The New Right leads to Florida and Texas. The standard bearer of the New Right literally being Florida's governor.
The New Right leads to:
1) Low Taxes, Low Regulation, Low Cost, and Growth
2) Real and meaningful pushback against Woke
3) Sensible policies on crime and immigration
4) A general pro-common sense and pro-freedom attitude, most exemplified by COVID policy differences these last two years
I don't want to be told there is no difference hear. Adding in the tax, cost of living, and perhaps soon in the future K-12 funding differences, and moving from CA to FL is practically the equivalent of winning the lottery if you've got a family. That's before talking about the culture differences.
Optimism? Nothing could be more optimistic than the people I've seen move to these states. I've had watched multiple families move to the Sunbelt these last two years and I would describe all as radical optimists (the proof in the pudding is everywhere, but the most obvious is how many children they have).
Classical Liberalism by contrast is exemplified by California. The birthplace of Reagen becoming the most dysfunctional progressive hellhole in the country due to Classical Liberal policy and culture. People on the New Right vote with their feet to leave such places. Tyler wallows and tells everyone to "Read the Room".
This is all a big Cope for the fact that the Classical Liberalism completely failed in the real world but doesn't want to fess up to it and really fight to make things better. That's not optimism, its defeatism.
At the risk of quibbling over definitions, I would say that what Arnold and Tyler call "the New Right" is today's *populism*.
"Left" and "Right" are arbitrary abstractions.
Populists mistrust the competence and motivations of elites. They believe that a wide spectrum of incestuous elites (academic, technocratic, deep State, media, corporate, globalist) constitute an Establishment. They believe that the system is rigged. They believe that elites look down on them. Occasionally, they hear top elites denigrate them ("deplorables," "semi-fascists"). They resent elites' high-handedness. They believe that elites impose speech inhibition. They are loyal to populists leaders who defy elite speech inhibition.
Arnold has faith in a classical-liberal day-after-tomorrow. Populists want to check the elites and achieve status-relief today.
Elites fall in line with ridiculous stances because they're terrified of ever sharing a position held by the bad people. When liberals stop being so afraid of disagreeing with each other, trust in elites will improve. As long as the overriding impulse is to never risk getting confused for a bad person, the elites will continue to gaslight
Tyler seems to think you can counter an aggressive “New Left” with a moderate and sensible Right. Sounds great in theory but he’s wrong. The aggressiveness of tactics employed by the New Left would easily overwhelm any soft opposition. You’re probably correct it all leads nowhere good but the choice is now between “which version of bad.”
Neither Tyler nor Arnold focus much on the real new Right - Family, God, Nation. Like Orban in Hungary, and new Italian PM Giorgia Meloni. Similar to the promises that fascists lied about - and contrary to the "equity / equal outcomes" that the Democrat socialists are promising and lying about.
As more parents understand that Democrats, both Woke and not, are leading to the destruction of the family among the non-elite, as well as long being anti-God and anti-nation, more parents who want a good future for their kids will vote Republican. It will be these votes that check Wokeism - if wokeism is to be checked.
And part of the checking will be defunding anti-Republican tax-exempt organizations. I both hope for this, and expect increasing calls for it until either the discrimination stops or the colleges and other orgs are defunded from gov't tax exemptions and Federal Loans, and Federal Research grants.
Classical Liberals have an underdeveloped Theory of Power. That leaves them vulnerable, and the only surprise is it's taken them this long to get mugged.
Tyler *still* doesn't realize what just happened, so of course he's sanguine about woke.
Sorry, but we are screwed. Our elites are neither intelligent nor moral, Arnold. Collapse is coming. It will probably be delayed long enough for me to die off so I won't have to suffer the consequences or be able to help rebuild it all, but the outcome is inevitable, and probaby was always inevitable- nothing lasts forever. We had a nice run while it lasted.
We forget how short the 1700's were and how much happened.
The New Right has more data than the Founding Father's did when they instituted the strongest checks and balances on political power that they could imagine (and then decided it needed to be softened up a bit to move to the Constitution). I think they would have been far less sanguine had they see the reprise of Napoleon; though they should have learned more from the Glorious Revolution and Restoration. Of course, they didn't have the US Civil War to learn from. Also, the timelines they were imagining were long, but those they were experiencing were short. It hadn't been very long since the first experiments in modern democracy.
