5 GOOD POINTS THE RIGHT MAKES ABOUT THE DISASTER
The derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals in eastern Ohio has led to calls for an examination of the government’s disaster response, new regulation to safeguard public health and safety, and better working conditions for railroad workers. What’s unusual is that these calls are coming not just from Democrats and progressives but also from Republicans and right-leaning writers, suggesting that the disaster could open up possibilities for bipartisan problem-solving.
As some Republicans are trying to demonstrate a more populist, less reflexively anti-government bent, this provides an opportunity for them to show that they mean what they say. After all, it’s easy for Republicans to pretend to be anti-corporate by criticizing a company for being “woke.” It’s something else entirely to support government action that challenges unfettered corporate power and genuinely improves people’s lives. This is where the new breed of conservative populism often seems to wither.
But this disaster has prompted some on the right to step up and embrace big ideas that could be the basis of both a new perspective on the relationship between business and government and cooperation with Democrats. Here’s a rundown:
The mistreatment of workers can have broad societal impact.
The derailment has focused attention on whether rail industry efforts to move more freight with fewer train workers has compromised safety. Sens. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., have called on the Transportation Department to detail the real and lasting effects of these efforts.
Importantly, Vance and Rubio are asking whether these workers are overstretched as a result of an overemphasis on “efficiency” over other national goals such as public safety. This advances the proposition that squeezing too much out of workers can have broadly negative societal effects — and that the federal government should step in to rebalance that in the national interest.
Government regulation is complicated — and that’s a good thing.
Sohrab Ahmari, a prominent proponent of populist conservatism, argues that in drawing attention to the government’s role in protecting overtaxed workers, Vance and Rubio have broken with longtime GOP anti-government orthodoxy. The idea here is that a more empowered administrative state can and should check the power of large corporations that seek deregulation at the expense of the public.
This requires “complex regulations,”
Ahmari says, because in “complex economies,” judiciously taming sophisticated “market actors” is hard. Ordinary people don’t have the expertise to answer every vital question about train sensors and braking technology, and your senators almost certainly don’t either.
The answer is competent government bureaucracy. Conservatives often cynically prey on public suspicion of bureaucracy to advance a pro-corporate deregulatory agenda, one that operates from the assumption that regulations are inherently bad and we should always seek to eliminate them. But these right-wing figures are preaching the virtues of expert regulators attuned to the complexities of getting regulation right — and declaring this a public good.
Government expertise has an important — and nonideological — role to play.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a conservative Republican, recently staged a high-profile moment in which he sipped tap water in an East Palestine residence with the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency. DeWine underscored the point at a CNN town hall: “We have the best experts. We’re
going to listen to the experts.”
It’s critical for Republicans such as DeWine to reassure residents frightened about toxic residue. Conservatives have demagogued this issue for decades, claiming that government is inherently incompetent. But DeWine’s bipartisan gesture signals to this heavily Republican area that a Democratic administration can be trusted.
What’s more, with many on the right casting the Biden administration as deliberately malevolent toward conservatives, it’s doubly important for a Republican to signal that a Democratic administration is characterized by good-faith, nonpartisan governance. In a way, DeWine is saying that the much-maligned “deep state” is a good thing.
Federal standards can help state and local officials protect their communities.
Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Ohio, has joined calls to explore whether federal law should be changed to mandate that train companies list hazardous materials on the side of train cars, and DeWine has said the federal government should require railroads to inform local communities of exactly what is passing through. While the reflexive conservative position has long been that the intrusive federal government should get out of the way so state and local officials can govern, in this case there’s an acknowledgment that federal rules are required to help those officials protect their communities.
Individual disasters should prompt discussion of larger reforms.
These arguments are important for another reason. Conservatives often respond to specific disasters by saying that proposed reforms wouldn’t have prevented the particular tragedy in question, as though that should end the discussion about any reform. It’s an argument we always hear after a mass shooting.
We are seeing some of that now, as conservatives find in the details of this derailment a reason to reject calls for stricter regulation or to dismiss criticism of the Trump administration’s deregulatory actions on behalf of the railway industry. But others are arguing that this should be the occasion for a broader discussion about reform. As Saurabh Sharma of the conservative organization American Moment put it, the derailment gives Republicans an opportunity to demonstrate that they’re serious about taking on “corporate malfeasance that doesn’t have an easy culture war angle.”
It’s unclear whether some of these figures will match their rhetoric with action. Though many have attacked members of the Biden administration for being MIA during the disaster, in reality administration officials support solutions similar to those demanded by those very same figures.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, for instance, has called on Congress to tighten numerous regulations on transporting hazardous materials and increase fines on safety violations, which could prod big rail companies to be more safety-conscious. These are goals these right-wingers support.
Conventional anti-government Republicans in Congress might not be willing to do any of these things. If not, it remains to be seen whether the more populist Republicans will call them out for it or join Democrats in getting something done.
And yet, Republicans have joined recent outbreaks of bipartisanship on infrastructure, guns and computer chip manufacturing, all of which constituted ideological breaks from GOP orthodoxy. Could we see this again on rail safety? We’re skeptical, but we’re hopeful.