Writes Ruy Teixeira (at Liberal Patriot).
The 4 reasons:
1. Loosening restrictions on illegal immigration was a terrible idea and voters hate it...
2. Promoting lax law enforcement and tolerance of social disorder was a terrible idea and voters hate it....
3. Insisting that everyone should look at all issues through the lens of identity politics was a terrible idea and voters hate it....
4. Telling people fossil fuels are evil and they must stop using them was a terrible idea and voters hate it....
That made me think of this TikTok I saw today, a woman describing what she thinks is "a new breed of conservatives":
@thajordanhall I think im a mix of a lot of things but lean right. Tell me what you are and where you’re from! ♥️🇺🇸#trump2024🇺🇸 #conservativesoftiktok ♬ original sound - Jordan ✨ relatable + momx3
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Everything about that resonates with me, except for using TikTok as a communications medium.
The math on providing generous benefits... maybe... to everybody who manages to cross the border by hook or by crook in a world with 8 or 9 billion people, well that part will never add up.
5. Telling people to defer to their self-appointed betters was a terrible idea and voters hate it....
Yeah, I remember was the era of big government was over…
That’s a great start in recognizing some of the problems. I do notice nothing about women no longer being determined by biology.
Not so fast. We're about to find out whether enough voters hate terrible ideas.
Agreed.
Voters? Or marked ballots?
Precisely. These bad ideas (just like big government) got traction for structural reasons in our culture. An election may be a setback, but the same educational and religious institutions, nonprofits, civil service, mainstream media powers, and DEI offices will not only persist, but prosper. Let's consider the likelihood that any reasonably articulate seemingly competent generic Democrat (Klobuchar, Shapiro) would have beaten DJT and further installed the leftwing base of the Democratic Party as the immovable status quo.
If DJT wins, he will owe it to the accident that the Democrats had no choice but to nominate a plainly vacuous nonentity.
I try to imagine some singular event that could change the drift toward decay and failure. The only things that come to mind are horrible to contemplate.
"New Conservative"? Ahem, she's a libertarian.
The progressive movement is not over. It got institutionalized. Identity politics and DEI, climate change subsidies and mandates, immigration dysfunction and future invasion are baked in. The nice new conservatives are too nice and there are not enough of them.
Fill in the blank and the voters hate it. Yet the electorate is 50/50. The media really is worth 20 points.
We're everywhere!
They hate America, and everything in it. Why do you think Hussein wanted to fundamentally transform it??
From the link:
Noah Smith: "But I have to say that I now doubt the practical effectiveness of some of the policies I embraced in previous years. Others still seem like good ideas, but I’ve been dismayed at their botched implementation where they were tried."
Shorter Noah: "Real socialism has never been tried."
The "new" version of conservative sounds an awful lot like the classical definition of "liberal."
I almost feel sorry for good ole' Ruy T. His 2002 book "The Emerging Democratic Majority" was considered prescient and ground-breaking at the time. [From Wikipedia: ". . the most widely discussed political book of that year and generated praise across the political spectrum, from George Will on the right to E.J. Dionne on the left. It was selected as one of the best books of the year by The Economist magazine."].
But, truly, I don't feel sorry for him because his book was all about "identity" and the assumption that your race would determine your politics, not the economy; not safety; not schools. As for Tik-tok lady? I find 80% compatible and that's how one builds consensus.
Let me add #5: Being a scowling, scolding, sour-puss schoolmarm lecturing people All The Time about their failings isn't how you sell an idea.
I doubt it's gone. It was from feminization (the most feminine opinion rules) and that's not going to stop.
Pretty much everything advocated by "progressives" and other collectivists is unsustainable for more than one long human lifespan.
Communism barely made it to 70 years before collapsing. The social-democrat Eurozone is deindustrializing and lying supine before a barbarian invasion. The massive edifice of free government healthcare in Canada and the UK is foundering. Our own Social Security fund, not even 90 years old, will wither and die without confiscatory new taxes that the young will refuse to pay.
At all times and in all places, politicians simply cannot resist buying votes with other peoples' money, and no schemes that allow one group of people to live at the expense of another's labor will ever be sustainable. Much suffering must ensue before we learn this lesson.
