"Social conservatives are the populists most motivated by religious moral issues." I think you misread things here. I would say that the single biggest issue by far amongst Social Conservatives (college educated or not, religious or not) - and even if they would be wary of saying it out loud - is their frustration at how the LBGTQXYZ politico agenda has been relentlessly rammed down their throats by the liberal establishment and (more limply) by their own conservative politicians.
I think a division that leaves out the big government/regulatory state angle is leaving out something very important. So many Republicans are inclined to talk big about freedom and responsibility in government, then do the exact opposite, spending like drunken sailors while pushing laws limiting what you can say about politicians during an election. The recent FISA bill is another example. Frustration with the elected members on the right seems to be every bit as much of a weakness, perhaps more because while leftists tend to want more government action and so tend to get in general what they want if not the exact type, those on the right get neither less overall government nor specific reforms.
I'm unhappy with both "Conservatives" and Progressives indifference to cost-benefit based regulation and Pigou taxes and subsidies. But the indifference of Conservatives feels more like a betrayal. Econ 101 has never been Progressives' strong suit. :)
Probably has been said before, but you could structure an argument that goes something like conservatives with a D level of general acumen go into politics (As, Bs, and Cs go into pursuits more likely to have high market-driven rewards) whereas the average progressive politician might have a B or C level. Progressives have a better talent pool to draw from, so the marginal progressive politician is better at politics than the average conservative politician.
Have you observed the latest crop of progressive politicians and officials? "Talent Pool" is not the term to describe where any of them came from. Talent still likes to get close to and influence people in these positions, but is smart enough to avoid occupying them.
That might well be a factor, given how miserable politics is; if you don’t like politics aiming for something like “Make fuck you money, retire to woods and be hermit” probably is far more appealing.
On the other hand, or perhaps just an earlier stage, liking politics probably goes along with wanting to use government to your ends, whether ends are wielding power to help people or enrich yourself. As a result there are probably strong selection effects against Republicans who will limit and destroy government power, especially at the higher ranks.
That and compromat and other politics baggage one accumulates as one moves through the process, as you mention below.
In general, it is surprising to me just how uninterested republican voters are in punishing the own politicians for going against their stated interests. I’d expect a new Trump or Tea Party to crop up every election or two, but I suppose those things take time.
Yes--I think about this a lot, as a libertarian-leaning person. Just like how the person who most needs to be taught a lesson is often the least likely to learn from that lesson, the people most likely to be good libertarian politicians are the people least likely to be politicians at all.
I have a small candle of hope burning that Millei will be successful enough in Argentina that there will be a movement to copy him somewhat. Even just a “let’s roll the state back to 1950’s level” or something, but one that gets a lot of trash cut and bad laws removed because politicians who want to remove those things can get elected doing it.
It is a small flame, but maybe, just maybe a good example will help people realize things could be better.
My earlier comment about political acumen doesn't account for the cave-in job Republicans did on the FISA bill. Lack of integrity? Compromat? Who knows.
I have some insight into this and in truth this is a very tough call for them. Alas, they made the wrong call, but the GOP is the stupid party (i.e. "politically strategically suicidal" party) and has always made the wrong choice on hard calls.
I think they made a huge mistake and would have been ok to watch FISA lapse entirely to create pressure and an opportunity to build a better system from scratch. But I can appreciate the reasons they felt they had to do it.
The sad fact is that the National Security apparatus is asked to do things in a world that is incomparably more digitized (and with even small-time adversaries profoundly more digitally sophisticated) than when these frameworks were created (or even amended) and these functions simply cannot be performed according to the Fourth Amendment / ordinary law enforcement model with its requirements of particularities and one-thing-at-a-time warrants.
There really isn't any practical alternative to secretly hoovering up as much as possible and storing it for a long time - or getting instant and complete access from the entities which possess it - and intelligently mining that incredible stream of data for sneaky needles in haystacks or responding to an incident immediately by means of insights derived from querying an incredibly vast and comprehensive depository of data without delay.
