American Left
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Tom Frank on Liberal Obtuseness
… liberals, intoxicated by their own righteousness, can never figure it out. They keep expecting the right to die off, as if poisoned by its diet of wickedness, and yet the Republicans persist, dreaming up new culture wars against the “liberal elite,” radicalizing themselves continually along the way, refusing to succumb. And what do liberals
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The Duttons vs. The Roys
The TV shows Succession and Yellowstone are very similar in that they are both about two powerful American overlords and their families. What's different about them is more interesting and significant. To understand why is to understand a lot about the clash between Red and Blue America. In a proxy war between the Duttons and
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Moral Parity
The former president recognized that the fact of an investigation was far more important than the results. It worked with the Benghazi investigation, about which House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy was accidentally honest, and in the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, which didn’t produce charges but did hobble her presidential campaign. By the time Trump
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Third Party Solution? II
Annie Lowry interviews Andrew Yang about the Forward Party in the Atlantic: Lowrey: You say that Forward wants to represent rural Democrats and city-dwelling Republicans. Which policies are you pushing with this centrist party? … Yang: That is one of the more interesting communications challenges for something like Forward. We’re so accustomed to something falling on a
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How Neoliberalism Captured the Cultural Left 2
Sean Illing interviews Stuart Jeffries, author of Everything, All the Time, Everywhere: How We Became Postmodern, and the discussion focuses on themes I've been making for years now about why the Left hasn't the resources to fight the Right. I'll say more about it below, but my argument over the years is that insofar as
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How Neoliberalism Captured the Cultural Left I
A version of this essay first appeared in July 2014. It was inspired by Crispin Sartwell's Atlantic article "The Left-Right Political Spectrum is Bogus". This post expands on it and supplements recent posts about how the postmodern cultural left, whether it realizes it or not, is a form of cultural Neoliberalism. It argues that Neoliberalism is
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Cultural Normie + Economic Progressive = Political Winner
If I were a cynical political operative who wanted to construct a presidential candidate perfectly suited for this moment, I’d start by making this candidate culturally conservative. I’d want the candidate to show by dress, speech and style that he or she is not part of the coastal educated establishment. I’d want the candidate to
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Toward a More Perfect Union
I've used this phrase a few times in the last couple of weeks. It's from the Constitution's preamble, and famously echoed in Lincoln's first inaugural, and eloquently elaborated in Obama's famous campaign speech in 2008. It struck me as I was thinking about it that both the Right and the Left want a more perfect
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Toward a Normie Progressive Politics
I'm getting a little self-conscious about my incessant references to Ezra Klein, but he is quite remarkable for having his finger on what I see as the critical issues. This week he had on Michelle Goldberg, a woman I respect as a sensible Progressive and like for her intellectual honesty and personal authenticity. But she's