10 Comments

You write "The Hamiltonian neoliberals demonize those who disagree with them as siding with government coercion." That comes just after your quote of Colby writing: "The Hamiltonians tend to represent the standard ideology of the Republican party: economic growth, prosperity signaled by consumer choice, drill baby drill, don’t tread on me. In some senses the Hamiltonians represent the uni-party, a class of ruling elite who guard their own interests while the civic fabric continues to unravel. It’s Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Pete Buttigieg, or Liz Cheney."

I am not sure what to make of a claim that Clinton, Romney, Buttigieg or Cheney are heavily against government coercion. Are you disagreeing with Colby's definition?

Expand full comment
author

maybe they are not "heavily against" government coercion, but less eager to deploy coercion than the NatCons or Biden.

Expand full comment

Hmm. I am trying to imagine Hillary Clinton demonizing someone who disagrees with her as siding with government coercion. Do you have a specific case in mind, perhaps?

I think perhaps trying to shoehorn Colby's grouping into your government coercion pro/con axis is a mistake. Either Colby's mistake in putting people into the Hamiltonian camp, or putting the Hamiltonian camp into that axis. (Possible there needs to be a different axis for RINOs and DINOs, or perhaps they are just political opportunists without an ideological axis due to not having a set of principles they follow?)

Expand full comment

"the last fifty years of expansion of college education has not gone well," <<

This.

But it is because the colleges have clearly been discriminating against Republicans, against pro-life ideas, against Christians.

Dishonestly (they claim to NOT discriminate), and possibly illegally.

80% of 40% is 32% - all colleges with less than 30% Republicans as Professors and administrators should lose their tax exempt status, and probably Fed loans to students and Fed research.

The political demonization has come from social acceptance of discrimination.

Expand full comment

What you say is mostly true, but not the whole story of college. Have you read "Coming Apart" by C. Murray? The main premise is that ~60 years ago colleges started selecting for intelligence (more so than before.) and this has lead to two classes. (That one class got captured by one party is kinda an accident, and it could have gone the other way.)

Expand full comment

Could it also be that pre 1970 we were not a “developed” country yet and so higher growth rates (5%+) placated these arguments as people were getting so much richer. Post 1970 as a “developed” nation growth rates hover at 2-3% people are only becoming slightly richer, so part of the economy becomes more zero-sum (college admissions being a big example). As a result theses differences can no longer be placated and come to the forefront

Expand full comment

You're missing one of the obvious contributors, which is that several different English subcultures are still pretty similar to each other, unlike the vast array of groups making up the modern US. The differences are much bigger today.

Expand full comment

Yeah, let's take NYC as an example as that's where I'm from. Modern NYC doesn't have its Albion's Seed roots much anymore.

Expand full comment

American Nations by Colin Woodard is a more recent book that mimics Albion's Seed. It's not as long and thorough, but it's an interesting complement. Woodard recognizes 11 distinct subcultures. (I don't think Fischer ever claimed that there were only four - just that those four represented the largest migrations from the British Isles during the colonial period.) One of the 11 represents the greater NYC area and is called New Netherland, which values commerce and plurality, and was a distinct migration from the Puritans to the northeast and the Quakers to the southwest. Hamiltonianism seems to map better onto "New Netherland" than it does to Quakerism.

The link between Puritanism and Wilsonian progressivism seems more obvious to me, as well as the ideas in the last few paragraphs.

Expand full comment

Sure, NYC changed a lot in the 19th and 20th centuries, while still retaining a certain commercial and pragmatic orientation.

But I'm thinking more what the recent wave of immigration has done to it. NYC today is like 30% white, and not exactly average whites. It's hard to say such an NYC has much in common with New Netherland. I've seen the change in my lifetime.

Expand full comment