Can we suggest that many voters are simply not up to the challenge. So poorly educated, hard working folks really don't have much experience with the discussion like those here. Add to that the 40-50% who get much of their news from FOX et all.
Then on the left, we have folks too devoted to their issue - for example, environmentalists who are angry at Biden over oil leases of federal land - they don't care about the political pressure to appear to do something about gas prices and they also don't care that courts force Biden's hand.
So we are left with relatively few for whom the new right is terrifying.
At the level of an ideological taxonomy, we need to understand that "the Right" and "Conservatism" are VERY different entities.
"Liberalism" is the philosophy of government that asserts the importance of individual civil liberties, equality under the (rule of) law, and the positive liberties of participation in the political process. Liberalism emphasizes the importance of limited government, understood in terms of a State that is competent enough to uphold the rights of citizens, but always governed by the rule of law and so always accountable to the governed. Liberalism dates to the Age of Revolutions in the 19th century, and it is a very broad political philosophy, featuring a spectrum of views which range from "Left" (the left-side of the Liberal spectrum) to "Right" (the right-side of that political spectrum). Liberalism harbors a very strong creative tension within it, because the two cardinal values of Liberalism, liberty and equality, both depend upon one another but also are in a trade-off relationship with one another. The tension between these two values marks the difference between the left-side of the Liberal spectrum (which emphasizes equality) and the right-side (which emphasizes liberty). In the end, there can be no true zero-sum relationship between these values, nor any fundamental political divide between Right-Liberalism and Left-Liberalism.
Right and Left liberalism therefore are not fundamentally opposed. Instead, *both* are opposed to *Conservatism.* Conservatism has its roots in the throne-and-altar Ancien Regime of the Old World; Conservatism's cardinal value is *order,* understood in terms of the perpetuation (the conserving of) a system of institutional inequality and privilege (privilege = "private law") - which is of course the very opposite of the rule of law upon which universal political equality depends. At its root, Conservatism is a smash-and-grab political ethos; the institutionally entrenched nobility (with the royal house at the top of the hierarchy) is predicated ultimately upon force and nothing but. This was the Ancien Regime that the American and French Liberals of the 18th century toppled.
But the political impulses and instincts which animated Conservatism have deep roots; even today many people respond positively to the essentially Patriarchal values which uphold Conservatism (e.g., loyalty to a "sanctified" hierarchical authority, authority which is pitched above any possible legitimate criticism, and characterized by ideals of masculinity which are often quite toxic).
The true, fundamental, political divide of our post-Revolutionary Secular Age is between Liberalism, and the reconstructed Conservatism which survived the destruction of the original Ancien Regime. This Conservatism has a few salient features: 1) a near-obsession with the value of purity (as treated of in Jonathan Haidt's "Moral Matrix"), which lays heavy emphasis on in-group and out-group identity, and the polluting effects of the out-group on the in-group 2) a hypermasculine martial ethos which valorizes strength, particularly military power but also seen with heroic entrepreneurial figures who are able, by their own ingenuity, resourcefulness, cunning, and force of personality, to build business empires (this wealth often redounding directly to national military strength) 3) underscoring 1. and balancing 2., a populist ethos which makes Conservatism suitable for a post-Revolutionary Age, where attention must be paid to a certain kind of equality, viz. the equality of those in the in-group. This pure populism makes the ideological case for the equality of all those in the in-group, despite of and downplaying the often great divide in material fortunes amongst them. The conceit prevails that they are all in some fundamental sense "equal," particularly as contrasted with an out-group that threatens them collectively. Naturally this is a very ready means of putting a lid on any burgeoning class-resentments, or political opposition in general.
The Conservative regime par excellence was the Slaver's regime of the Old South. I would argue that the Fascist regimes of the 20th century are essentially Conservative. To begin they are intensely Anti-Liberal, contemptuous of both the values of liberty and equality, and the worst of them concocted ersatz forms of religious belief, setting a quasi-transcendental value on such things as racial identity or the logic of history, and moreover providing the means of sanctifying the regime, even making sacrosanct ("untouchable") the Leaders of these societies.
