The Most Banal Op-Ed of 2024

Let's grade Jamie Dimon's Washington Post op-ed!

Photo by Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash

If the hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World critically evaluated every crappy op-ed that graced America’s newspaper pages, said staff would go blind, deaf, and dumb within 24 hours. More than a generation ago the philosopher Harry Frankfurt noted, “one of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit” — and it’s not like the situation has gotten any better since Frankfurt wrote those words.

Still, every once in a while there is an op-ed in which the prose pablum is so emblematic of the blinkered, out-of-touch, legitimately ignorant worldview of whomever wrote it, that attention must be paid.

This brings us to Jamie Dimon’s August 2, 2024 op-ed, “The next president must restore our faith in America,” in the Washington Post. Dimon is the chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase. He represents perhaps the purest strain of Wall Street thinking in U.S. public discourse. To be fair, he crisis-managed the 2008 financial crisis way better than most of his peer CEOs. Dimon is regarded highly enough to have generated his own presidential trial balloon last year. His Davos musings always generate copy. Last month Donald Trump flip-flopped over whether he would nominate Dimon to be his next Treasury Secretary.

So what does Dimon have to say in his WaPo op-ed? Here are the opening paragraphs:

We live in a perilous time. Deeply divided, our nation now faces both challenging domestic issues and perhaps the most complicated geopolitical situation since World War II. We may be at an inflection point that will determine the fate of the free and democratic world for decades.

We should not sleepwalk into disaster — we will prevail, but we need an active, comprehensive effort. This is precisely the time when strong American leadership is needed to unite us and strengthen the indispensable role our country plays for the safety of the world.

Look, sometimes I ask this sarcastically on social media, but in this case I ask it sincerely: did an AI write Dimon’s op-ed? The sentences are all grammatically correct, but they are so generic that I was drowsy by the second paragraph. The first thing Dimon’s prose reminded me of was this great Eddie Murphy scene from The Distinguished Gentleman:

Dimon writes, “Unity is a word, but there are specific actions that can accomplish it — actions I hope our next president will adopt.” Okay, let’s get to the specific actions! What is Dimon proposing specifically? He provides a five-point list of… um… more generalities:

First, our problems cannot be fixed without our leaders acknowledging them….

Second, develop policies that reflect our critical place on the global stage.

Third, we need smarter policies that provide protection, progress and prosperity to all.

Next, build the best team: a group of rivals.

Finally, work to earn the support of all voters.

I am afraid I need to ask my AI question again: seriously, which AI helped draft this? ChatGPT? Gemini? Did Alexandra Petri disguise herself as an AI to have some fun at Dimon’s expense?!

Specificity is still lacking, so I pored over the rest of Dimon’s op-ed for concrete policy ideas that would buttress the generalities quoted above. Here’s what I found:

1. “Renewing national pride by unabashedly teaching civics and American exceptionalism without papering over our mistakes.”

2. “Delaying long-term liquid natural gas projects in Louisiana and Texas is misguided and self-defeating.”

3. “Easily reform our mortgage policies to make homeownership more affordable for lower-income Americans.”

4. “Dramatically expanding the earned income tax credit, which would get much-needed income to the individuals and communities most in need of it.”

5. “The private sector has huge wells of expertise and produces 85 percent of our nation’s jobs. It should have a seat at the table. Yet in recent years, government leaders have often failed to engage those in industry.”

Fair is fair: I agree with Dimon on some of this stuff. Teaching civics? Sure. Expanding the EITC and making home ownership more affordable? I am on board! Of course, Dimon fails to outline exactly how the next president can accomplish these thing, but this is an op-ed and not a 900-page Project 2025 blueprint, so that is fine. But there is very little meat on the inside of this generic sandwich of an op-ed.

Dimon’s last suggestion, however, caught my eye because of its appalling level of ignorance. As I noted back when Dimon was floating his presidential trial balloon:

Dimon thinks the government “needs more people with business experience”?! Does he retain any memory of the Trump administration? You remember, with the president who prided himself on being a businessman, the Secretary of State who was CEO of ExxonMobil, the Secretary of Commerce who ran a private equity firm, the Small Business Administrator who was the former chief executive of World Wrestling Entertainment, and the Treasury Secretary who used to be at Goldman Sachs? I remember all of them beclowning themselves trying to run the executive branch, and hoping fervently that this would kill the dumbass notion that the key to government is to run it like a business. If Dimon does not recall any of this then his mental competency will be an issue during the campaign.

In other words, most of Dimon’s op-ed is so banal that an AI could have written it, and the parts that appear to embody Dimon’s heartfelt beliefs are stupid.

This raises the obvious question: why did Dimon write this pile of meaningless crap? I suspect the answer is, “because he can.” Last year I also wrote, “I have no doubt that Dimon’s friends and peers are telling him and telling everyone what a neato candidate and great president he would make. That is because, as I noted in The Ideas Industry, that almost no one can speak truth to money.” Dimon’s entourage as well as the editors at the Post likely showered him with praise with this effort.

As someone who occasionally gets paid to write this kind of stuff, however, Dimon’s op-ed manages to be mostly boring and occasionally stupid. And that is no way to go through life.