Rand Paul is a smart and honorable guy I respect a lot, but note he simply won't articulate any plausible way to technically accomplish having the cake and eating it too at the same time. That's not to say there aren't ways to do it, it's just the Democrats - who have flipped the security community and now love it - have made sure that everyone understands that all such proposals will be dead on arrival.
The trouble is that any system that has these necessary capabilities has the potential to go Full-Stasi-On-Steroids which is a power that will be weaponized to go after the real enemy - one's domestic political opponents - to the extent the people in charge can get away with it. Which, presently, they can and they do. Against Republicans.
GOP politicians and especially establishment leaders know this but have convinced themselves - with their typical irrepressible idiocy - that this is really only a problem for Trump and deplorable rabble morons who vote for him, and they don't like or care about these people anyway, and were not exactly unhappy they got a dose of the treatment regardless of how that was achieved. That is to say they think there were rare cases that won't keep increasing in number and eventually go against normal decent smart folks like, um, themselves.
The evidence against them being complete fools who will fully deserve what's coming to them is the huge number of historical cases in which the state came to possess such powers and capabilities and it wasn't eventually used in this way, which is precisely zero. A huge zero. Not huge enough for them to see it, apparently.
You always run into a "Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked...and then they used the sacking power to enrich and empower themselves and immiserate the entire population" problem.
It would be a fun (well, for some, but painful for most) project sit down and enumerate the shortcomings of both political parties. And once that was done, round two could get into defining what a good political party might look like. Round three could get into doing the same with the political system itself.
But instead I suspect we will simply continue chanting the mantra we have been taught: "Democracy is Good".
"There are those who would argue that for a long time this country was governed by a bipartisan elite consensus. This combined the conservatives elites on the Republican side with moderate Democrats. Eventually, their mistakes and arrogance ended up alienating too many Americans."
I think this misses the most important reason for the collapse of the bipartisan consensus: the browning of the American electorate + the extremely left-wing Millennial cohort allowed Democrats to move to the left, and forced Republicans to pick up working-class whites and white ethnics (which required dropping much of the anti-welfare/govt-spending platform) to compete.
"Social conservatives are the populists most motivated by religious moral issues."
Are you sure? I would consider myself to be socially conservative, but not a populist.
Specifically, I believe that my "social conservatism" is primarily a matter for me, my family, and the community with which we associate. I think it is difficult, and even perhaps a mistake, to strive to create a moral society from the top down rather than the bottom up, i.e., the private sphere seems to be the seed from which a moral society grows.
Politically, however, I lean libertarian in the sense that -- whatever my personal morality dictates -- I think individual liberty should be maximized to the extent feasible and the government's role should be as limited as possible.
"Personally Morally Traditionalist" is not "Socially Conservative" when it is used in the politically descriptive sense. When used in that sense, "Socially Conservative" isn't an expression of mere personal preference that is indifferent to or even opposed to state action, but an affirmative willingness to use state power and policy to maintain or shape overall social conditions in the direction of those preferences.
After all, that's what makes it "social", that is, it's about all of society (and not just some sub-community). If you prefer to leave the rest of society alone, there is nothing genuinely "social" about your preferences.
Thanks for the insight. I thought about your point, but was not sure if it was correct to say that "'Personally Morally Traditionalist' is not 'Socially Conservative'". I say that because my concerns are both on an individual and a societal level, and I do not really want "to leave the rest of society alone". I just think the better way to affect social change is at the micro rather than macro level. But if, as you say, a "social conservative" in the political sense is one who generally favors "state power and policy to maintain or shape overall social conditions", then you are correct, and I don't think I would fit that definition. The problem with the application of these various labels is that they tend to erase the complexities of these issues.
Re: "recent trends have weakened the erstwhile elites of both parties."
There are persistent countervailing trends that continue to strengthen and unify elites across parties: globalization, innovations in technology (big tech, AI, Zoom), education at selective universities, regulatory dynamics (e.g., finance, pharma, energy, tech platforms -- rent-seeking, lobbying, capture).
True, abortion and immigration are major hot-button issues. However, elites have broad interests, norms, and policy preferences in common. They engage in drama at a few salient margins.
I had heard the term Rockefeller Republican before but never really looked up Nelson Rockefeller. So I did and especially his primary run against Goldwater.
