The headphone jack. It sounds facetious, but I am deadly serious. The Trump Organization recently launched Trump Mobile, a wireless phone service that supports a forthcoming flagship device, the T1 phone. While the plan comes with telehealth services and roadside assistance, the most important part of the endeavor is the headphones jack.
Allow me to explain. The 3.5mm jack, while antiquated technology, was solidly functional and supported a variety of accessories beyond headphones, such as credit card readers. When Apple made what they called a “courageous” decision to remove the headphone jack, it influenced the tech industry to join them in migrating smartphone owners into using excessively expensive wireless earbuds, or adapters to connect existing headphones. Adapters themselves are a nightmare, you have to choose between charging your phone or listening to music, or have some multi-cable Eldritch horror protruding from the charging port. Return the headphone jack, and not only do you no longer need to spend money on adapters or wireless earbuds, you can walk into Dollar Tree and grab them for $1.50 and replace them just as cheaply when they break or get lost.
Consumers lost the headphone jack because greedy elites decided we needed to pay them more for unnecessary technology. Nothing stopped a consumer from getting wireless earbuds when they had the option, but now they are forced to buy much more expensive equipment for the same experience, and the transfer of wealth up to the elites continues. I recently bought a phone with a headphone jack (Sorry Mr. President, not the T1) almost entirely because I can still listen to FM transmissions of Oregon Public Broadcasting on the go in my frontier community without worrying about wireless coverage gaps. My phone is also not 5G-enabled which means I do not have to worry about molasses-slow speeds in Oregon anymore.
Like the headphone jack, elites made decisions that Americans did not want that cost regular people everything without their consent. America’s booming stock market, once primarily supported by pension funds, transitioned to being supported primarily by wealthy elites after closing down Midwest factories and Northwest timber mills then sending the labor overseas. Once Americans were forcibly impoverished, profits went more directly to shareholders and the overwhelming majority of the working and middle class lost. Now retirees have to work minimum wage jobs at Walmart to supplement social security, while the Walton family buys more yachts. In Oregon, triumphant donors proudly and publicly bribe the Democratic Party into impoverishing rural communities through campaign donations. Between a combination of crippling tax policies, socialist land management laws, hyper-partisan gerrymandering, and woke word policing, the Democratic Party of Oregon has turned the Beaver State into the kind of illiberal democracy that would make Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orban blush. Nobody who was negatively impacted by this state of affairs voted for it, but speaking out invites punitive retaliation from Salem so extensive that rural politicians often go along to get along for scraps, rather than build coalitions to fight back.
President Donald Trump and his economic team need to follow the same logic of the headphone jack. Tariffs have the potential to encourage onshoring of jobs that had been sent overseas, but the country needs a serious plan to double the size of America’s industrial plant, which will take decades. The Biden Administration worked toward this goal, and President Trump needs to recognize the strides they made but build it forward in a direction that benefits everyday Americans. Subsidies for new plant expansions, for example, could be tied to mandatory retirement plan offerings for all employees. Timber harvesting on Oregon public lands needs to accelerate, not just because the raw materials will be necessary for building new factories, but also because decades of intentional mismanagement have caused massive climate change-inducing megafires. The climate is changing, but Tina Kotek and her elitist lackeys work as hard as they can on making Wildfire season longer and worse every year.
What makes Donald Trump the best President ever? It isn’t actually the headphone jack. It’s his predilection to meet Americans where they are and try to govern for them. He fails just as often as he succeeds, and I sharply disagree with his immigration and military policies, but I know that he can hire sharp minds to do the right job, as evidenced by Lori Chavez-DeRemer’s appointment as Labor Secretary. With the national Democratic Party crumbling over an obsession with fundraising over substance, Republicans are likely to retain control of Congress in 2026 and at least the White House in 2028. If they drop the ball, Democrats will not pick it up, and everyday Americans will continue suffering under economic stagnation. Do we want to naturally reduce the burden on a chronically under-funded welfare system? Restore the wilting Rust Belt to the proud Steel Belt? Revive the Northwest’s burning forests? Fight for the working man now, and make sure that companies invest in retirements for American workers at new factories and mills. Now is the time for Republicans to lead American businesses into employing Americans at American businesses in America who can substantially re-invest into America’s economy.
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