In 1992, I was just a kid sitting in front of the TV, flipping through channels, looking for something—anything—to watch.
No cartoons. No sitcoms. Just golf on one channel and an old businessman sitting at a desk on another.
He had that Southern drawl, the kind that made him sound like the KFC Colonel, except instead of selling fried chicken, he was selling fiscal responsibility. He wasn’t a politician, wasn’t making big, flashy promises. Just straight talk, a few charts, and a warning: America was spending itself into ruin.
That was my first lesson in capitalism, government waste, and fiscal responsibility—not from school, not from my parents, but from Ross Perot on a TV infomercial.
And back then, only 18% of Americans believed in what he was saying.
They dismissed him as quirky and eccentric, a billionaire with too many charts and not enough charisma. People weren’t ready to hear that government, not business, was the real problem—that capitalism wasn’t failing, it was being suffocated.
Fast forward to today, and something has changed: 18% to 50%.
Donald Trump did what Perot couldn’t—he won. And not just once, but twice. In the 2024 election, he pulled in just under 50% of the vote—something that would have been unthinkable for a businessman in Perot’s time.
What changed? America did.
Back in 1992, the idea that government was stifling capitalism was a niche concern—something only a fraction of voters cared about. Today, nearly half the country sees it as the defining issue.
Perot was ahead of his time. He warned that if we didn’t get control of government spending, if we didn’t stop Washington from expanding its grip, capitalism itself would suffer. At the time, people thought he was exaggerating. But after decades of higher taxes, increased regulations, trillion-dollar deficits, and bureaucratic inefficiency, more Americans have started to realize he was right.
The problem? Even now, we still don’t fully understand capitalism.
We say we believe in the free market, but we expect government to bail out industries when times get tough.
We say we want less government spending, but we keep running trillion-dollar deficits.
We say we want businesses to thrive, but we overregulate, overtax, and punish companies for being successful.
Perot’s message was clear: Capitalism doesn’t need government to grow. It needs government to get out of the way.
But over the years, we’ve blurred the line between capitalism and government control. We don’t want real free markets—we want protection when things don’t go our way.
And that brings me back to the KFC Colonel sitting at his desk in my living room back in ‘92.
Here’s the thing. KFC, like any other business, has figured out efficiency down to the second. Every dollar, every shift, every decision is optimized for profitability.
Now, compare that to the U.S. government, which has trillions in debt, layers of bureaucracy that contradict themselves, and policies that stifle competition instead of encouraging it.
If KFC ran its business like the federal government, we’d be paying $50 for a bucket of chicken, half the fryers would be broken, and you’d need three forms of ID to get extra sauce.
Yet we still argue about whether government should be bigger or smaller, instead of asking why we can’t run it efficiently in the first place.
Ross Perot ran for president because he believed government inefficiency was the greatest threat to capitalism. At the time, only 18% of Americans agreed with him.
Today, nearly 50% have embraced the idea that capitalism must be protected from government overreach.
But are we actually going to do something about it? Because if we can’t figure out how to run America better than a fast-food chain, then capitalism in this country is already dead.