Rockefeller lost the primary because it came out that he had an affair that created a child and divorced his wife to be with a younger woman. I notice this pattern with Rockefeller republican types. David brooks and Charles Murray both traded in their first wives for young units.
It’s really hard to follow the success sequence if you’re screwing around. But that precisely what a lot of these Rockefeller republican types wanted. Some youthful indiscretions, a mistress, a younger second wife. Maybe abortion if something goes wrong. That’s their “success sequence”. When regular people try that though we get a lot of single mothers.
On the public policy front he was basically a tax and spend liberal who left New York in pretty bad place by the 1970s.
For all the talk of trumps shamelessness, he’s a Rockefeller republican through and through.
Fiscal conservatives require, every generation or so, some overspending govt basket case to be a current object lesson that overspending is bad, despite popularity. Maybe Milei in Argentina will inspire. More Likely is a Japanese crises where their 250%+ national debt causes a recession/ depression.
How much govt spending is too much? We mostly don’t know.
So Reps who want to reduce spending, without a crisis to avoid, will lose elections. The US gets reduced spending only when Dems agree to reduce it. So the political fight should be on who to spend it on. Like far more govt cash to married folk with kids.
That sounds about right on the invisibility of fiscal conservatives. Maybe my hibernating bear analogy wasn't all that optimistic, except they'll reappear when "winter" comes, not spring.
I hear some about spending more money to encourage having kids but it doesn't seem like much is given to parents. If that changes, it will be interesting to see what, if anything, happens in regards to not encouraging poor people to have more kids.
Whenever we refer to populist movements (i.e., the "social conservatives" and the "cultural conservatives" here) there is a bit of ambiguity because the base is basically the same. It's just that the leadership or the rhetoric they use can vary. And the leadership are all elites. Elites differ more than the base in their strategies. Some elites want to gain an edge by cooperating with other elites, and some elites want to gain an edge by cooperating with the lower classes. Some try to appeal to advantaged lower classes (i.e., white workers) and some appeal to disadvantaged lower classes. Some try to win via business, some via political connections.
I don't think the divisions within the Left are as stark as they are within the Right. One can hardly read the comments at a rightist blog, for instance, without seeing the word 'RINO' flung about; the people using it seem to be just as disdainful of elite conservatives as they are of leftists. I can't think of any similar epithet in widespread use on left-leaning sites, e.g., the comments sections of WaPo stories.
No, I don't see the parallel. Much of the opprobrium that I see at rightist outlets is directed toward those so-called RINOs—people who'd have been considered part of the mainstream conservative/libertarian movement prior to Trump's rise, but who're now perceived as frauds and weaklings, eager to sell out honest real Americans for a few crumbs of respect from the table of the liberal elite—people like McCain, Romney, and Ryan, or at state level, people like Brian Kemp and Rusty Bowers.
By contrast, which major political figures on the left side of the aisle have come in for that kind of abuse from within their own party? The only ones who come to mind are Manchin and Sinema, and the abuse didn't get heated until they threatened to derail one of the left's pet projects.
The out of wedlock birth rate is 40%. America has not been "governed by a bipartisan elite consensus" which holds that you should get married before you have children for at least 60 years.
He's also wrong about public support for abortion. Banning abortion after 12 weeks with exceptions is a majority position.
These elites vs. populists hot takes all seem to have trouble explaining how Nikki Haley ended being far more popular than both Biden and Trump. (I mean among all Americans, not just Republicans.) If Nikki Haley represents Republican elites, then her popularity would seem to contradict the notion that elites "ended up alienating too many Americans". If one tries to explain Haley's popularity by claiming she is a populist, then how does one explain her loss to Trump in the primaries?
It's probably worth remembering that the parties are more alienated from the mainstream than ever. The populist and activist dominance within the parties are more reflective of sorting/selection than a true populist movement among the general population. "Mainstream" is probably a more apropos term than "elite".
I’m sympathetic to social and bourgeoise values conservatism, but not to using them to mobilize for an anti-growth (high deficit, low tax, low immigration), anti-redistributionist politics. Of course, I am not sympathetic to Progressives’ anti-growth (high deficit, high regulation) policies, either.