What we know now is that over the course of 80 years, the Check and Balances on Federal Power were overcome by the Woke of the day (Abolitionists, Carpet Baggers, etc); and then more formally and more permanently to create a standing Army (ostensibly for managing the Indians/Native Americans), and then for Prohibition, WWI, the New Deal, WWII, the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement, the War on Cancer, the War on Poverty, the War on AIDS, War on Drugs, the war on Terror, the Woke...
It has never once been rolled back to restore checks and balances, unless you count some small moves by (and possibly against) Trump. Putin's oligarchs have also demonstrated that the voluntary devolution of imperial power is short lived if guarded by the Elites. China is hardly a counter-example. What legal restriction did the 'one nation two systems' impose on China?
My Xtian Socialist grandparents met on a Eugene Debs march. I grew up a non-conforming left civil libertarian, then (once I studied economics) became a full Libertarian in the '80s. I've since moved further right (joining my husband's position) for exactly the reasons Tyler points out.
At least in this historical-path-dependent, post-Marxist, post-Fascist, post-Communist world, I'm afraid
Classical Liberalism by its very trust in humanity (notwithstanding Original Sin aka EvoPsych, nor the lessons of history that you & he I hope are conversant with) the slippery slope takeover by Left authoritarianism (with its promise of Heaven on Earth) and narrowly self-interested elites becomes inevitable.
They don't need to be competent to destroy classical liberal Western Civilization. Au contraire, their very incompetence and short-sighted self-interest makes that ever more likely.
In the short run, what to do about it is obvious--stop them by any means necessary. What that means in the longer run is uncertain. I don't want to live under an authoritarian Xtian Nationalist regime either. Although the historical body count record of the Right, while dismal, is much much lower than the Left (I don't think that is happenstance).
One can view institutions of all types (government, regulatory, legal, private, religious, etc.) as having as their prime directive: "growth and survival". That is their number one motivating force. All stated goals, ideals, etc. are below the prime directive. That simple shift in perspective enables one to see that all these institutions evolve in ways that further their self-interests. If "growth and survival" are not their prime directive, they tend to cease to exist.
An organization like NASA that went to the moon on-budget and on-time learned the lesson well when their budget was killed after they succeeded. They learned that the prime directive requires they never do anything on time or budget again.
Monopoly organizations (government and private) often achieve their growth by increasing their bureaucracy and decreasing their productivity, a practice that leads to them consume larger budgets. IBM was the undisputed king of the hill in my youth, but its growth and expansion focus expanded its bureaucracy so significantly that innovation became difficult: IBM took 7 years to design a computer when the chip capacity was doubling in two years. Good luck in the IBM vs. Apple contest. In the private sector IBM had a failure mechanism called bankruptcy. Government institutions like the CDC and FDA which failed to meet the Covid-19 challenges will continue on with increased budgets.
At heart, all government organizations are monopolies whose prime directives effectively lead to turf wars between institutions and to the organizations expanding power and authority as much as they can.
"Tyler and I probably share a faith in the ability of a liberal society to self-correct."
Why? There's nothing especially liberal about our society any more. There Is No Liberal West (https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/there-is-no-liberal-west). All of the defining precepts of classical liberalism have been overthrown. The Paradox of Tolerance happened - an intolerant group (the New Left) used tolerance to take over society and impose their vision. Now we need to figure out how to fix it.
Parenthetically, I find it mildly amusing that Cowen correctly points out the importance of trust and the difficulty of building it while supporting mass immigration, one of the single most trust-corroding policies out there.
"I fear that tomorrow belongs to the woke. But there is still a day after tomorrow." The Day after Tomorrow is a 2004 disaster movie. I hope we don't go there.
In any case, the mean girls are in charge. They don't care much for classical liberalism or liberalism. Just be sure to mimic their dress and speech.
Tyler Cowen's clarity of thought is amazing! Also I feel the emergence of the New Right was necessary to counter the Woke narrative, yet in the end we have to strive for the middle.
"the New Right stance does not lead anywhere"
The New Right leads to Florida and Texas. The standard bearer of the New Right literally being Florida's governor.
