From Atari to Waymo

Pathetic Democrats try to keep up with their own Zeitgeist, and keep failing

I'm so old I can recall back in the mid-1980s when a group of forlorn Democrats tried to compete with the economic dynamism of Reaganomics by forming a caucus that called themselves "Atari Democrats," after the video-gaming company that was the leader in the field at the time. "See," the implicit message went, "we can be pro-innovation and hi-tech, too!" The only problem with the scheme was that Atari moved overseas shortly thereafter, and then went bankrupt as new competition in the gaming space revealed Atari to be sluggish and unimaginative—just like 1980s Democrats. "Atari Democrats" are now as forgotten as the Hula-Hoop craze.

So imagine my glee when I saw the grand puffer fish of the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, open with this in his latest column:

I struggle these days whenever someone asks me for my political affiliation. But if you really force me, I’d describe myself as a “Waymo Democrat.” Waymos are the self-driving electric taxis started by Google. My party’s bumper sticker would read, “A chicken in every pot and a Waymo in every city.” And our TV ads would say: “Trump is for he/him — his grievances, his revenge, his corruption — and for bringing old stuff back ‘again,’ like coal and gasoline cars. Waymo Democrats are for ‘We the People’ and reinventing American industry anew.”

Where to begin?

First of all, where will Friedman get his column ideas from if he doesn't ride with human taxi drivers anymore? Has he thought this through? Second, although Waymo isn't likely to go the way of Atari, it hardly seems a promising label. Most Democrat constituents will think it is short for "gimme me waymo money!"

And that brings us to the most odd aspect of Friedman's fetish for Waymocracy: Friedman thinks the route back to power for Democrats is . . . subsidies for robotics:

First, robotaxis are going to be a huge industry, not just because I use only Waymos whenever I am in San Francisco, but because I am not alone. . . I can’t think of a more obvious moonshot project to spur advanced manufacturing in America generally than making it our goal to have Waymos or robo-Teslas — or any other brand of self-driving taxis that we can make — operating in every city in America. . .

We would insist that big law firms that want to do business with the federal government have to offer a certain number of pro bono hours to any start-up building A.I. or other components for our robotaxi industry.

We would tell Harvard and every other Ivy League university that they can teach whatever they want, however they want. But … any student graduating with a degree in math, biology, chemistry, physics, engineering or A.I. on commencement day should get handed a refund check for their entire tuition along with their diploma. . .

In sum, the best way for Democrats to demonstrate they are the party of the working people is not just by promising to protect people’s entitlements for another generation, but also by nurturing new industries, like robotaxis, that will fund them for another generation.

First, the whole domain of AI and robotics seem to be doing quite well on their own without government help. I doubt the industry really wants much government help, beyond access to affordable electricity that Democrats actually don't want to supply to anyone. Second—I'm sure "robotics!" is really a great rallying cry for Democrats to win back working-class voters. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Of course, Tom Friedman has never been especially close to the working man—at least not when he’s working from home:

No wonder he gets his news tips about the working class from taxi drivers. But I suppose it is regress of a certain type that his future drivers will be fully metallic and programmed in fluent Times-speak, and thus the perfect source for his tin-eared prose.

It's almost enough to make you pine for the Atari Democrats of old.