Hence: Radical Centrist: (100) Substack Home - Radical Centrist
Conservatives more divided than their opponents? The Left's coalition of the fringes (hat tip: Steve Sailer) are a wildly disparate group of grift seekers held together only by a ginned up hatred of core Americans whom they disparage as racists, white supremacists, misogynists, homophobes, etc., etc. Just now that coalition is in turmoil over the intra-Left outpouring of anti-Semitism (masquerading as anti-Zionism) against their Jewish component.
It's not just common hatred, they get results too.
The Democratic Party and progressive influencers patronize them by successfully using the state and shaping the culture to deliver benefits and make sure these client groups get all kinds of things they want at the expense of those opponent hated groups - money, services, stuff, jobs, grants, contracts, unjustifiably lucrative government employment then post-government employment, status, "visibility", deference, privileges, get-out-of-jail-free cards, socially accepted excuses for all kinds of bad behavior or poor performances, getting to feel like one is one the "winning team" in terms of ideological dominance over society, the bully's sadistic pleasure of publicly dominating, humiliating, punishing, cancelling, purging, deplatforming, and silencing one's enemies, heretics, apostates, etc.
The Republican Party leaders and anti-left* influencer public intellectuals cannot fight this fire by politely requesting that it please not burn so quickly, and they are neither able nor willing to fight fire with fire. So they cannot unite and cannot win.
*Note: "Conservative" in the context of American politics lost any semblance of coherence and precise meaning a long time ago. Fewer smart folks on the right every day proudly call themselves 'conservatives' without feeling compelled to immediately add some modifier, "Social conservative" / "Fiscal conservative" / "national conservative" in a desperate attempt to communicate a shared understanding of some particular meaning.
You don't see this among progressives. "I'm a fiscal progressive, but not so much into the social justice / woke stuff". It makes one laugh just to think about this silly impossibility.
"Progressive" doesn't make sense with modifiers, and "Conservative" no longer makes any sense without them.
So the term is just an illusion of common ground that doesn't exist and is well past its sell date and should have been retired from the political lexicon a long time ago.
Perhaps it is intended, but the American founding documents, the Federalist Papers, central ideas like separation of powers, judicial review, etc. are missing from the analysis. These are decidedly anti-populist and the source of their endurance.
The intuition is not so much whether it is fear of the many or of the few. It is that deep and sustained thought pays off. We arrive at answers whether in mathematics or the natural sciences or in the social sciences through reason. That Enlightenment ideal is central. This method is open to everyone, and we strive the way Madison did (say) we could arrive at the same conclusions. For example, the consent of the governed is important even if the governed see no wisdom in it. As a practical matter the entire polity cannot devote their lives to the simultaneous understanding of optimal tax policy, optimal immigration policy, diplomacy and statecraft, regulation of narcotic substances, and a thousand other matters. The task for those who do devote their lives to these various pursuits is not to determine what the popular will is, but to reason, to think, to discover the truth.
This is well put. And we do have an example of someone who combined the best instincts of Jackson and those of the Whigs, and represents an improvement on both, and on nearly everyone that came before or since. We can hope that the "mystic chords of memory" will be touched by the "better angels of our nature".
"Social conservatives are the populists most motivated by religious moral issues." I think you misread things here. I would say that the single biggest issue by far amongst Social Conservatives (college educated or not, religious or not) - and even if they would be wary of saying it out loud - is their frustration at how the LBGTQXYZ politico agenda has been relentlessly rammed down their throats by the liberal establishment and (more limply) by their own conservative politicians.
I think a division that leaves out the big government/regulatory state angle is leaving out something very important. So many Republicans are inclined to talk big about freedom and responsibility in government, then do the exact opposite, spending like drunken sailors while pushing laws limiting what you can say about politicians during an election. The recent FISA bill is another example. Frustration with the elected members on the right seems to be every bit as much of a weakness, perhaps more because while leftists tend to want more government action and so tend to get in general what they want if not the exact type, those on the right get neither less overall government nor specific reforms.