What's vital to keep before us is that Fascism is *popular;* it is not some aberration of Modern society but the naturally-occurring worldview opposing Liberalism in this, our post-Revolutionary era. It IS the Ancien Regime, after the altar has been smashed and the privileges revoked. *Every* Liberal society has to contend with a significant constituency which is prone to Fascism, just because the urge to dominate, the urge for La Gloire, (and the servile nature which complements this) is deep rooted in our primate-nature. In healthy Liberal societies, populist forces are often distributed amongst political parties engaged in fair, rule-bound political competition. But it can happen, at some time or other, that that one party can gather under its banner the overwhelming preponderance of populist forces; and when this happens, a canonically Fascist party comes into being that can use the levers of the democratic process to get access to power, and then from its perch of power pose an existential threat to the continued existence of the Liberal state in question. This is what happened with the antebellum Democratic party, which became identified with a Slaver's dominion.
And I would argue that this is what has happened with the Republican party in the United States today.
The desire to destroy our government is not new - on the right or left.
As for Disney, they are a massive, multi-billion dollar company who make rich people richer while under-paying most of their employees. What DeSantis is doing is eliminating a government carve out that helps these rich get richer.
Nice job, JVL! Agree with you! I can't fathom how swing voters are open to putting people who literally supported and sponsored a violent attack on our government back to power. If people still prefer conservative ideological positions, they need to purge the crazy from their party and get sane people back in. Until they do that, and if they continue to support crazy people from MAGA world, I can't take them seriously. These people are indeed dangerous.
Y’all are so far inside the fishbowl you don’t see the water. There’s nothing Biden and the Democrats can do, except govern competently, and I don’t see that happening any time soon. For every moderately successful initiative, like the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you have a complete, unmitigated disaster, like the surrender of Afghanistan.
We have a two party system. So until one party becomes competent, or a new party of disaffected, capable ex-Democrats and ex-Republicans coalesces in the center, we’re just going to be flip-flopping between the two hyper-polarized, ineffectual parties we got.
Or J.D. Vance is right and the republic’s on its way out, thanks partly to his own efforts. We have had a good run, by historical standards.
Republican voters care about kitchen table issues. Like sittin around the table as a family, helping one another tie off and skin-popping that a hot dose of the pain the dont say gay bill inflicted on people they hate. And have been absolutely floating the last few weeks, this is the best kitchen table issue they’ve had in a while, it was almost like Trump was still in office. But it’s starting to wear off, in the last couple days around the kitchen table have been a little less bliss and more angry, they’re already talking about how this kitchen table issue isn’t near mean enough, it’s almost nice actually. Come to think of it one of their kid’s teachers dresses like they’re trying to make a statement..that’s a problem…a problem uniforms for teachers would solve.
Pretty obvious isn't it, JVL? Conservatives no longer want to allow values that they do not agree with to flourish without pushback. The churches preach it, Conservative Inc. media pushes it, and politicians giving speeches pushing this tripe get elected. They all run in the same circles and it is constantly reinforced. That's been going on for years and now the critical mass has been reached. I ain't thinking The Handmaid's Tale is coming anytime soon, but there will be consequences in Red America if you don't embrace those values.
In my opinion, there is this weird fusion between economic protectionism from government and social conservatives that hasn't been as prevalent in prior decades. There has always been economic protections from Republicans for businesses, but now it comes with a caveat, if you will. If you express socially conservative views, a Republican government will continue to protect you and yours, keep government off your back as much as possible, and help keep your taxes low. If you do not express socially conservative views with the proper vigor...that protection goes away. Socially conservative, Christian values now trump everything. It's why they love Putin and Orban.
Progressives have also tried to boycott businesses who don't express their values with the proper vigor too. Their politicians will even hold very stern hearings on these business. But the Democrats in power won't actually do much about it. I guess the dirty secret is 90% of their constituents actually like money too and their not looking to lose jobs locally.
