I was titillated by the phrase “coalition of the sane.”
Yes it is an interesting idea, and your definition of ‘sane’ in philosophical terms is apt, however I don’t think the clinical definition should be ignored - in essence, an absence of psychopathology.
The more I observe those who promote ‘woke’, transgender issues, climate doom, the way they screech at and defame any who don’t agree and/or do not actively promote their delusions, their lack of ability to reason or be rational, their rage when they do not get what they want, their willingness to destroy lives, reputations, society, the economy, the more it seems to me this is not political or ideological, but it is clinical - the result of mental illness.
As for a coalition of the sane, maybe it is a virtual coalition, but certainly it is not physical with any direction or plan.
They aren't psychopaths and it's not mental illness. There are some very nasty, deranged, and unhinged folks with every kind of perspective and view, but that doesn't make the average person in that group a psycho by any means. Nasty is normal; man is wolf to man. If they are psychos, all but saints are psychos, and the word has no meaning.
To the extent there is a psychological explanation, it is more in the realm of the dynamics of social psychology, thus, a Social Failure Mode to which our cultural and institutional framework is vulnerable. But that is importantly different from being a manifestation of many individual psychiatric disorders and pathologies. In particular, anyone at odds with the opinions of the elites ought to be extremely reluctant to lend support any notion that ideological positions and political behaviors are likely to have an origin in psychological problems, as the powers that be are always looking for any excuse to further escalate the political abuse of psychiatry to dismiss opposition and disquality and deter dissent, as has been the quite unhappy experience of many peoples in the last century.
That consideration may sound alarmist, but even putting it to the side, it is in general a bad intellectual habit akin to ad hominem (or group libel) to go after the competence of the mental faculties of one's opponents instead of keeping a laser focus on the merits of their claims. After all, fair game is for them to do the same to you, and since they hold the megaphone, it's now unfair game, one they win.
I'm with you in looking for a coalition with some kind of plan. I'm fairly skeptical of this University of Austin, but I have to give them credit for at least trying to build something, and most of the messaging I've seen from them has been pretty impressive.
A poster below mentions the republican party as the best hope for this coalition - I can see the logic of that if some of these dissident leftists can get over their fear of associating with the R team. This quote from Bari's speech can speak to dissidents on both sides, if there's a desire to build a real coalition:
"All of this has taken place on the backdrop of major changes in American life—the tearing apart of our social fabric; the loss of religion and the decline of civic organizations; the opioid crisis; the collapse of American industries; the rise of big tech; successive financial crises; a toxic public discourse; crushing student debt. An epidemic of loneliness. A crisis of meaning. A pandemic of distrust. It has taken place against the backdrop in which the American dream has felt like a punchline, the inequalities of our supposedly fair, liberal meritocracy clearly rigged in favor of some people and against others. And so on."
That final quote sounds like a not so subtle assertion of market failures and a more general dissatisfaction with free market capitalism. It is the kind of frame set up for a justification of increased taxation and more ambitious wealth redistribution. Which would signify that the author accepts what politicians say when they want to increase tax and expand the welfare state at face value. This of course would make the author a poster child for the Enabling class.
That's an interesting perspective - I'll challenge your framework slightly: it's an assertion of dissatisfaction with the modern American economic system - which I would not call free market capitalism. My critiques of the mainstream are from a free market perspective - that crony capitalism, growing inequality, and cultural decay are driven by a bastardization of capitalism and an extractive elite class.
And who knows where this project leads, but I don't think its fair to write them off of agents of statism - because creating a new university in explicit opposition to our elite institutions is about the least statist action I can imagine besides setting off to live off the grid.
I do acknowledge the criticism you raised below that if the mainstream had remained in its 2005 stasis, Bari Weiss would have been perfectly comfortable in that mainstream. Which is not especially reassuring to people who would pushed back against that 2005 mainstream.
I was characterizing what I interpreted as the subtext of B. Weiss's remark since she has not plainly stated her position on these matters, as far as I know. I doubt her problem with the American economic system is its unfaithfulness to classical liberal principles. Maybe I'm wrong. But her silence makes me suspicious of her loyalties.