I'm unhappy with both "Conservatives" and Progressives indifference to cost-benefit based regulation and Pigou taxes and subsidies. But the indifference of Conservatives feels more like a betrayal. Econ 101 has never been Progressives' strong suit. :)
Pigou himself did not think that Pigovian taxes could work.
Probably has been said before, but you could structure an argument that goes something like conservatives with a D level of general acumen go into politics (As, Bs, and Cs go into pursuits more likely to have high market-driven rewards) whereas the average progressive politician might have a B or C level. Progressives have a better talent pool to draw from, so the marginal progressive politician is better at politics than the average conservative politician.
Have you observed the latest crop of progressive politicians and officials? "Talent Pool" is not the term to describe where any of them came from. Talent still likes to get close to and influence people in these positions, but is smart enough to avoid occupying them.
That might well be a factor, given how miserable politics is; if you don’t like politics aiming for something like “Make fuck you money, retire to woods and be hermit” probably is far more appealing.
On the other hand, or perhaps just an earlier stage, liking politics probably goes along with wanting to use government to your ends, whether ends are wielding power to help people or enrich yourself. As a result there are probably strong selection effects against Republicans who will limit and destroy government power, especially at the higher ranks.
That and compromat and other politics baggage one accumulates as one moves through the process, as you mention below.
In general, it is surprising to me just how uninterested republican voters are in punishing the own politicians for going against their stated interests. I’d expect a new Trump or Tea Party to crop up every election or two, but I suppose those things take time.
Yes--I think about this a lot, as a libertarian-leaning person. Just like how the person who most needs to be taught a lesson is often the least likely to learn from that lesson, the people most likely to be good libertarian politicians are the people least likely to be politicians at all.
I have a small candle of hope burning that Millei will be successful enough in Argentina that there will be a movement to copy him somewhat. Even just a “let’s roll the state back to 1950’s level” or something, but one that gets a lot of trash cut and bad laws removed because politicians who want to remove those things can get elected doing it.
It is a small flame, but maybe, just maybe a good example will help people realize things could be better.
My earlier comment about political acumen doesn't account for the cave-in job Republicans did on the FISA bill. Lack of integrity? Compromat? Who knows.
I have some insight into this and in truth this is a very tough call for them. Alas, they made the wrong call, but the GOP is the stupid party (i.e. "politically strategically suicidal" party) and has always made the wrong choice on hard calls.
I think they made a huge mistake and would have been ok to watch FISA lapse entirely to create pressure and an opportunity to build a better system from scratch. But I can appreciate the reasons they felt they had to do it.
The sad fact is that the National Security apparatus is asked to do things in a world that is incomparably more digitized (and with even small-time adversaries profoundly more digitally sophisticated) than when these frameworks were created (or even amended) and these functions simply cannot be performed according to the Fourth Amendment / ordinary law enforcement model with its requirements of particularities and one-thing-at-a-time warrants.
There really isn't any practical alternative to secretly hoovering up as much as possible and storing it for a long time - or getting instant and complete access from the entities which possess it - and intelligently mining that incredible stream of data for sneaky needles in haystacks or responding to an incident immediately by means of insights derived from querying an incredibly vast and comprehensive depository of data without delay.
Rand Paul is a smart and honorable guy I respect a lot, but note he simply won't articulate any plausible way to technically accomplish having the cake and eating it too at the same time. That's not to say there aren't ways to do it, it's just the Democrats - who have flipped the security community and now love it - have made sure that everyone understands that all such proposals will be dead on arrival.
The trouble is that any system that has these necessary capabilities has the potential to go Full-Stasi-On-Steroids which is a power that will be weaponized to go after the real enemy - one's domestic political opponents - to the extent the people in charge can get away with it. Which, presently, they can and they do. Against Republicans.
GOP politicians and especially establishment leaders know this but have convinced themselves - with their typical irrepressible idiocy - that this is really only a problem for Trump and deplorable rabble morons who vote for him, and they don't like or care about these people anyway, and were not exactly unhappy they got a dose of the treatment regardless of how that was achieved. That is to say they think there were rare cases that won't keep increasing in number and eventually go against normal decent smart folks like, um, themselves.