I think the blame lies with Fox News. I truly believe that ever since we got rid of the Fairness Doctrine, there has been a concerted effort to portray anyone who is not conservative as a crazy socialist/anarchist. But more than that, they helped bolster the current fascist mind set that white men are being shoved aside, and therefore they need to step and put everyone back into their place. They promoted the gun culture, which wasn't started just to create massive wealth for the manufacturers, it was to make sure there were masses of guns around and available. Because if there is one thing an insecure man needs, it's a gun. (Note: I didn't say all men who have guns are insecure)
I know lots of Democrats and they are perfectly nice people who go to work and raise families. None of them are especially strident about any of the things that the opposition says is important to Democrats. And I know a lot of Republicans who would be horrified to think that a Republican president would start a coup and make himself president for life and destroy our Democracy. So these people you are talking about are a real anti American threat to our country.
At the risk of personal exposure, I am a federal employee. All comments are my own and do not reflect the views of my agency, and I am providing this response during my personal off work time. What is my background? Prior to working for the Department of Labor (Office of Job Corps), I spent a career as an officer in the US Army, to include 8 years working for Army Accessions Command, responsible for filling the ranks with the soldiers and skill sets needed to defend our country. I have now been a federal employee for more than 7 years. Throughout my time, I’ve (almost) never discussed my personal political views, and when I have, it was subtle with a “read between the lines” response. I cannot begin to tell you the complete ignorance JD Vance has displayed in his comments. People like me aren’t sitting in some cushy office shuffling paperwork, or looking to out Lib my co-workers while secretly supporting secret pedophile groups in some basement in DC. I happen to dedicate my entire working day/week/month and year working directly with poor, unemployed, undereducated young folks (75% of them are high school drop outs) learn and earn job skills/trades so that they can be placed in dignified career paths and become productive members of society, and avoid a future of crime, prison, or dependence. And let me be clear - MOST of the young people we serve are from TRUMP zip codes in rural locations, in addition to inner city youth. Firing people and agencies like mine would be like putting a hand grenade in the conservative idea of “Give a person a fish, feed them for a day. Teach a person to fish, feed them for a lifetime”.
The stress of working as a federal employee has almost reached my limits. I’m fucking TIRED of not knowing whether I will get paid or not being able to work because of some performative asshole (looking at you Ted Cruz) flirting with government shut downs. I can earn MUCH more in the private sector, but I work where I do because my HEART is in my work. I grew up in the type of poor, white working class family that JD Vance wrote about in Hillbilly Elegy. Only I'm not writing about the problem, I'd like to believe I am DOING something about the problem. For the life of me, I can’t understand these fucking assholes (looking at you Newt Gingrich) who supposedly hate government, but spend their ENTIRE career grifting as political operatives. Vance’s comments are not just words, by the way. In the last months of Trump’s presidency, Trump's policy minions tried to change the ability to fire senior government workers for simply having different personal policy views, even though positions like mine are non-political. Look around the world - the best functioning democracies also have the best bureaucracies. People hate us, but we help make the trains run on time, and in my case, help the helpless learn to help themselves. People like me are the opposite of JD fucking Vance. While he sucks up to Trump in the most demagoguery way imaginable for his own self interest, people like me are doing the blocking and tackling in the trenches to help the lives of other Americans. But yeah, go ahead and fire me.
Amazingly, The D's as usual are incapable of seizing on an opportunity in Fla when it presents itself. The changing of the Governing District will potentially put Florida tax payers on the hook for $1 Billion in Disney Bond debt. Why can't they attack, attack and attack some more in Orange and Oceola Counties on how much a fight over a social issue (Ronny got his feeling hurt...Wahhh) will cost the typical home owner. The D's are turning into the Palestinians; they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/business/dealbook/disney-florida-taxes.html
The "Right" has always had a strongman complex. John Wayne was the epitome of the strong (white) man who knew what to do ... because he was the biggest, strongest, fastest with a weapon SOB in the valley. The Western mythology, that might equates to right, lived, breathed and propagated that scenario in countless Westerns in the 50s and 60s when the Baby Boomers were growing up and becoming the McConnells and Trumps and Grahams and.....