Passionate intensity wins in politics pretty much always in the long run. How much popular support do you suppose the Bolsheviks really had in 1917-1918, or the Nazis had in 1933 forwards? That kind of intensity allows for a degree of ruthlessness that is difficult to defeat in electoral politics, and damned near impossible in despotic systems.
The illiberal Left, which is basically the core base of the Democratic Party, is far more passionate about politics than any other group in the US. This wing of the Democrat Party isn't even a fringe minority any longer- they make up almost half the voter support of the Democrats. A coalition of the sane will gut the Democrat Party, thus it will never really happen. To continue to win, the enablers of this in the party will continue to compromise their ethics away. I like Bari Weiss, but she is still incredibly naive.
Coalition requires coalescence, but the parts can't cohere against a rival coalition when those parts are too different from each other in ways that match the rival.
The problem with 'sane' (at least in this usage) is that it's multidimensional and people who are sane on one thing are often insane on at least one and often many things.
The high-status left has reliably been able to use this fact to play divide and conquer and the 'strange new respect' games and peel off slices to defect from any potential coalition for any particular topic. While predictable, it remains true that the speed with which those slices hurry to loudly signal they aren't sticking with the nasty coalition and instead they side with the progressives (i.e., 'insane') on some hot button issue of the moment is often quite astonishing.
Great note, and "coalition of the sane" is a good phrase.
But Bari herself became well known as a NY Times Enabler of the non-sane.
One sane issue is that ALL children come from the union of a male and a female, so no child can come from a same sex union - like Bari has with her wife. Sane folk know that same-sex raising of a child is sub-optimal for that child. ( "Morals" was a way to achieve, without science, "optimal" rules for living, optimal to society, not the individual.)
The coalition idea is the right idea - to fight woke, all against woke should be united against it.
If some coalition members are against woke 4 out of 5 times, welcome them for their support when they give it. But note that many in the remaining coalition will oppose whatever impurity any coalition member has.
In European parliaments, most gov'ts, most of the time, are coalitions - no one party (of many) wins a majority and can govern alone. Such a gov't can end soon, like Israel's just did (due for a 5th election in 4 years).
Arnold, if one uses your list of "sane" positions, Trump would be evaluated the most sane President since Reagan.
Implementing any of your desires is going to require laws to be passed, executive orders to be written, and judges to issue verdicts (and politicians to appoint those judges).
The only coalition with any hope of doing any of those things is the Republicans. You know it. So you're really just telling people to join the Republican coalition and try to steer it towards these ends.
Maybe after a decade in the political wilderness the Democrats will come to their senses the way they did in the 1990s, but the idea that the modern Democratic Party can reform unless forced to is just a pipe dream.
"The only coalition with any hope of doing any of those things is the Republicans."
On anti-abortion, the pro-life Christians held their noses and voted for Trump; and before him, Romney, McCain, Bush43, Bush43, and Bob Dole in '96.
Many voted H. Ross Perot, not Bush 41, in '92, and there were still pro-life Dems voting for Clinton in '92 - but it was Perot splitting the Rep vote that allowed Dem Clinton to win. Just like in '68 Wallace split the Dem vote and allowed Rep Nixon to win.
The most effective coalitions are those united against something - against commies, the Vietnam War, commies ... terror, Covid. "Inequality" will always remain a target to be against, as will "racism", "sexism", and mostly even "homophobia"; Weiss is basically asking for a coalition against "wokeism", which is mostly "political correctness" ver 2.
Getting "sane" folk elected is the key - where sane is based on policies and results of policies, NOT mean tweets.
Fine analysis. There is clearly a degree to which contemporary American liberals (libs) are reaping the woke whirlwind they have been sowing since the cultural revolution of the 60s. The radical chic spawned the conformist left and now some on the pre-woke left are willing to trend right just enough to mitigate the destruction of the woke generation.
So for conservatives and libertarians the anti-woke libs are the inverse of "sunshine patriots". They are rainy day patriots who would probably abandon the right and dissolve any coalition once it was safe for them to go back in the water -- to safely occupy their seats at the table of modern liberalism in journalism, academia and fortune 500 companies. But this is a plan based on self-delusion that minimizes the woke threat. I think anti-woke leftists are useless coalition members in any event.