The evidence against them being complete fools who will fully deserve what's coming to them is the huge number of historical cases in which the state came to possess such powers and capabilities and it wasn't eventually used in this way, which is precisely zero. A huge zero. Not huge enough for them to see it, apparently.
You always run into a "Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked...and then they used the sacking power to enrich and empower themselves and immiserate the entire population" problem.
Internet points for the Monty Python reference.
It would be a fun (well, for some, but painful for most) project sit down and enumerate the shortcomings of both political parties. And once that was done, round two could get into defining what a good political party might look like. Round three could get into doing the same with the political system itself.
But instead I suspect we will simply continue chanting the mantra we have been taught: "Democracy is Good".
Sorry Graham, that wasn’t meant to be a reply to you in particular. Using the phone to comment is awkward for me.
Thanks DH...I was getting a little puzzled! Good comment anyway.
"There are those who would argue that for a long time this country was governed by a bipartisan elite consensus. This combined the conservatives elites on the Republican side with moderate Democrats. Eventually, their mistakes and arrogance ended up alienating too many Americans."
I think this misses the most important reason for the collapse of the bipartisan consensus: the browning of the American electorate + the extremely left-wing Millennial cohort allowed Democrats to move to the left, and forced Republicans to pick up working-class whites and white ethnics (which required dropping much of the anti-welfare/govt-spending platform) to compete.
"Social conservatives are the populists most motivated by religious moral issues."
Are you sure? I would consider myself to be socially conservative, but not a populist.
Specifically, I believe that my "social conservatism" is primarily a matter for me, my family, and the community with which we associate. I think it is difficult, and even perhaps a mistake, to strive to create a moral society from the top down rather than the bottom up, i.e., the private sphere seems to be the seed from which a moral society grows.
Politically, however, I lean libertarian in the sense that -- whatever my personal morality dictates -- I think individual liberty should be maximized to the extent feasible and the government's role should be as limited as possible.
"Personally Morally Traditionalist" is not "Socially Conservative" when it is used in the politically descriptive sense. When used in that sense, "Socially Conservative" isn't an expression of mere personal preference that is indifferent to or even opposed to state action, but an affirmative willingness to use state power and policy to maintain or shape overall social conditions in the direction of those preferences.
After all, that's what makes it "social", that is, it's about all of society (and not just some sub-community). If you prefer to leave the rest of society alone, there is nothing genuinely "social" about your preferences.
Thanks for the insight. I thought about your point, but was not sure if it was correct to say that "'Personally Morally Traditionalist' is not 'Socially Conservative'". I say that because my concerns are both on an individual and a societal level, and I do not really want "to leave the rest of society alone". I just think the better way to affect social change is at the micro rather than macro level. But if, as you say, a "social conservative" in the political sense is one who generally favors "state power and policy to maintain or shape overall social conditions", then you are correct, and I don't think I would fit that definition. The problem with the application of these various labels is that they tend to erase the complexities of these issues.
How non-religious people describe religious people is a perfect demonstration that faith is fundamental to consciousness and culture.
"Open borders is the hill the Wall Street Journal editorial page would die on."
I don't know who he is but that guy just shot up a notch.
Those are 2 and 3. Number 1 is tax cuts, especially on capital gains.
Re: "recent trends have weakened the erstwhile elites of both parties."
There are persistent countervailing trends that continue to strengthen and unify elites across parties: globalization, innovations in technology (big tech, AI, Zoom), education at selective universities, regulatory dynamics (e.g., finance, pharma, energy, tech platforms -- rent-seeking, lobbying, capture).
True, abortion and immigration are major hot-button issues. However, elites have broad interests, norms, and policy preferences in common. They engage in drama at a few salient margins.
Or maybe I am miss the trees for the forest?
I had heard the term Rockefeller Republican before but never really looked up Nelson Rockefeller. So I did and especially his primary run against Goldwater.
Rockefeller lost the primary because it came out that he had an affair that created a child and divorced his wife to be with a younger woman. I notice this pattern with Rockefeller republican types. David brooks and Charles Murray both traded in their first wives for young units.
