I'm open to debate. But I think the OP is erroneous in presuming popular will is expressed in American National Security and Foreign policy and therefore using that to lend credence to this turn of events.
In the abstract it seems much easier to get alignment on a national security question (especially one as cut and dry as this one, which is don’t let your nation’s semiconductor supply fall under the control of a hostile foreign country), than it is to get alignment on a much more ideological and philosophical question about how to solve poverty.
There is nothing abstract in politics and that's just plain old "begging the question".
> especially one as cut and dry as this one, which is don’t let your nation’s semiconductor supply fall under the control of a hostile foreign country
Cut and dry to whom? And were it so cut and dry why is a subsidy the solution rather than any number of other legislative actions?
> than it is to get alignment on a much more ideological and philosophical question about how to solve poverty
Free lunch for students is hardly an attempt to "solve poverty".
On one subject you are asking to do politics in a vacuum because it is the status quo and on the other imply a heavy ideological weight.
In reality both things are equally ideological, the only difference you're asserting is that a nationalistic defense ideology should be taken for granted and perhaps that it is popular.
I think it's pretty cut and dry to people who pay attention to what fuels a modern economy: semiconductors. If you have a problem with the subsidies themselves that's a disagreement about implementation, and to an extent I would agree that some additional tariffs are in order - beyond the subsidies.
>Free lunch for students is hardly an attempt to "solve poverty".
Well sure, but any time someone disagrees with the policy of "free lunches" (as if there was such a thing) you get asked "what, do you hate poor people"? Which sends you down a spiral of debate on what the appropriate policy should be to solve a complex problem ... like poverty.
>the only difference you're asserting is that a nationalistic defense ideology should be taken for granted and perhaps that it is popular.
I'm asserting that semiconductors are what make things comfortable in modern society, which isn't really a contested point as far as I'm aware. I'm not really making any commentary on the wisdom of a "nationalistic defense ideology", which in my mind would be something quite different and go much further than "subsidies for building chips in the US".
I'm sensing that a lot of the hostility in this thread has to do with how we already spend so much money on the MIC, and while it's true that we do spend a lot of money on the MIC, semiconductors are markedly different, because military hardware and weapons aren't consumer products. Semiconductors go into everything. I feel like I'm repeating myself here, and it seems odd to me because I would've expected folks on this website to understand this.
> I think it's pretty cut and dry to people who pay attention to what fuels a modern economy
That's a value judgementon your part which happens to agree with what passes for wisdom in the natsec press and that's literally my entire point. Justifying a government action as status quo opinion is how a status quo is maintained and how an entire class of journalism and foreign policy acts as if the world is its oyster and as if there is no alternative. This is literally the hypothesis of manufacturing consent.
> Well sure, but any time someone disagrees with the policy of "free lunches" (as if there was such a thing) you get asked "what, do you hate poor people"?
You're not talking to "anyone", you're talking to me and I never made that point.
> I feel like I'm repeating myself here, and it seems odd to me because I would've expected folks on this website to understand this.
I'm not sure what other conversations you've had but I'm not arguing the merits of some semiconductor protectionism. I'm arguing against the OPs shrug that we should uncritically accept this spending because it's an outflowing of the Democratic process.
How is this a cut and dry question? By your definition is there any national security question that isn't cut and dry?
Would adding three more carrier groups to the Pacific likewise be a cut and dry question? What about scuttling three carrier groups? What about another three hundred ICBMs to the nuclear arsenal? Hundred-year leases on seven new army bases in Poland? Another trillion or two on building a new fighter jet?
These all seem about as cut and dry. Which is to say, not at all.
It's correct to observe that piling mountains of money into the military-industrial complex tends to have consensus in Congress, but let's not confuse that with the questions having a 'cut and dry' answer.
I'm not following why you seem to think those things are comparable. Semiconductors go into nearly everything today, from your phone to your car to your refrigerator. An ICBM isn't a consumer product that is the literally lifeblood of the modern economy, like semiconductors are. If you're hostile to "piling mountains of money into the military-industrial complex", as I am but probably for different reasons, then that's great, but it's a separate issue from securing access to a capability to produce a technology that maintains our standard of living.
So, yeah, it really is that cut and dry. A "National Security Issue" doesn't always mean "weapon" or "air craft carrier". This is a rare moment when, even if it's for cynical and self-serving reasons, some money is going to be spent on something that actually matters and will help secure future prosperity. Do get mad about the MIC, though. I still am as well.
I'm not them, but it's an invitation for a different answer than the one that seems obviously true. I don't think that it's constructive or less "argumentative" to work to come up with a framing for a question that makes it seem less one sided; making the answer less obvious is the job of people who have a different opinion.
