Right-wing populism seeks power by closing doors, halting change, and venerating the businesses and dominance hierarchies of the past. Scarcity is its handmaiden. So too is the sense that governments today are weak and corrupt and, therefore, that strongmen are needed to see the world clearly and deliver on democracy’s failed promises. Liberals might detest the language that Trump and Vance use to demonize immigrants. But blue America practices its own version of scarcity politics. Zoning regulations