It’s really hard to follow the success sequence if you’re screwing around. But that precisely what a lot of these Rockefeller republican types wanted. Some youthful indiscretions, a mistress, a younger second wife. Maybe abortion if something goes wrong. That’s their “success sequence”. When regular people try that though we get a lot of single mothers.
On the public policy front he was basically a tax and spend liberal who left New York in pretty bad place by the 1970s.
For all the talk of trumps shamelessness, he’s a Rockefeller republican through and through.
"three rival visions of what tradition is to be conserved: social conservatism, cultural conservatism, and bourgeois values."
What about fiscal conservatives?
Fiscal conservatives require, every generation or so, some overspending govt basket case to be a current object lesson that overspending is bad, despite popularity. Maybe Milei in Argentina will inspire. More Likely is a Japanese crises where their 250%+ national debt causes a recession/ depression.
How much govt spending is too much? We mostly don’t know.
So Reps who want to reduce spending, without a crisis to avoid, will lose elections. The US gets reduced spending only when Dems agree to reduce it. So the political fight should be on who to spend it on. Like far more govt cash to married folk with kids.
That sounds about right on the invisibility of fiscal conservatives. Maybe my hibernating bear analogy wasn't all that optimistic, except they'll reappear when "winter" comes, not spring.
I hear some about spending more money to encourage having kids but it doesn't seem like much is given to parents. If that changes, it will be interesting to see what, if anything, happens in regards to not encouraging poor people to have more kids.
what about Rand Paul?
Ok, so Paul Ryan wasn't the last.
I get that fiscal conservatives have no say politically but disagree that means they don't exist.
It's a bit too optimistic but I'd still say closer to a hibernating bear than a dinosaur.
The loss of fiscal conservatives in Congress doesn't mean they are extinct.
Whenever we refer to populist movements (i.e., the "social conservatives" and the "cultural conservatives" here) there is a bit of ambiguity because the base is basically the same. It's just that the leadership or the rhetoric they use can vary. And the leadership are all elites. Elites differ more than the base in their strategies. Some elites want to gain an edge by cooperating with other elites, and some elites want to gain an edge by cooperating with the lower classes. Some try to appeal to advantaged lower classes (i.e., white workers) and some appeal to disadvantaged lower classes. Some try to win via business, some via political connections.
Check out Ayaan Hirsi Ali on substack!
I don't think the divisions within the Left are as stark as they are within the Right. One can hardly read the comments at a rightist blog, for instance, without seeing the word 'RINO' flung about; the people using it seem to be just as disdainful of elite conservatives as they are of leftists. I can't think of any similar epithet in widespread use on left-leaning sites, e.g., the comments sections of WaPo stories.
"critical thinking", "the reality", "good faith conversation", etc. It's all right in front of your eyes, you just can't see it.
No, I don't see the parallel. Much of the opprobrium that I see at rightist outlets is directed toward those so-called RINOs—people who'd have been considered part of the mainstream conservative/libertarian movement prior to Trump's rise, but who're now perceived as frauds and weaklings, eager to sell out honest real Americans for a few crumbs of respect from the table of the liberal elite—people like McCain, Romney, and Ryan, or at state level, people like Brian Kemp and Rusty Bowers.
By contrast, which major political figures on the left side of the aisle have come in for that kind of abuse from within their own party? The only ones who come to mind are Manchin and Sinema, and the abuse didn't get heated until they threatened to derail one of the left's pet projects.
Ok you're right, Republicans have a sort of more ruthless, law of the jungle approach....but then unify after better than Dems?
“Eventually, their mistakes and arrogance ended up alienating too many Americans.”
What are their biggest mistakes?
Kling is simply wrong on the facts.
The out of wedlock birth rate is 40%. America has not been "governed by a bipartisan elite consensus" which holds that you should get married before you have children for at least 60 years.
He's also wrong about public support for abortion. Banning abortion after 12 weeks with exceptions is a majority position.