Then came the megaphone of the internet, honed by those unscrupulous, power-hungry, racists and refined by the MAGAphone of TFG and his band of me-firsters. They understood that a white lie (a lie told by white men) repeated often enough generates a life of its own which can be further manipulated into a sect-like movement which accepts no "truth" except that of the spreaders of that untruth.
Like I've said before, I don't think it's an either/or situation; it's a both/and situation. Joe Biden/Democrats are in such dire political straits because a third of the country is suffering from mass hysteria/authoritarian tendencies AND the normal midterm punishment you would expect for the party in power given the various economic and social indicators (inflation, crime rates, etc.) It just so happens that the normal midterm punishment for the party in power is to the benefit of the mass hysteria/authoritarian curious third of the country. If either of those conditions were different, Biden/Democrats would be in better shape. But we don't live in that timeline, so...
I do quibble with some of the premises though -- I'm not sure that DeSantis going after Disney is a sure political winner for him; and I'm not sure "random tweets by progressives are more of an electoral liability" than JD Vance and Trump saying the quiet coup part out loud. Especially on the latter, I think the progressive "weak on crime" stuff and the MAGA "Stop the Steal" stuff is probably a wash, but Republicans are nevertheless benefitting from the normal midterm advantages for the out party.
I also wonder how many voters are thinking "sure, SOME Republicans are nuts, but not the one running in MY district..." as a way to give themselves permission to vote against the status quo without taking responsibility for the authoritarian stuff. Not everyone voting against Democrats is doing so as an affirmation of authoritarianism and don't view it as such.
I'm past the midterms, we know what's going to happen. I'm almost past the 2024 election, because Trump will either win, lose and unsuccessfully try another coup, or lose and successfully try another coup. I'm worried about 2028. The reason has to do with the VF piece you link to above.
Let me tell you what it was like to be a teenager in the early 70s. Earnest gabfests about Marx and Marcuse. High school newspaper polemics about saving the world. But mostly, demonstrations against the war. Which were only partly about the war, and mostly about the cool music, potent weed and easygoing women. Oh, and about driving our parents crazy. Not one of us would even think about blowing up a building, let alone shooting a cop, but we cheered them all on. We were cool, we were transgressive, we were the future. In fact, we were everything except serious.
I saw something of that in the young bros and babes profiled in the VF article. And perhaps they are no more dangerous than my friends and I were 50 years ago (wow, that was painful to write). But however performative their proto-fascism, there are some frightening differences. First, they have serious leaders, intellectual and political, who are much more closely engaged with developing them than Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were with us. Second, they are focused. Getting high and getting laid weren't just on our agenda, they *were* our agenda. This crew really wants to change the world. They have organizations, they have conferences, they have a ground game. And finally, they have tools for communicating and fundraising that we couldn't have dreamed of. And they use them well.
If that crowd is scary now, why focus on 2028? Because over the next six years, two things will happen. Some of the Bushwick-dwellers who get off on weaponizing Catholicism and holding conferences in Hungary will move on to the next shiny thing. But the others will have had six more years of experience, six more years of fundraising, and six more years of persuading voters that illiberalism is a politically sound and morally appropriate organizing principle for American life. In short, six more years to get better at fighting liberalism.
Orban has proven (the Poles as well) that illiberalism doesn't require violence.when a population is willing to see public institutions misused. The young New Rightists seem to understand that they are never more than one election away from putting their plan into motion. Maybe they can start in 2024, but six years from now they'll definitely be ready. And they could win.
Can we suggest that many voters are simply not up to the challenge. So poorly educated, hard working folks really don't have much experience with the discussion like those here. Add to that the 40-50% who get much of their news from FOX et all.
