Last week, news broke of the Reddit Rebellion with pundits on both sides viewing it as a get-even scheme by day traders to hurt short-selling and hedge-funding elites. Rush Limbaugh delightedly claimed GameStop buyers epitomized we the people, the Washington Post huffily belittled them as “rabble gripped by conspiracy theories,” and I know it ends badly for long positions in GameStop.
I hate to see today’s political battles spill over into equity markets because hedge funds benefit 401K plans, owned by many. Still, it was a matter of time before conservative populism found a home on Reddit, where the uninformed many could organize themselves to hit the smartest guys in the room few. As for Reddit, it is 430,000,000 users united in 150,000 common-interest communities, where fickle “redditors” set the rules and call the shots.
The significance of the Reddit Rebellion is that it proves conservative populism (also known as MAGA) has adopted a Wack-A-Mole strategy. It did not die with Ross Perot, belong to Donald Trump, or believe Joe Biden’s folksy rhetoric. You can read me now and believe me later: the unforgivable sin of Bush Republicans and Clinton Democrats is how indifferent they were to what “great” meant to the voters leaving them for Trump (hint: it’s not about that man).
Ask black or white middle-class Americans to define a “great” situation and most will talk about abundant economic opportunity; therefore, “make America great” means make me financially secure. In fact, Matthew Walther (The Week) found most MAGA voters “do not oppose or even care about abortion or same-sex marriage [and] with varying degrees of enthusiasm, accept pornography, drug use [and] legalized gambling.” Isn’t that kind of tolerant, and not so deplorable?
Ask black or white middle-class Americans to define “great” government and most will talk about protections for their pursuit of happiness. Thus, this financial vendetta began in 1992, when G8 nations allowed George Soros to make billions (betting against the pound) and hurt British taxpayers. In 1998, Long Term Capital Management begat “too big to fail” that begat the 2008 banking-housing crash and 9.3 million foreclosed homes. Mind you, those were the Bush-Clinton-Bush years.
Walther found the economic views of MAGA voters to be a “curious and at times incoherent mixture” of libertarian and populist views (“embracing lower taxes on the one hand and stimulus checks and stricter regulation of social media platforms on the other”). In other words, the folks in the MAGA hats are not the far-right conservatives the DNC says they are. They just didn’t like Barack Obama or trust Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. No kidding!
Economics makes politics and Obama failed the misery test with small-business owners and blue-collar workers. Clinton and Biden presided over a woke party that scares middling folks; such as black Americans who think Abe Lincoln is a hero, suburban women who think looting has victims, gay men who think separating students into racial affinity groups is a form of segregation, and Asians who think disparity of SAT scores is not proof of systemic oppression.
This brings us back to the Reddit Rebellion and today’s dangerous divide: it’s one angry little guy that risks his money to topple a big guy. There’s a message here akin to the rebel attacks (man blows himself up for a cause) that scared Michael Corleone away from investing in Battista’s Cuba. When will centrist Democrats, like Senator Warner (VA), learn and force Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer to focus on economics (open up) and health (vaccines)? Period.