In Focus delivers deeper coverage of the political, cultural, and ideological issues shaping America. Published daily by senior writers and experts, these in-depth pieces go beyond the headlines to give readers the full picture. You can find our full list of In Focus pieces here.Speaking at the “American Dynamism” summit back in 2025, Vice President-elect JD Vance argued that the United States needed to “undo 40 years of failed economic policy in this country.” It wasn’t the first time Vance pinpointed “40 years” as the onset of the nation’s alleged decline.
Forty years back, incidentally, puts us in the Ronald Reagan years. The vice president apparently wants to bring the country back to the glory of Jimmy Carter and the 1970s. This week on Michael Knowles’s podcast, Vance went after the late Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, a favorite of Reaganites, during a broader discussion about the state seizing the assets of AI companies — a Bernie Sanders policy plan that Vance also supports. Vance, after all, is an economic leftist who believes politicians can make better decisions about economic activity than individuals and businesses. Which is why he’s had far nicer things to say about socialists such as Sanders, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), and Zohran Mamdani than any fiscal conservative. (Washington Examiner illustration; Getty AP Photos)