Then on the left, we have folks too devoted to their issue - for example, environmentalists who are angry at Biden over oil leases of federal land - they don't care about the political pressure to appear to do something about gas prices and they also don't care that courts force Biden's hand.
So we are left with relatively few for whom the new right is terrifying.
Clearly we lack a strong culture of democracy and it is overwhelmed by more dominant sub-cultures in the US, especially the market-driven Me culture.
At the level of an ideological taxonomy, we need to understand that "the Right" and "Conservatism" are VERY different entities.
"Liberalism" is the philosophy of government that asserts the importance of individual civil liberties, equality under the (rule of) law, and the positive liberties of participation in the political process. Liberalism emphasizes the importance of limited government, understood in terms of a State that is competent enough to uphold the rights of citizens, but always governed by the rule of law and so always accountable to the governed. Liberalism dates to the Age of Revolutions in the 19th century, and it is a very broad political philosophy, featuring a spectrum of views which range from "Left" (the left-side of the Liberal spectrum) to "Right" (the right-side of that political spectrum). Liberalism harbors a very strong creative tension within it, because the two cardinal values of Liberalism, liberty and equality, both depend upon one another but also are in a trade-off relationship with one another. The tension between these two values marks the difference between the left-side of the Liberal spectrum (which emphasizes equality) and the right-side (which emphasizes liberty). In the end, there can be no true zero-sum relationship between these values, nor any fundamental political divide between Right-Liberalism and Left-Liberalism.
Right and Left liberalism therefore are not fundamentally opposed. Instead, *both* are opposed to *Conservatism.* Conservatism has its roots in the throne-and-altar Ancien Regime of the Old World; Conservatism's cardinal value is *order,* understood in terms of the perpetuation (the conserving of) a system of institutional inequality and privilege (privilege = "private law") - which is of course the very opposite of the rule of law upon which universal political equality depends. At its root, Conservatism is a smash-and-grab political ethos; the institutionally entrenched nobility (with the royal house at the top of the hierarchy) is predicated ultimately upon force and nothing but. This was the Ancien Regime that the American and French Liberals of the 18th century toppled.
But the political impulses and instincts which animated Conservatism have deep roots; even today many people respond positively to the essentially Patriarchal values which uphold Conservatism (e.g., loyalty to a "sanctified" hierarchical authority, authority which is pitched above any possible legitimate criticism, and characterized by ideals of masculinity which are often quite toxic).
The true, fundamental, political divide of our post-Revolutionary Secular Age is between Liberalism, and the reconstructed Conservatism which survived the destruction of the original Ancien Regime. This Conservatism has a few salient features: 1) a near-obsession with the value of purity (as treated of in Jonathan Haidt's "Moral Matrix"), which lays heavy emphasis on in-group and out-group identity, and the polluting effects of the out-group on the in-group 2) a hypermasculine martial ethos which valorizes strength, particularly military power but also seen with heroic entrepreneurial figures who are able, by their own ingenuity, resourcefulness, cunning, and force of personality, to build business empires (this wealth often redounding directly to national military strength) 3) underscoring 1. and balancing 2., a populist ethos which makes Conservatism suitable for a post-Revolutionary Age, where attention must be paid to a certain kind of equality, viz. the equality of those in the in-group. This pure populism makes the ideological case for the equality of all those in the in-group, despite of and downplaying the often great divide in material fortunes amongst them. The conceit prevails that they are all in some fundamental sense "equal," particularly as contrasted with an out-group that threatens them collectively. Naturally this is a very ready means of putting a lid on any burgeoning class-resentments, or political opposition in general.
The Conservative regime par excellence was the Slaver's regime of the Old South. I would argue that the Fascist regimes of the 20th century are essentially Conservative. To begin they are intensely Anti-Liberal, contemptuous of both the values of liberty and equality, and the worst of them concocted ersatz forms of religious belief, setting a quasi-transcendental value on such things as racial identity or the logic of history, and moreover providing the means of sanctifying the regime, even making sacrosanct ("untouchable") the Leaders of these societies.