On the other hand, how would you categorize B. Weiss herself? A reformed enabler? A skeptic with a soft spot for enablers who are sympathetic to most of her propositions? Does she represent the current version of a neo-con and rather than being a former lib mugged by reality she is a former lib canceled by the NYT? What if she were to be convinced that the scope of the coalition needs to be narrowed to exclude practicing libs. Then the only thing new about the coalition is that it includes converts from the left and to the right.
Judging from the company she keeps at her substack, I'd say soft spot for enablers is pretty close. Every other post, especially the Nellie Bowles weekly snarkfest, is on the theme of "this Democrat policy is bad but voting Republican is worse." You can put Andrew Sullivan in the same category of just reeking with disdain whenever the subject of Trump, Trump supporters, or actual conservative policies like opposition to abortion come up. I'm not fully convinced that either of the two really want to kick the woke out of the Democrat party as much as they would like to hide them in the attic again and hope that the normies don't notice the thumping on the ceiling.
Ruy Teixeira has some of the same kind of friends but winds up sounding a lot more reformed, probably because his posts focus on data rather than personalities or policies.
Sullivan has written enough to convince anyone that he is a skeptic, I believe. He thinks Trump is a dangerous insane person yes, but that's beside the point. He's very strong contra extreme Trans and CRT. He started out anti-Rufio and has since come over to his side. And he's very good against the America is racist trope. He does spend way to much time analyzing presidential contenders, but I think that's because his fans expect it. It's his worst work by far.
Still I think your assessment of him is off base. B. Weiss on the other hand is an enigma. I know the NYT really put a bug in her bonnet. but she has not written enough, as far as I know, to clarify her takes on the key positions listed in the above article.
I was titillated by the phrase “coalition of the sane.”
Yes it is an interesting idea, and your definition of ‘sane’ in philosophical terms is apt, however I don’t think the clinical definition should be ignored - in essence, an absence of psychopathology.
The more I observe those who promote ‘woke’, transgender issues, climate doom, the way they screech at and defame any who don’t agree and/or do not actively promote their delusions, their lack of ability to reason or be rational, their rage when they do not get what they want, their willingness to destroy lives, reputations, society, the economy, the more it seems to me this is not political or ideological, but it is clinical - the result of mental illness.
As for a coalition of the sane, maybe it is a virtual coalition, but certainly it is not physical with any direction or plan.
They aren't psychopaths and it's not mental illness. There are some very nasty, deranged, and unhinged folks with every kind of perspective and view, but that doesn't make the average person in that group a psycho by any means. Nasty is normal; man is wolf to man. If they are psychos, all but saints are psychos, and the word has no meaning.
To the extent there is a psychological explanation, it is more in the realm of the dynamics of social psychology, thus, a Social Failure Mode to which our cultural and institutional framework is vulnerable. But that is importantly different from being a manifestation of many individual psychiatric disorders and pathologies. In particular, anyone at odds with the opinions of the elites ought to be extremely reluctant to lend support any notion that ideological positions and political behaviors are likely to have an origin in psychological problems, as the powers that be are always looking for any excuse to further escalate the political abuse of psychiatry to dismiss opposition and disquality and deter dissent, as has been the quite unhappy experience of many peoples in the last century.
That consideration may sound alarmist, but even putting it to the side, it is in general a bad intellectual habit akin to ad hominem (or group libel) to go after the competence of the mental faculties of one's opponents instead of keeping a laser focus on the merits of their claims. After all, fair game is for them to do the same to you, and since they hold the megaphone, it's now unfair game, one they win.
‘… There are some very nasty, deranged, and unhinged folks…’
Yes that’s mentally ill.
I'm with you in looking for a coalition with some kind of plan. I'm fairly skeptical of this University of Austin, but I have to give them credit for at least trying to build something, and most of the messaging I've seen from them has been pretty impressive.