I fear we never will, though. As long as people are lazy, selfish, and stupid, the dream of socialism will never die. There's nobody quite as greedy as a lazy leftist who wants the government to take money from other people and give it to him just for existing. They are the most worthless and evil people in the world.
as the Most Famous Democrat, Famously said:
It's NOT who votes that counts.. It's WHO COUNTS the votes
Yes, you should Think about that..
Also think about.. The "new" version of leftist sounds an awful lot like "Communist"
"I fear we never will, though. As long as people are lazy, selfish, and stupid, the dream of socialism will never die. There's nobody quite as greedy as a lazy leftist who wants the government to take money from other people and give it to him just for existing. They are the most worthless and evil people in the world."
You could try telling that to Bernie Sanders. Fair warning- he owns several houses (more than he had when he attached himself to the government teat), so it might take a little time to track him down.
Lefty policies are a ratchet. Trump needs to go medieval on the executive branch, but he won't.
The ONE underlying reason why it's over is that the left demanded to have their cake and eat it too. Living an Apple-device-jet-set-remote-work-nomad-coastal home-luxury-vegan-food-electric-car-free-sex-free-marijuana-no-talent-equity-bend-every-rule-for-personal-gain lifestyle is fully incompatible with every functional leftist (aka "progressive") success since the Great Depression.
The progs of 100 years ago focused on stuff like getting rid of contaminated meat, slowing the spread of natural viruses (not covering up lab leaks), finding jobs for the downtrodden, conducting genuine science rather than spewing Fauchian dogma, etc. Ralph Nader and Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes were proto-nannies but 'sincerely' tried to make things functionally better.
The only thing constant about the political left is change. They routinely move away from optimal stable solutions in favor of inferior but NEW shiny objects. It's what they do.
Social Justice is the sacred belief system of American liberals and it fails in the political realm because its goals/ideas aren't really political—the affairs of the state—but social and religious. Things like open the jails and open the borders were obviously foolish in the real world, but Progressives have their eyes on heaven not on Earth. The best analogy I can think of is that Social Justice works in the same way as wearing a crucifix once worked—as a way to display you're on the side of the angels, one of the Good People, righteous and holy—except here it's not about believing in God and Jesus but about signalling your moral commitment to the "oppressed underdog" unlike those other evil bigots over there. Social Justice is the ultimate luxury symbol of Conspicuous Compassion, and as long as signalling that you're a xenophile not a xenophobe is mandatory for entree into liberal society and institutions, it may change shape but it is far from done.
The four items listed are programs where a minuscule number of people benefit greatly while leaving the vast majority worse off. Tennessee Coates is rich, and black female organizational management grads are in good shape. Third world immigrants who live in NYC hotels are ok. The poor of Englewood are ignored.
But the only way to help everyone is for people to cast their bucket down where they are. We need to allow the people of the world to develop their own riches. Whitey tried to go overseas and improve the poor, and we know how that worked. In 1850 Ohio was full of subsistence agriculturalists.
Let 8 billion candles glow.
But, But, you want the west to be rich while the rest of the world is poor?
A man is a slave when he is dependent on eating what he is given.
"Ralph Nader ... was a proto-nanny but 'sincerely' tried to make things functionally better."
From Politico (not a right-wing outfit):
"On this day in 1972, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released the results of a two-year study that concluded that Chevrolet’s 1960-63 Corvair models were at least as safe as comparable models of similar cars sold during in the same period. The report contradicted charges lodged by Ralph Nader, a leading consumer advocate."
Doesn't matter what you're trying to do, good intentions are worthless when they generate (or are based on) bad data.
It is. I quit telling people I'm a classic liberal because they don't know what that means. The vast majority of people in this country don't know any history, let alone their own history.
Mason G. My brother had a 62 corvair. It was fun to drive. Now they're a collector market and good luck trying to find parts. Anybody remember the Corvair junkyard where the Rt. 14 off ramp is now?
5. Changing your sex w/o changing your sex.
Great. The progressive movement has lost. Has anyone told basically all the public schools and universities about this?
Tik-Tok isn't a communications medium. It is a drug. It's entire design is a dopamine delivery system.
AI is the real threat.
Shhhh ... we need new wage slaves. My Social Security check isn't going to write itself.
Women evolved to lecture toddlers. They can't fight their genetics.