What's vital to keep before us is that Fascism is *popular;* it is not some aberration of Modern society but the naturally-occurring worldview opposing Liberalism in this, our post-Revolutionary era. It IS the Ancien Regime, after the altar has been smashed and the privileges revoked. *Every* Liberal society has to contend with a significant constituency which is prone to Fascism, just because the urge to dominate, the urge for La Gloire, (and the servile nature which complements this) is deep rooted in our primate-nature. In healthy Liberal societies, populist forces are often distributed amongst political parties engaged in fair, rule-bound political competition. But it can happen, at some time or other, that that one party can gather under its banner the overwhelming preponderance of populist forces; and when this happens, a canonically Fascist party comes into being that can use the levers of the democratic process to get access to power, and then from its perch of power pose an existential threat to the continued existence of the Liberal state in question. This is what happened with the antebellum Democratic party, which became identified with a Slaver's dominion.
And I would argue that this is what has happened with the Republican party in the United States today.
The desire to destroy our government is not new - on the right or left.
As for Disney, they are a massive, multi-billion dollar company who make rich people richer while under-paying most of their employees. What DeSantis is doing is eliminating a government carve out that helps these rich get richer.
Nice job, JVL! Agree with you! I can't fathom how swing voters are open to putting people who literally supported and sponsored a violent attack on our government back to power. If people still prefer conservative ideological positions, they need to purge the crazy from their party and get sane people back in. Until they do that, and if they continue to support crazy people from MAGA world, I can't take them seriously. These people are indeed dangerous.
Y’all are so far inside the fishbowl you don’t see the water. There’s nothing Biden and the Democrats can do, except govern competently, and I don’t see that happening any time soon. For every moderately successful initiative, like the response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you have a complete, unmitigated disaster, like the surrender of Afghanistan.
We have a two party system. So until one party becomes competent, or a new party of disaffected, capable ex-Democrats and ex-Republicans coalesces in the center, we’re just going to be flip-flopping between the two hyper-polarized, ineffectual parties we got.
Or J.D. Vance is right and the republic’s on its way out, thanks partly to his own efforts. We have had a good run, by historical standards.
Republican voters care about kitchen table issues. Like sittin around the table as a family, helping one another tie off and skin-popping that a hot dose of the pain the dont say gay bill inflicted on people they hate. And have been absolutely floating the last few weeks, this is the best kitchen table issue they’ve had in a while, it was almost like Trump was still in office. But it’s starting to wear off, in the last couple days around the kitchen table have been a little less bliss and more angry, they’re already talking about how this kitchen table issue isn’t near mean enough, it’s almost nice actually. Come to think of it one of their kid’s teachers dresses like they’re trying to make a statement..that’s a problem…a problem uniforms for teachers would solve.
Pretty obvious isn't it, JVL? Conservatives no longer want to allow values that they do not agree with to flourish without pushback. The churches preach it, Conservative Inc. media pushes it, and politicians giving speeches pushing this tripe get elected. They all run in the same circles and it is constantly reinforced. That's been going on for years and now the critical mass has been reached. I ain't thinking The Handmaid's Tale is coming anytime soon, but there will be consequences in Red America if you don't embrace those values.
In my opinion, there is this weird fusion between economic protectionism from government and social conservatives that hasn't been as prevalent in prior decades. There has always been economic protections from Republicans for businesses, but now it comes with a caveat, if you will. If you express socially conservative views, a Republican government will continue to protect you and yours, keep government off your back as much as possible, and help keep your taxes low. If you do not express socially conservative views with the proper vigor...that protection goes away. Socially conservative, Christian values now trump everything. It's why they love Putin and Orban.
Progressives have also tried to boycott businesses who don't express their values with the proper vigor too. Their politicians will even hold very stern hearings on these business. But the Democrats in power won't actually do much about it. I guess the dirty secret is 90% of their constituents actually like money too and their not looking to lose jobs locally.