A poster below mentions the republican party as the best hope for this coalition - I can see the logic of that if some of these dissident leftists can get over their fear of associating with the R team. This quote from Bari's speech can speak to dissidents on both sides, if there's a desire to build a real coalition:
"All of this has taken place on the backdrop of major changes in American life—the tearing apart of our social fabric; the loss of religion and the decline of civic organizations; the opioid crisis; the collapse of American industries; the rise of big tech; successive financial crises; a toxic public discourse; crushing student debt. An epidemic of loneliness. A crisis of meaning. A pandemic of distrust. It has taken place against the backdrop in which the American dream has felt like a punchline, the inequalities of our supposedly fair, liberal meritocracy clearly rigged in favor of some people and against others. And so on."
That final quote sounds like a not so subtle assertion of market failures and a more general dissatisfaction with free market capitalism. It is the kind of frame set up for a justification of increased taxation and more ambitious wealth redistribution. Which would signify that the author accepts what politicians say when they want to increase tax and expand the welfare state at face value. This of course would make the author a poster child for the Enabling class.
That's an interesting perspective - I'll challenge your framework slightly: it's an assertion of dissatisfaction with the modern American economic system - which I would not call free market capitalism. My critiques of the mainstream are from a free market perspective - that crony capitalism, growing inequality, and cultural decay are driven by a bastardization of capitalism and an extractive elite class.
And who knows where this project leads, but I don't think its fair to write them off of agents of statism - because creating a new university in explicit opposition to our elite institutions is about the least statist action I can imagine besides setting off to live off the grid.
I do acknowledge the criticism you raised below that if the mainstream had remained in its 2005 stasis, Bari Weiss would have been perfectly comfortable in that mainstream. Which is not especially reassuring to people who would pushed back against that 2005 mainstream.
I was characterizing what I interpreted as the subtext of B. Weiss's remark since she has not plainly stated her position on these matters, as far as I know. I doubt her problem with the American economic system is its unfaithfulness to classical liberal principles. Maybe I'm wrong. But her silence makes me suspicious of her loyalties.
Insightful definition of the woke revolution: animated by psychopathy.
Passionate intensity wins in politics pretty much always in the long run. How much popular support do you suppose the Bolsheviks really had in 1917-1918, or the Nazis had in 1933 forwards? That kind of intensity allows for a degree of ruthlessness that is difficult to defeat in electoral politics, and damned near impossible in despotic systems.
The illiberal Left, which is basically the core base of the Democratic Party, is far more passionate about politics than any other group in the US. This wing of the Democrat Party isn't even a fringe minority any longer- they make up almost half the voter support of the Democrats. A coalition of the sane will gut the Democrat Party, thus it will never really happen. To continue to win, the enablers of this in the party will continue to compromise their ethics away. I like Bari Weiss, but she is still incredibly naive.
Coalition requires coalescence, but the parts can't cohere against a rival coalition when those parts are too different from each other in ways that match the rival.
The problem with 'sane' (at least in this usage) is that it's multidimensional and people who are sane on one thing are often insane on at least one and often many things.
The high-status left has reliably been able to use this fact to play divide and conquer and the 'strange new respect' games and peel off slices to defect from any potential coalition for any particular topic. While predictable, it remains true that the speed with which those slices hurry to loudly signal they aren't sticking with the nasty coalition and instead they side with the progressives (i.e., 'insane') on some hot button issue of the moment is often quite astonishing.
Great note, and "coalition of the sane" is a good phrase.
But Bari herself became well known as a NY Times Enabler of the non-sane.
One sane issue is that ALL children come from the union of a male and a female, so no child can come from a same sex union - like Bari has with her wife. Sane folk know that same-sex raising of a child is sub-optimal for that child. ( "Morals" was a way to achieve, without science, "optimal" rules for living, optimal to society, not the individual.)
The coalition idea is the right idea - to fight woke, all against woke should be united against it.
If some coalition members are against woke 4 out of 5 times, welcome them for their support when they give it. But note that many in the remaining coalition will oppose whatever impurity any coalition member has.
In European parliaments, most gov'ts, most of the time, are coalitions - no one party (of many) wins a majority and can govern alone. Such a gov't can end soon, like Israel's just did (due for a 5th election in 4 years).
Arnold, if one uses your list of "sane" positions, Trump would be evaluated the most sane President since Reagan.