These elites vs. populists hot takes all seem to have trouble explaining how Nikki Haley ended being far more popular than both Biden and Trump. (I mean among all Americans, not just Republicans.) If Nikki Haley represents Republican elites, then her popularity would seem to contradict the notion that elites "ended up alienating too many Americans". If one tries to explain Haley's popularity by claiming she is a populist, then how does one explain her loss to Trump in the primaries?
It's probably worth remembering that the parties are more alienated from the mainstream than ever. The populist and activist dominance within the parties are more reflective of sorting/selection than a true populist movement among the general population. "Mainstream" is probably a more apropos term than "elite".
I’m sympathetic to social and bourgeoise values conservatism, but not to using them to mobilize for an anti-growth (high deficit, low tax, low immigration), anti-redistributionist politics. Of course, I am not sympathetic to Progressives’ anti-growth (high deficit, high regulation) policies, either.
Hence: Radical Centrist: (100) Substack Home - Radical Centrist
Conservatives more divided than their opponents? The Left's coalition of the fringes (hat tip: Steve Sailer) are a wildly disparate group of grift seekers held together only by a ginned up hatred of core Americans whom they disparage as racists, white supremacists, misogynists, homophobes, etc., etc. Just now that coalition is in turmoil over the intra-Left outpouring of anti-Semitism (masquerading as anti-Zionism) against their Jewish component.
It's not just common hatred, they get results too.
The Democratic Party and progressive influencers patronize them by successfully using the state and shaping the culture to deliver benefits and make sure these client groups get all kinds of things they want at the expense of those opponent hated groups - money, services, stuff, jobs, grants, contracts, unjustifiably lucrative government employment then post-government employment, status, "visibility", deference, privileges, get-out-of-jail-free cards, socially accepted excuses for all kinds of bad behavior or poor performances, getting to feel like one is one the "winning team" in terms of ideological dominance over society, the bully's sadistic pleasure of publicly dominating, humiliating, punishing, cancelling, purging, deplatforming, and silencing one's enemies, heretics, apostates, etc.
The Republican Party leaders and anti-left* influencer public intellectuals cannot fight this fire by politely requesting that it please not burn so quickly, and they are neither able nor willing to fight fire with fire. So they cannot unite and cannot win.
*Note: "Conservative" in the context of American politics lost any semblance of coherence and precise meaning a long time ago. Fewer smart folks on the right every day proudly call themselves 'conservatives' without feeling compelled to immediately add some modifier, "Social conservative" / "Fiscal conservative" / "national conservative" in a desperate attempt to communicate a shared understanding of some particular meaning.
You don't see this among progressives. "I'm a fiscal progressive, but not so much into the social justice / woke stuff". It makes one laugh just to think about this silly impossibility.
"Progressive" doesn't make sense with modifiers, and "Conservative" no longer makes any sense without them.
So the term is just an illusion of common ground that doesn't exist and is well past its sell date and should have been retired from the political lexicon a long time ago.
Perhaps it is intended, but the American founding documents, the Federalist Papers, central ideas like separation of powers, judicial review, etc. are missing from the analysis. These are decidedly anti-populist and the source of their endurance.
The intuition is not so much whether it is fear of the many or of the few. It is that deep and sustained thought pays off. We arrive at answers whether in mathematics or the natural sciences or in the social sciences through reason. That Enlightenment ideal is central. This method is open to everyone, and we strive the way Madison did (say) we could arrive at the same conclusions. For example, the consent of the governed is important even if the governed see no wisdom in it. As a practical matter the entire polity cannot devote their lives to the simultaneous understanding of optimal tax policy, optimal immigration policy, diplomacy and statecraft, regulation of narcotic substances, and a thousand other matters. The task for those who do devote their lives to these various pursuits is not to determine what the popular will is, but to reason, to think, to discover the truth.
"We arrive at X through reason" is an extremely popular meme, but how true is it? Proper reasoning would ask such questions.
Reason alone can ask such questions :)
The problem is the appearance vs the thing itself!😬😂
This is well put. And we do have an example of someone who combined the best instincts of Jackson and those of the Whigs, and represents an improvement on both, and on nearly everyone that came before or since. We can hope that the "mystic chords of memory" will be touched by the "better angels of our nature".