The New Right leads to:
1) Low Taxes, Low Regulation, Low Cost, and Growth
2) Real and meaningful pushback against Woke
3) Sensible policies on crime and immigration
4) A general pro-common sense and pro-freedom attitude, most exemplified by COVID policy differences these last two years
I don't want to be told there is no difference hear. Adding in the tax, cost of living, and perhaps soon in the future K-12 funding differences, and moving from CA to FL is practically the equivalent of winning the lottery if you've got a family. That's before talking about the culture differences.
Optimism? Nothing could be more optimistic than the people I've seen move to these states. I've had watched multiple families move to the Sunbelt these last two years and I would describe all as radical optimists (the proof in the pudding is everywhere, but the most obvious is how many children they have).
Classical Liberalism by contrast is exemplified by California. The birthplace of Reagen becoming the most dysfunctional progressive hellhole in the country due to Classical Liberal policy and culture. People on the New Right vote with their feet to leave such places. Tyler wallows and tells everyone to "Read the Room".
This is all a big Cope for the fact that the Classical Liberalism completely failed in the real world but doesn't want to fess up to it and really fight to make things better. That's not optimism, its defeatism.
At the risk of quibbling over definitions, I would say that what Arnold and Tyler call "the New Right" is today's *populism*.
"Left" and "Right" are arbitrary abstractions.
Populists mistrust the competence and motivations of elites. They believe that a wide spectrum of incestuous elites (academic, technocratic, deep State, media, corporate, globalist) constitute an Establishment. They believe that the system is rigged. They believe that elites look down on them. Occasionally, they hear top elites denigrate them ("deplorables," "semi-fascists"). They resent elites' high-handedness. They believe that elites impose speech inhibition. They are loyal to populists leaders who defy elite speech inhibition.
Arnold has faith in a classical-liberal day-after-tomorrow. Populists want to check the elites and achieve status-relief today.
Elites fall in line with ridiculous stances because they're terrified of ever sharing a position held by the bad people. When liberals stop being so afraid of disagreeing with each other, trust in elites will improve. As long as the overriding impulse is to never risk getting confused for a bad person, the elites will continue to gaslight
Tyler seems to think you can counter an aggressive “New Left” with a moderate and sensible Right. Sounds great in theory but he’s wrong. The aggressiveness of tactics employed by the New Left would easily overwhelm any soft opposition. You’re probably correct it all leads nowhere good but the choice is now between “which version of bad.”
Neither Tyler nor Arnold focus much on the real new Right - Family, God, Nation. Like Orban in Hungary, and new Italian PM Giorgia Meloni. Similar to the promises that fascists lied about - and contrary to the "equity / equal outcomes" that the Democrat socialists are promising and lying about.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/italy-s-first-female-prime-minister-leads-the-most-far-right-government-since-the-fascist-era-of-mussolini/ar-AA13gmH2
As more parents understand that Democrats, both Woke and not, are leading to the destruction of the family among the non-elite, as well as long being anti-God and anti-nation, more parents who want a good future for their kids will vote Republican. It will be these votes that check Wokeism - if wokeism is to be checked.
And part of the checking will be defunding anti-Republican tax-exempt organizations. I both hope for this, and expect increasing calls for it until either the discrimination stops or the colleges and other orgs are defunded from gov't tax exemptions and Federal Loans, and Federal Research grants.
Classical Liberals have an underdeveloped Theory of Power. That leaves them vulnerable, and the only surprise is it's taken them this long to get mugged.
Tyler *still* doesn't realize what just happened, so of course he's sanguine about woke.
Sorry, but we are screwed. Our elites are neither intelligent nor moral, Arnold. Collapse is coming. It will probably be delayed long enough for me to die off so I won't have to suffer the consequences or be able to help rebuild it all, but the outcome is inevitable, and probaby was always inevitable- nothing lasts forever. We had a nice run while it lasted.
Arnold;
You have a data problem.
We forget how short the 1700's were and how much happened.
The New Right has more data than the Founding Father's did when they instituted the strongest checks and balances on political power that they could imagine (and then decided it needed to be softened up a bit to move to the Constitution). I think they would have been far less sanguine had they see the reprise of Napoleon; though they should have learned more from the Glorious Revolution and Restoration. Of course, they didn't have the US Civil War to learn from. Also, the timelines they were imagining were long, but those they were experiencing were short. It hadn't been very long since the first experiments in modern democracy.