Just my $.02.
JVL, is #3 your attempt at bucking to get on the next $7 bill?
I think the blame lies with Fox News. I truly believe that ever since we got rid of the Fairness Doctrine, there has been a concerted effort to portray anyone who is not conservative as a crazy socialist/anarchist. But more than that, they helped bolster the current fascist mind set that white men are being shoved aside, and therefore they need to step and put everyone back into their place. They promoted the gun culture, which wasn't started just to create massive wealth for the manufacturers, it was to make sure there were masses of guns around and available. Because if there is one thing an insecure man needs, it's a gun. (Note: I didn't say all men who have guns are insecure)
I know lots of Democrats and they are perfectly nice people who go to work and raise families. None of them are especially strident about any of the things that the opposition says is important to Democrats. And I know a lot of Republicans who would be horrified to think that a Republican president would start a coup and make himself president for life and destroy our Democracy. So these people you are talking about are a real anti American threat to our country.
At the risk of personal exposure, I am a federal employee. All comments are my own and do not reflect the views of my agency, and I am providing this response during my personal off work time. What is my background? Prior to working for the Department of Labor (Office of Job Corps), I spent a career as an officer in the US Army, to include 8 years working for Army Accessions Command, responsible for filling the ranks with the soldiers and skill sets needed to defend our country. I have now been a federal employee for more than 7 years. Throughout my time, I’ve (almost) never discussed my personal political views, and when I have, it was subtle with a “read between the lines” response. I cannot begin to tell you the complete ignorance JD Vance has displayed in his comments. People like me aren’t sitting in some cushy office shuffling paperwork, or looking to out Lib my co-workers while secretly supporting secret pedophile groups in some basement in DC. I happen to dedicate my entire working day/week/month and year working directly with poor, unemployed, undereducated young folks (75% of them are high school drop outs) learn and earn job skills/trades so that they can be placed in dignified career paths and become productive members of society, and avoid a future of crime, prison, or dependence. And let me be clear - MOST of the young people we serve are from TRUMP zip codes in rural locations, in addition to inner city youth. Firing people and agencies like mine would be like putting a hand grenade in the conservative idea of “Give a person a fish, feed them for a day. Teach a person to fish, feed them for a lifetime”.
The stress of working as a federal employee has almost reached my limits. I’m fucking TIRED of not knowing whether I will get paid or not being able to work because of some performative asshole (looking at you Ted Cruz) flirting with government shut downs. I can earn MUCH more in the private sector, but I work where I do because my HEART is in my work. I grew up in the type of poor, white working class family that JD Vance wrote about in Hillbilly Elegy. Only I'm not writing about the problem, I'd like to believe I am DOING something about the problem. For the life of me, I can’t understand these fucking assholes (looking at you Newt Gingrich) who supposedly hate government, but spend their ENTIRE career grifting as political operatives. Vance’s comments are not just words, by the way. In the last months of Trump’s presidency, Trump's policy minions tried to change the ability to fire senior government workers for simply having different personal policy views, even though positions like mine are non-political. Look around the world - the best functioning democracies also have the best bureaucracies. People hate us, but we help make the trains run on time, and in my case, help the helpless learn to help themselves. People like me are the opposite of JD fucking Vance. While he sucks up to Trump in the most demagoguery way imaginable for his own self interest, people like me are doing the blocking and tackling in the trenches to help the lives of other Americans. But yeah, go ahead and fire me.
Amazingly, The D's as usual are incapable of seizing on an opportunity in Fla when it presents itself. The changing of the Governing District will potentially put Florida tax payers on the hook for $1 Billion in Disney Bond debt. Why can't they attack, attack and attack some more in Orange and Oceola Counties on how much a fight over a social issue (Ronny got his feeling hurt...Wahhh) will cost the typical home owner. The D's are turning into the Palestinians; they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/21/business/dealbook/disney-florida-taxes.html
Greene is a moron. Doesn't she realize this that Oscar scene was all staged?