Implementing any of your desires is going to require laws to be passed, executive orders to be written, and judges to issue verdicts (and politicians to appoint those judges).
The only coalition with any hope of doing any of those things is the Republicans. You know it. So you're really just telling people to join the Republican coalition and try to steer it towards these ends.
Maybe after a decade in the political wilderness the Democrats will come to their senses the way they did in the 1990s, but the idea that the modern Democratic Party can reform unless forced to is just a pipe dream.
This.
"The only coalition with any hope of doing any of those things is the Republicans."
On anti-abortion, the pro-life Christians held their noses and voted for Trump; and before him, Romney, McCain, Bush43, Bush43, and Bob Dole in '96.
Many voted H. Ross Perot, not Bush 41, in '92, and there were still pro-life Dems voting for Clinton in '92 - but it was Perot splitting the Rep vote that allowed Dem Clinton to win. Just like in '68 Wallace split the Dem vote and allowed Rep Nixon to win.
The most effective coalitions are those united against something - against commies, the Vietnam War, commies ... terror, Covid. "Inequality" will always remain a target to be against, as will "racism", "sexism", and mostly even "homophobia"; Weiss is basically asking for a coalition against "wokeism", which is mostly "political correctness" ver 2.
Getting "sane" folk elected is the key - where sane is based on policies and results of policies, NOT mean tweets.
Fine analysis. There is clearly a degree to which contemporary American liberals (libs) are reaping the woke whirlwind they have been sowing since the cultural revolution of the 60s. The radical chic spawned the conformist left and now some on the pre-woke left are willing to trend right just enough to mitigate the destruction of the woke generation.
So for conservatives and libertarians the anti-woke libs are the inverse of "sunshine patriots". They are rainy day patriots who would probably abandon the right and dissolve any coalition once it was safe for them to go back in the water -- to safely occupy their seats at the table of modern liberalism in journalism, academia and fortune 500 companies. But this is a plan based on self-delusion that minimizes the woke threat. I think anti-woke leftists are useless coalition members in any event.
On the other hand, how would you categorize B. Weiss herself? A reformed enabler? A skeptic with a soft spot for enablers who are sympathetic to most of her propositions? Does she represent the current version of a neo-con and rather than being a former lib mugged by reality she is a former lib canceled by the NYT? What if she were to be convinced that the scope of the coalition needs to be narrowed to exclude practicing libs. Then the only thing new about the coalition is that it includes converts from the left and to the right.
Judging from the company she keeps at her substack, I'd say soft spot for enablers is pretty close. Every other post, especially the Nellie Bowles weekly snarkfest, is on the theme of "this Democrat policy is bad but voting Republican is worse." You can put Andrew Sullivan in the same category of just reeking with disdain whenever the subject of Trump, Trump supporters, or actual conservative policies like opposition to abortion come up. I'm not fully convinced that either of the two really want to kick the woke out of the Democrat party as much as they would like to hide them in the attic again and hope that the normies don't notice the thumping on the ceiling.
Ruy Teixeira has some of the same kind of friends but winds up sounding a lot more reformed, probably because his posts focus on data rather than personalities or policies.
Sullivan has written enough to convince anyone that he is a skeptic, I believe. He thinks Trump is a dangerous insane person yes, but that's beside the point. He's very strong contra extreme Trans and CRT. He started out anti-Rufio and has since come over to his side. And he's very good against the America is racist trope. He does spend way to much time analyzing presidential contenders, but I think that's because his fans expect it. It's his worst work by far.
Still I think your assessment of him is off base. B. Weiss on the other hand is an enigma. I know the NYT really put a bug in her bonnet. but she has not written enough, as far as I know, to clarify her takes on the key positions listed in the above article.
The problem isn't so much that certain people are "Enablers" but that they're not truly members of the "coalition".
Almost all of us are enablers to some degree or another. The people mentioned, obviously moreso, but expecting nobody to be an Enabler is unrealistic.
Rather, I'd say If they were truly coalition members, their enabling would turn to enabling the members of the coalition they joined.
If, instead, they just continue to enable the clowns the coalition is against, they're not really members of the coalition at all.