Would Americans Pay 20 Bucks For A Burrito To Have Less Immigration?

Nationalist economics may face the obstacle of Americans wanting cheap and infinite consumption

The $20 burrito is the new dividing line on the Right. Commentators viciously argued over the matter all last week. Some claimed the $20 burrito was just a reason for people to eat cheap food at home and there’s no real problem here. The other side strongly disagreed and claimed this outrage must be solved by any means necessary.

This debate gained the attention of the mainstream media, with the big papers and cable news outlets saying it’s another battle in the civil war on the Right. It’s not a good sign for the upcoming midterms that the Right is at each other’s throats over burrito prices.

Left out of the debate is a related point: would people be willing to pay higher prices to achieve “nationalist” economic goals? The average person reading this will say “Yes!” But would the average person? That’s another matter entirely. America is a society dictated by what the country can do for you, not for the country. No one feels the need to risk any inconvenience. In fact, citizens feel it’s downright un-American to be inconvenienced for a common cause. The new American dream is predicated on the twin demands of infinite benefits and infinite low-cost consumption. Can a people accustomed to such “rights” be expected to have them clipped to accomplish a greater good?

The answer to that will determine the fate of the country. In order to make the country great again, people will have to adjust their expectations and experience short-term inconveniences. It’s easy to demand radical political changes. But until the people are willing to make small sacrifices, we will never make those changes. That’s why it’s necessary to prioritize what’s most important rather than trying to do everything New Right theories dictate. The American people still want cheap goods, regardless of whatever rhetoric tells them to feel differently.

It’s critical to prioritize what’s most important for our side while still accommodating the majority’s demands. Trying to accomplish all the New Right’s economic wishes at once would just create a backlash toward our agenda.

I’m not saying burritos are so high now because we accomplished immigration restriction and relative economic autarky. Many other factors are behind current inflation levels. But the administration’s immigration and trade policies are contributing a bit to the higher prices. Nationalists frequently declare they’re willing to pay higher prices so Americans can achieve decent wages. I’m not saying they’ve changed their mind on this, but it does seem many on the Right are offering contradictory demands on the matter.

Right-wingers want the high wages and the replacement of cheap foreign labor with native workers. But, like nearly all Americans, they still expect cheap goods regardless of these changes.

The Federalist’s John Daniel Davidson offered a representative opinion in an X post on the burrito battle:

So much of the burrito discourse is about what Americans should reasonably expect. What they are in fact entitled to as Americans.

We should expect that burritos won’t cost $20 (or whatever, that fast food should be cheap). We should expect to go to a public library and not see drug addicts and homeless. We should expect to be able to buy a house in our 30s (at least). We should expect that a family can thrive on one income so a mother can stay home with young children. We should expect that everyone can speak English.

These are not luxury expectations or unreasonable standards. They are what every generation of Americans since WW2 have enjoyed. Mocking people for wanting these modest things is not going to work.

They are not going to shut up about it because they are entirely correct in their expectations and discontent: something has gone wrong in America, and it cannot be fixed by tightening our belts and working harder.

He’s right that this is what Americans expect, but our country doesn’t currently deliver. But to expect all families to live off a single income while still having extremely cheap fast food may have some issues. The single-income household was the result of a unique time in America where wages far outstripped basic living costs. A lot would need to change to even have the chance of bringing back that time period.

The New Right, at least theoretically, has decided it prefers high wages over cheap consumer goods. That’s why it advocates for immigration restriction and trade protection. Both things would lead to higher costs as we spend more on goods made by Americans. That would mean more belt tightening on the part of ordinary Americans, but at least we’d have more English speakers and a better demographic future.

However, the average American might not accept this. He got queasy over seeing ICE raids and hearing sob stories about groundskeepers being deported. Imagine how they would react if their consumer goods skyrocketed after immigration was restricted. You could tell them that that job is now held by an American, but the average person wouldn’t care. They’d rather have cheap goods than to help a hypothetical American they don’t know.

The guiding principle for Americans is “fuck you, I got mine.” It’s why banning property taxes is popular and every person wants their specific entitlements increased. No one cares about what costs these ideas might impose on the rest of society. What they care about is how they will personally benefit. The same mentality will cause problems for immigration restriction.

If Americans still expect low-cost on-demand consumption, they will get weak knees over the price to correct our demographic problems.

That’s not to say we can’t accomplish immigration restriction. We absolutely can, and over time, the benefits would far outweigh the short-term costs for achieving such a goal. But one of two things needs to happen for this to occur.

One, we somehow convince Americans to give up on the expectations for cheap goods and accept sacrifices for a higher purpose. The second option is to push immigration restriction along with other policies that will keep consumer goods affordable.

The first option seems unlikely. The fact the Right is flipping out over hypothetical $20 burritos and getting outraged that Taco Bell hasn’t frozen its 2007 prices is a sign that even our side doesn’t want to give up on cheap goods and services. The voters would push out whoever made them pay more for fast food.

The second option is more viable, but it may force the Right to give up tariffs and other policies. Trump’s tariffs turned out to not be as economically devastating as many imagined they would turn out to be. Thanks to most countries not retaliating and America exempting many critical goods from duties, the impact of the tariffs were minimal. But if we went with a more expansive tariff regime, consumer prices would balloon and upset ordinary Americans. Many demand that action to achieve their kind of America. But the ordinary citizen would beg to differ.

Presidents can get away with a lot as long as the economy is good. If Trump had not attacked Iran and had kept a more mild stance on tariffs, his approval ratings would be much higher and we would be heading into a favorable midterm climate. We could’ve even kept up the high-profile ICE raids that took place in Minneapolis and elsewhere if the economy remained strong. But the administration went in a different direction.

The demographic situation is more important than anything else. Having an America that looks like America may still have goods made in Mexico and other places. But that goal is more important than a multiracial America that makes its own goods that most citizens can’t afford.

Americans don’t want to give up on cheap consumption. They will only back immigration restriction if it doesn’t inconvenience their lives. It’s possible to do that, but it requires accommodation with public sentiments and jettisoning less important policy wish items.

A country that expects dinner to be instantly delivered to their doorstep isn’t about to forego this lifestyle for any higher purpose proposed by a politician. We can still make America a better place to live, but one has to compromise with this mentality to get anything done.

Order Scott Greer’s new book, “Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump’s America,” from this link.