We should give credit where credit is due: Ruy at least recognizes the stupidity and failures of his progressive brethren's policies, and he isn't afraid to point it out publicly. If only more progressives had his objectivity and open-mindedness...
Yeah nah. They’re gonna keep shoving it on humanity. All in means just that…
“We love our pew pews in this house.” That is great! I hope she has a sign outside in the same color scheme and font as the “In this house we…” signs.
JSM
Don't forget to add deinstitutionalization to the list of progressive failures. Well intentioned but as always, the devil is in the implementation details. Directly leading to the vagrancy issues on the streets of our major cities.
Unfortunately, the only message they'll take from this is to push their ideas harder next time.
J Scott, I thought deinstitutionalization was a bipartisan effort. For instance, didnt then-Gov Reagan lead it in Cali? The different-drummer 60s liberals didnt want to keep people locked up for having a different perspective, maaan; while the libertarian Rs didnt trust the government to fix anyone’s brain. Meanwhile the fiscal conservatives liked saving the money, but little did they know the New Dealers were licking their chops at fhe prospect of an army of social workers to manage the released patients in the community.
It was sort of a multidimensional baptist-bootlegger alliance.
JSM
6. Cutting little boys' weiners off.
Pretty sure this was when the Progressive Movement died.
If that 1787 document were obeyed as written, fedgov would 5% of its present size and we, the productive, would be better for it.
These are the things that prompted me to dig into the excellent free offerings of Hillsdales online courses. Specifically Constitution 101/102 & The American Left: From Liberalism to Despotism.
Real progressivism has never been tried
On the Tik Tok, some cognitive dissonance
“You want to take a poke in the arm, go for it, just don’t make me do it.”
“Parents should be in charge of their kids health care”
So what are we up to on the childhood vax schedule? 70 plus??
Now, from people I know with young kids, most pediatricians offices will show you the door if you even think about questioning the docs on their jabs…
The CDC is still recommending CV19 vax for kids 6 months & up..crazy
5. Not only lying about Biden‘s cognitive decline, but telling people who could see it with their own eyes that they were crazy.
"The reports of the demise of the 'Progressive Moment' are greatly exaggerated..."
My big question is why did the Dems think these were good ideas in the first place?
You got that right, sister.
Populism is what happens when elites screw the pooch.
The reason the progs took over the universities is that they got on the selection committees as a majority and began excluding conservatives. Qualifications did not matter. So you see, in the case of a state university like UW-Madison the legislature can investigate the working of these committee. How come in an evenly divided state like Wisconsin the selection committees for the different departments are never able to find qualified conservatives - not even among the graduates of UW-Madison. You see, all political donations from the our state universities going to the Dems. Why? The answer is simple bigotry. The left will only hire its own. They'll take conservatives' tax money, they'll take conservatives' tuition money but they won't take conservatives. They must be forced to explain their criteria. They must be asked why 50% of their students are conservatives but 98% of their hires are leftys? I think the state university budgets should be cut by 50% by the state legislatures because the universities are only educating half their students to the level where the universities would hire them. So the universities only need half the staff. And while the legislatures are at it, they should defund the whole of the Comic Book aka the English Literature Department. You don't need to go to university to learn how to read comic books.
This Canadian pretty much agrees with everything she said.
I haven't read "Emerging Majority" but I have been reading Mr. Teixeira's substack since about 2020 when he seemed to be one of the few sane liberals, and I need to speak in his defense. He has often said that reading the "Emerging Majority" as race determining politics is incorrect. It might be revisionist on his part since I haven't read the book but he's been pointing out the Democrats can't win without retaining white working-class voters, and that their big problem right now is that they are losing not just white but also non-white working-class voters. I think a lot of people, especially AWFLs and SJWs, read the book and made the assumption that upper middle-class whites could set the direction of the Democrat party and non-whites would simply follow in their wake. I recall that even in the 1990s people were pointing out how the Democrats were becoming the party that essentially excluded middle-income voters so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he was counseling Democrats to stay the course with regard to policies that favored working-class voters. While the Democrats have been gaining among white middle and upper middle-class voters by pursuing Woke politics hard, Teixeira has been pointing out this is often not sufficient to offset the losses among more center-right working-class whites and now the same thing is happening with non-whites.
john mosby wrote the best comment of the century.
