan. Kaiser launched a Liberty cargo ship every few days in his West Coast shipyards. By war’s end, the industrialists had built 300,000 planes and over 14,000 warships and cargo vessels.
Roosevelt’s message to the once-hostile industrialists was simply to employ their initiative, expertise, and resources to outproduce the enemy and to catch up and surpass their head start in the quality of arms. He gave them wide latitude to profit, fast-tracked zoning and building permits, and urged them to use their initiative and coordinate with each other. The only real order was to make better and more plentiful weapons than the Germans, Italians, and Japanese combined.
And they did just that and left a model for our own generation to follow—if it proves as publicly spirited, patriotic, united, and capable as their grandfathers who won the war.
The enemy here is found within. US democracy has left itself defenseless whilst it has permitted its enemies to infiltrate it under a false rubric of ‘democracy’ that is undisciplined, without restraint or limit and without regard to its own defense or moral/political imperatives. Diversity is death. The US could not repeat what it did in WWII. Its population is not politically, socially or racially homogeneous.
In order to not allow, by hook or crook, China to steal our DOD research secrets, it might be advisable to not double the number of graduate students in our DOD university research projects.
Instead, cut the current total of Chinese graduate students to the same total of USA students in China’s DOD graduate programs in China, i.e., zero.
Easy peasy, secrets kept.
China didn’t actually steal our technology. We gave it to them. Our government likes us to believe they stole it. Thats why trump says, lets take all the money we can from the Chinese. Send us all your children. Also maybe trump’s thinking thaf china wont attack us with all their children here as hostages?
Based on these comments, many of which are legitimate, let’s just hope Trump can achieve great success with this techology initiative, boosting industrial output & uniting people in the process.
The vast majority of Americans don’t share the same values of this eite group of inidividuals, nor the mindset. Let’s see how they respond to this calling to serve our nation’s best interests.
Trump is advised that this is not 1942. His opponents hate him in a way no enemy of FDR’s ever did. They can, and will sabotage themselves if it sabotages him.
Industrialists today are also far more self-agendaed. Their products are built to wear out and be replaced again and again. They are often are saddled with software that is either increasinly intrusive into our lives, paywalls the full capability of our purchases, or both. If they can milk the US for cash and sell technology to China too, they probably will. When China isn’t simply given access as a prerequisite for doing buisness there.
1. WHY DO WE HAVE SUCH OPOSITE MINDED PEOPLE IN OFGICE? THEY ARE NOT REPRESENTING ALL THE PEOPLE. HOW COULD THEY BEING SO SPITEFUL ?
2. HOW DID OUR ARMED SERVICES GROW? EASY, A COMMANDER AND CHIEF THAT CARES ABOUT OUR COUNTRY’S SECURITY. GETTING RID OF HEAVY WASTE AND INCOMPETENCE, GETTING OUR SERVICE PEOPLE BENEFITS, PAY, NOT BEING AFRAID TO HIRE, FIRE, BEING ABLE TO MAKE DIFFICULT DECISIONS AND THE LIST GOES ON.
“A subtext follows that China must not be allowed by hook or crook to steal U.S. research and development breakthroughs and thereby take a lead in these fields. ” Then why allow 600,000 Chinese students (under CCP supervision) into this country? This move has me baffled.
But who are we at war against? The People of the US? China perfected its AI to provide state control over all actions of its citizenry, from banking and shopping to social media activity. The people invited to the WH were not General Motors or Boeing, but tech firms currently engaged in AI development. Embracing these well known enemies of the American people is far from a victory or a revival of US strength, but like project “warp speed” from his previous term is a horrifying descent into protecting and enabling companies to profit at the expense and lives of every American. Each of these companies has been firing American workers and hiring H1B workers from India and China – even as those some folks steal data and send it back to their homelands.
The Hyundai plant touted as a “big win” for American jobs ended up filled to the rafters with illegal South Koreans working here. Trump’s “pro-America” and MAGA stance is hampered by his personal hang ups. Trump has worshiped money and rich people all his life. Those “tech bros” are some of the richest on Earth and Trump enjoys & has craved being in a position of power around them, regardless of the outcome for the American people.
Like his grandfather who made his fortune opening a restaurant and brothel for miners in the Yukon, the Trump family has a history of caring more about money than people.
It’s disappointing that you always seem to be a propagandist for these same folks, when needed to try to sway the masses.
What a great history lesson! Thank you for the good description and analysis of President Trump’s strategic thinking about critical issues and his excellent management of complicated situations. My admiration and appreciation of President Trump increase daily.
“And they did just that and left a model for our own generation to follow—if it proves as publicly spirited, patriotic, united, and capable as their grandfathers who won the war.” – And this is where the US will fall down. The mentality in this country is “what is in it for me” or “Government needs to take care of me” Long gone is the notion of patriotism, sacrifice, loyalty and duty. There are a few of us left who have it but we are a dying breed. This country is in for a very rude awakening. I am hoping to not be alive for it.
What a great history lesson! This is good description and analysis of President Trump’s strategic thinking and excellent management of complicated issues. Helps me appreciate President Trump more and more.
Well said, sir, as usual.