The "Right" has always had a strongman complex. John Wayne was the epitome of the strong (white) man who knew what to do ... because he was the biggest, strongest, fastest with a weapon SOB in the valley. The Western mythology, that might equates to right, lived, breathed and propagated that scenario in countless Westerns in the 50s and 60s when the Baby Boomers were growing up and becoming the McConnells and Trumps and Grahams and.....
Then came the megaphone of the internet, honed by those unscrupulous, power-hungry, racists and refined by the MAGAphone of TFG and his band of me-firsters. They understood that a white lie (a lie told by white men) repeated often enough generates a life of its own which can be further manipulated into a sect-like movement which accepts no "truth" except that of the spreaders of that untruth.
And here we are.
Like I've said before, I don't think it's an either/or situation; it's a both/and situation. Joe Biden/Democrats are in such dire political straits because a third of the country is suffering from mass hysteria/authoritarian tendencies AND the normal midterm punishment you would expect for the party in power given the various economic and social indicators (inflation, crime rates, etc.) It just so happens that the normal midterm punishment for the party in power is to the benefit of the mass hysteria/authoritarian curious third of the country. If either of those conditions were different, Biden/Democrats would be in better shape. But we don't live in that timeline, so...
I do quibble with some of the premises though -- I'm not sure that DeSantis going after Disney is a sure political winner for him; and I'm not sure "random tweets by progressives are more of an electoral liability" than JD Vance and Trump saying the quiet coup part out loud. Especially on the latter, I think the progressive "weak on crime" stuff and the MAGA "Stop the Steal" stuff is probably a wash, but Republicans are nevertheless benefitting from the normal midterm advantages for the out party.
I also wonder how many voters are thinking "sure, SOME Republicans are nuts, but not the one running in MY district..." as a way to give themselves permission to vote against the status quo without taking responsibility for the authoritarian stuff. Not everyone voting against Democrats is doing so as an affirmation of authoritarianism and don't view it as such.
I'm past the midterms, we know what's going to happen. I'm almost past the 2024 election, because Trump will either win, lose and unsuccessfully try another coup, or lose and successfully try another coup. I'm worried about 2028. The reason has to do with the VF piece you link to above.
Let me tell you what it was like to be a teenager in the early 70s. Earnest gabfests about Marx and Marcuse. High school newspaper polemics about saving the world. But mostly, demonstrations against the war. Which were only partly about the war, and mostly about the cool music, potent weed and easygoing women. Oh, and about driving our parents crazy. Not one of us would even think about blowing up a building, let alone shooting a cop, but we cheered them all on. We were cool, we were transgressive, we were the future. In fact, we were everything except serious.
I saw something of that in the young bros and babes profiled in the VF article. And perhaps they are no more dangerous than my friends and I were 50 years ago (wow, that was painful to write). But however performative their proto-fascism, there are some frightening differences. First, they have serious leaders, intellectual and political, who are much more closely engaged with developing them than Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin were with us. Second, they are focused. Getting high and getting laid weren't just on our agenda, they *were* our agenda. This crew really wants to change the world. They have organizations, they have conferences, they have a ground game. And finally, they have tools for communicating and fundraising that we couldn't have dreamed of. And they use them well.
If that crowd is scary now, why focus on 2028? Because over the next six years, two things will happen. Some of the Bushwick-dwellers who get off on weaponizing Catholicism and holding conferences in Hungary will move on to the next shiny thing. But the others will have had six more years of experience, six more years of fundraising, and six more years of persuading voters that illiberalism is a politically sound and morally appropriate organizing principle for American life. In short, six more years to get better at fighting liberalism.
Orban has proven (the Poles as well) that illiberalism doesn't require violence.when a population is willing to see public institutions misused. The young New Rightists seem to understand that they are never more than one election away from putting their plan into motion. Maybe they can start in 2024, but six years from now they'll definitely be ready. And they could win.