Whitey tried to go overseas and improve the poor, and we know how that worked. In 1850 Ohio was full of subsistence agriculturalists.
Yes (in theory)—but no (in spirit). For how well “that worked,” let's peruse what Alexis de Tocqueville had to say about those “subsistence agriculturalists” of Ohio (not to speak of just across the river in Kentucky) some two decades earlier than 1850 (from Tocqueville's great masterpiece Democracy in America): {quoting}
[B]oth banks of the Ohio {…} form the frontier of a vast state: that which follows the innumerable windings of the Ohio on the left bank is called Kentucky; the other takes its name from the river itself. There is only one difference between the two states: Kentucky allows slaves, but Ohio refuses to have them. So the traveller who lets the current carry him down the Ohio till it joins the Mississippi sails, so to say, between freedom and slavery; and he has only to glance around him to see instantly which is best for mankind.
On the left bank of the river the population is sparse; from time to time one sees a troop of slaves loitering through half-deserted fields; the primeval forest is constantly reappearing; one might say that society had gone to sleep; it is nature that seems active and alive, whereas man is idle. But on the right bank a confused hum proclaims from afar that men are busily at work; fine crops cover the fields; elegant dwellings testify to the taste and industry of the workers; on all sides there is evidence of comfort; man appears rich and contented; he works. {…}
These contrasting effects of slavery and of freedom are easy to understand; they are enough to explain the differences between ancient civilization and modern. On the left bank of the Ohio work is connected with the idea of slavery, but on the right with well-being and progress; on the one side it is degrading, but on the other honorable; on the left bank no white laborers are to be found, for they would be afraid of being like the slaves; for work people must rely on the Negroes; but one will never see a man of leisure on the right bank: the white man's intelligent activity is used for work of every sort. {…}
The white man on the right bank, forced to live by his own endeavors, has made material well-being the main object of his existence; as he lives in a country offering inexhaustible resources to his industry and continual inducements to activity, his eagerness to possess things goes beyond the ordinary limits of human cupidity; tormented by a longing for wealth, he boldly follows every path to fortune that is open to him; he is equally prepared to turn into a sailor, pioneer, artisan, or cultivator, facing the labors or dangers of these various ways of life with even constancy; there is something wonderful in his resourcefulness and a sort of heroism in his greed for gain.
The American on the left bank scorns not only work itself but also enterprises in which work is necessary to success; living in idle ease, he has the tastes of idle men; money has lost some of its value in his eyes; he is less interested in wealth than in excitement and pleasure and expends in that direction the energy which his neighbor puts to other use; he is passionately fond of hunting and war; he enjoys all the most strenuous forms of bodily exercise; he is accustomed to the use of weapons and from childhood has been ready to risk his life in single combat. Slavery therefore not only prevents the white men from making their fortunes but even diverts them from wishing to do so.
The constant operation of these opposite influences throughout two centuries in the English North American colonies has in the end brought about a vast difference in the commercial capabilities of southerners and northerners. Today the North alone has ships, manufactures, railways, and canals.
{/unQuote}
(Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, originally in 2 volumes, published 1835 & 1840)
Well reasoned and well said. Bonus points for correctly using "foundering," which describes a ship having its gunnels awash, i.e. on the precipice of sinking, instead of the incorrect "floundering."
The Progressive view is that voters are irrelevant. Or should be. Probably are at this point.
Reagan was just following what the psych profession had pronounced to be the new standard of care before he ever took office. Deinstitutionalization was a reformist initiative that began under JFK, following some highly publicized scandals that took place in insane asylums, and was widely applauded by all bien-pensant leftists.
Of course, that did nothing to stop the leftists from using the policy as a club to smack Reagan a couple of decades later, when its failures were obvious.
In addition to Tocqueville's "Democracy in America", which everyone should read, I very much enjoyed "Tocqueville in America" by historian George Wilson Pierson, a detailed description of his nine-month journey in our country during the Jackson administration.
There's also Alexis de Tocqueville's very interesting travel diary, published as Journey to America—translated by George Lawrence, edited by J.P. Mayer—A Doubleday Anchor Book, Doubleday & Co., 1971. I particularly enjoyed the chapter at the end, “A Fortnight in the Wilds,” concerning Tocqueville's two-week excursion into the remote back-country of lower Michigan, beyond the then-limit of settlement.
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