Class Trumps Race
Silence is consent
What you tolerate you teach
Demographics is not destiny
Blaming the electoral college is like blaming the rules after the game is over. The rules will not change anytime soon, so they would be wise to just accept this and recognize that blaming the voters is a fool’s errand. Clinging to progressive purity will not win elections.
Read MoreProgress emanates from the work of a very few, unpredictably and contrary to conventional wisdom. The protection of freedom and individual rights for these few benefits us all more than the rights accruing only to the majority.
Read MoreMarried to a binary one-dimensional interest spectrum, the Democrats only consider the economic interests at stake and even then, only consider the immediate consequences. Perhaps the working class is responding to more than their immediate economic interests, and are reacting to cultural differences, urban crime, and the illiberalness that has infected our institutions. Throwing money at a problem that is not economic at its source will not persuade the working class.
Read MoreIt is also why it is important to remember the principle behind the divided government and intentional firewalls to democracy designed in our constitution: that human nature is permanently flawed and cannot be trusted with concentrated power, whether that power originates in the divine right of kings or the ‘will of the people’. Where our founding came from the thinking of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism, Progressivism grew from the historicism of Hegel, Pragmatism (capital ‘P’), and social scientific thinking that thought principles of the physical sciences could be applied to the social realm. Progressivism in the U.S. was tempered by the Constitution, but it traveled in the same boat as political ideologies that considered human nature malleable and capable of improvement, if not perfection,
by the state if it is in the right hands.
Accepting human flaws and governing accordingly has proven far less oppressive than those who spoke in the name of ‘the people’ in their grand schemes to improve humanity.
Read More“But that’s the great lie of American politics (and of democracy at large): that the people cannot fail but can only be failed.”
Read MoreWith all of the claims for diversity the one they need the most is intellectual diversity. It is fine to discuss critical theory and Marxism but not without the balance of constitutional democracy and free markets. It is shameful when graduates have studied Howard Zinn, Karl Marx, or Ibram Kindi but have never heard of Gordon Wood, Friedrich Hayek, or Thomas Sowell. Hiring practices should seek a far more balanced faculty.
Read More“If a member of an oppressor class says something edgy, it is a form of violence. If a member of an oppressed class commits actual violence, it’s speech.”
Read More“What if human beings are merely creatures that take whatever shape is imposed on them by the impress and promptings of the culture in which they are situated? If so, then controlling the culture becomes imperative. And politics must saturate every nook and cranny of life. And this saturation will, inevitably, mean controlling what people say and hear and read and think and teach. Shaping the consciousness of the people — purging the people of what Marxists call “false consciousness” — becomes the great, the encompassing political project.”
Read MoreThe media, apoplectic for weeks from hatred displayed in Charlottesville in 2017, lack the same outrage at the depth and scale of the hatred that followed the Hamas attack on October 7. It is worth noting how often the cry against Zionism quickly turned to plain hatred of Jews. It has always been a false distinction. Jewish sympathizers for these attacks on Israel are progressive kapos, selling their soul hoping the alligator eats them last.
Read MoreI always thought identity politics would end badly. The reaction will not be just about the tolerance of anti-Semitism but will address all the other values that embraced it.
Read More“The mystery is why the Palestinians continue to put up with it, and have for so long. They don’t need “days of rage.” They need property rights, free enterprise, the rule of law, and decent government. And nobody would be better pleased to see them have these than the Israelis. “
Read MoreSocial justice grifters in all their forms were easy prey for the Jew haters. It was just the next logical step. Periods of revisionism and moral ambiguity are breeding grounds for antisemitism and other forms of social and moral rot.
Read MoreIf Israel and the Jews disappeared tomorrow, do you seriously think this hatred will dissipate and they will peacefully attend to the grinding work of building a civil society? Who will they then blame for their dysfunction and misery and how will they react? Do you think their animosities will be contained in their region?
Read More“We free-market types like to talk about competition—and competition is important—but capitalism is profoundly cooperative: This marvelously productive worldwide economy is something we all do together. “
Read More“That’s the real conservative sensibility at work: If progressivism is about making incremental improvements in the direction of utopia, conservatism is about avoiding catastrophe. And if democracy is a hedge against Caesarism, constitutionalism is a hedge against democracy—against the horrifying things that the people will do when you give them political power without checks and accountability.”
Read More“But history doesn’t wait for anybody to vote on it. That affects everything, including the economy.”
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The Identity Trap
I disagree with Mounk that this shift is sudden. It has been ignored, tolerated, and excused for decades. It is shameful that it took the overt antiSemitism displayed after October 7 for it to be recognized for what it is.
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