What we know now is that over the course of 80 years, the Check and Balances on Federal Power were overcome by the Woke of the day (Abolitionists, Carpet Baggers, etc); and then more formally and more permanently to create a standing Army (ostensibly for managing the Indians/Native Americans), and then for Prohibition, WWI, the New Deal, WWII, the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement, the War on Cancer, the War on Poverty, the War on AIDS, War on Drugs, the war on Terror, the Woke...
It has never once been rolled back to restore checks and balances, unless you count some small moves by (and possibly against) Trump. Putin's oligarchs have also demonstrated that the voluntary devolution of imperial power is short lived if guarded by the Elites. China is hardly a counter-example. What legal restriction did the 'one nation two systems' impose on China?
My Xtian Socialist grandparents met on a Eugene Debs march. I grew up a non-conforming left civil libertarian, then (once I studied economics) became a full Libertarian in the '80s. I've since moved further right (joining my husband's position) for exactly the reasons Tyler points out.
At least in this historical-path-dependent, post-Marxist, post-Fascist, post-Communist world, I'm afraid
Classical Liberalism by its very trust in humanity (notwithstanding Original Sin aka EvoPsych, nor the lessons of history that you & he I hope are conversant with) the slippery slope takeover by Left authoritarianism (with its promise of Heaven on Earth) and narrowly self-interested elites becomes inevitable.
They don't need to be competent to destroy classical liberal Western Civilization. Au contraire, their very incompetence and short-sighted self-interest makes that ever more likely.
In the short run, what to do about it is obvious--stop them by any means necessary. What that means in the longer run is uncertain. I don't want to live under an authoritarian Xtian Nationalist regime either. Although the historical body count record of the Right, while dismal, is much much lower than the Left (I don't think that is happenstance).
One can view institutions of all types (government, regulatory, legal, private, religious, etc.) as having as their prime directive: "growth and survival". That is their number one motivating force. All stated goals, ideals, etc. are below the prime directive. That simple shift in perspective enables one to see that all these institutions evolve in ways that further their self-interests. If "growth and survival" are not their prime directive, they tend to cease to exist.
An organization like NASA that went to the moon on-budget and on-time learned the lesson well when their budget was killed after they succeeded. They learned that the prime directive requires they never do anything on time or budget again.
Monopoly organizations (government and private) often achieve their growth by increasing their bureaucracy and decreasing their productivity, a practice that leads to them consume larger budgets. IBM was the undisputed king of the hill in my youth, but its growth and expansion focus expanded its bureaucracy so significantly that innovation became difficult: IBM took 7 years to design a computer when the chip capacity was doubling in two years. Good luck in the IBM vs. Apple contest. In the private sector IBM had a failure mechanism called bankruptcy. Government institutions like the CDC and FDA which failed to meet the Covid-19 challenges will continue on with increased budgets.
At heart, all government organizations are monopolies whose prime directives effectively lead to turf wars between institutions and to the organizations expanding power and authority as much as they can.
"Tyler and I probably share a faith in the ability of a liberal society to self-correct."
Why? There's nothing especially liberal about our society any more. There Is No Liberal West (https://theupheaval.substack.com/p/there-is-no-liberal-west). All of the defining precepts of classical liberalism have been overthrown. The Paradox of Tolerance happened - an intolerant group (the New Left) used tolerance to take over society and impose their vision. Now we need to figure out how to fix it.
Parenthetically, I find it mildly amusing that Cowen correctly points out the importance of trust and the difficulty of building it while supporting mass immigration, one of the single most trust-corroding policies out there.
"I fear that tomorrow belongs to the woke. But there is still a day after tomorrow." The Day after Tomorrow is a 2004 disaster movie. I hope we don't go there.
In any case, the mean girls are in charge. They don't care much for classical liberalism or liberalism. Just be sure to mimic their dress and speech.
Tyler Cowen's clarity of thought is amazing! Also I feel the emergence of the New Right was necessary to counter the Woke narrative, yet in the end we have to strive for the middle.
What he says about classical liberals applies to old fashioned Liberals, Neoliberals, lots of old time Conservatives and probably some Progressives.
One of this week's Remnant discussions with Yuval Levin was really good. You even get a shout out. https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/a-cynical-man/
Here's another, more realistic view of the situation: https://loquitur.substack.com/p/an-agenda-for-conservatives