He had thick eyebrows and a thicker mustache.
He dressed in the fashion of the day. A suit. A hat. An overcoat. A pistol.
His name was Seth Bullock, and he was a prominent western sheriff.
Bullock might not have held the notoriety of Wyatt Earp or Pat Garrett. But he was just as effective a lawman as those two – if not more. Operating with steely resolve, Bullock cleaned up a county in Montana. Then he repeated the trick in the Dakota Territory.
Bullock’s exploits helped tame the northern frontier. They also drew the acclaim of future President Theodore Roosevelt, who would go on to appoint Bullock as a United States Marshal.
And yet, despite Bullock’s strong and steady hand, there’s little recognition of him in the region today. It’s Roosevelt — not Bullock — whose face is chiseled into a mountain in South Dakota, and whose name is on a national park in North Dakota.
Bullock had the pedigree of a strongman. But it turns out that title only goes so far.
Back when I was in middle school, I leaned about a particular term in history class.
Tariffs.
I hadn’t seen this word in my day-to-day life. And for good reason.
Tariffs, I discovered, were taxes on goods shipped across national borders in the 18th century. American colonists took exception to the practice back then, and this backlash helped pave to the road to America’s independence.
I internalized this information, used it to ace my class exam, and promptly filed it away in the furthest recesses of my mind.
Tariffs hadn’t been relevant in 225 years. I wouldn’t need to worry about them anymore.
Boy, was I wrong.
You see, a generation after I turned in my history exam, a new president took the helm in America. Well, more accurately, a returning president — one who had occupied the Oval Office four years prior.
This president railed against weak leadership while campaigning for his old job. He all but pledged to be a strongman if elected back to the role. And voters accepted the pledge, paving his road back to the White House.
Once back in power, the president took every opportunity to rule with an iron fist. He started deporting migrants, slashing the government workforce, and systematically removing his opponents from positions of influence.
It was all a bit jarring, but hardly unpredictable. This is what a strongman does.
But his next move would prove the most disruptive. The president brought back tariffs, imposing them on nearly every other country on the planet.
The reasoning for this move was straightforward —to the president, at least. America had been roiled by skyrocketing inflation in recent years. American industry had been on the decline, and trade deficits with other countries had widened.
Why not solve all these problems with one fell swoop? Make global trade too expensive to be practical. And bring supply chains — and their associated jobs — back within American borders.
Unemployment would plummet as industrial jobs returned within our borders. And with those goods being made closer to home, prices would drop as well.
The stock market would rally, businesses would remain profitable, and families would bask in the prosperity of a rejuvenated economy. The strongman leader would be the hero, the savior, the genius behind it all.
This was the theory the president had as he announced the tariffs. But things played out much differently.
Markets tanked within hours of the announcement, wiping out billions of dollars in value. Businesses raised alarm about rapid onshoring of operations — a process that normally takes years to complete. Financial analysts warned of rising prices, and even the risk of a recession.
The president may have embodied the strongman persona with aplomb before. But now, he appeared to have overplayed his hand.
It was a sordid outcome. But hardly an unprecedented one.
The annals of history are filled with strongman leaders.
The legacies of these leaders vary widely. Some built empires through military might, for instance. Others committed mass genocide and related atrocities.
But even with these varying outcomes, two threads seem to tie this archetype together. Strongman leaders are effective at consolidating power and ineffective at managing an economy.
That second part of the equation might not seem intuitive. But it should be.
Economics, you see, represents the systematic allocation of scarce resources. The entire practice is built on the premise that there’s not enough to go around, and participants must consider trade-offs.
Just about every economic concept — from Invisible Hand to specialization to supply chains — stems from the entrenched reality of these trade-offs. Capitalism is essentially built on it.
But cooperative systems like these crumble in the face of the strongman ethos. There is no room for the strongman to share control or delegate influence. Giving an inch means the gig is up.
So, strongmen often choose power over prosperity. Or they silence the voices of reason in favor of chasing economic fantasies.
The latter appears to be happening in America. Tariffs are just the vehicle to get the nation to that outcome.
This is the curse of the strongman. And we’re mired in it.
Guilt by association.
Such a concept is prevalent in America.
If we give a friend a ride to the bank, and the friend robs that bank, there’s a good chance we’ll be viewed as complicit in the crime.
This might seem unfair. We didn’t necessarily know what our friend would do once inside those bank doors.
But we should have.
The bank robber was our friend, after all. We’ve conversed with them, immersed ourselves in their personality, and come to recognize what they were capable of.
The same principle holds true when it comes to our leaders — particularly those of the strongman variety. We might not be directly culpable for their actions. But we still carry the stain of association.
We do so because we lean into one illusion, in particular. That an iron fist can yield widespread economic prosperity.
This is simply not possible, for the reasons already discussed. And there are plenty of real-world examples of the illusion failing. Examples we’ve seen in the news, or learned about in school, or just heard about through our social circles.
We know better. And yet, we chase after misguided fantasies anyway.
It’s time to wake up.
There is an explanation as to why Seth Bullock’s name no longer graces much of the northern tier.
It centers on a couple of elections that took place in the 1870s in what is now Lawrence County, South Dakota.
Bullock had served as sheriff in the county. But he was an appointed sheriff who had been named to his position by the Dakota territory’s governor.
As the county legitimized, elections were held for the sheriff’s position. Bullock ran for his post, but he did not win it. He was forced to cede his duties.
Bullock tried again in the following year’s election. But once again, the voters cast his aspirations aside.
Even at the apex of his exploits, Bullock’s legacy was getting sidelined.
It’s hard to know exactly what led to these election losses. But it’s possible that the citizens of Lawrence County saw the limits of strongman rule.
Sure, Bullock could cut down on the saloon fights and the shootouts in the street. But the frontier region was on the precipice of a boom. Could Bullock really help deliver the prosperity residents were seeking?
It appeared not.
Indeed, Bullock’s exploits had pitted him against some local business owners — who prospered in trade and social connections across the county, but who also engaged in some illicit activities. Voters seemed to favor the future promised by these leaders to the strongman keeping them safe.
Perhaps we can take something from our ancestors’ example. Perhaps we can get less swept up in the fantasy of rhetoric. And perhaps we can apply more logic when a strongman makes their pitch of prosperity to us.
This might not sooth the acid reflux of our current tariffed economy. But it could keep some future heartburn at bay.
And that matters.