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Kilroy posted:The "liberalism" he's talking about isn't liberalism even in the American sense. It's just "How To Do Politics Without Resorting To Murder". One of our major political parties figured out that they can abandon those rules for huge electoral and cultural gain, and without much dire consequence for themselves provided the other major political party continues to follow them. What remains to be seen is whether the other major political party continues to follow them or not: if they do we'll have authoritarianism, and if they don't we'll have civil war (and then authoritarianism, probably). The probability space left over for other outcomes seems vanishingly small, e.g. the Democratic party is actually for real hijacked by an actual no-bullshit leftist movement that takes no prisoners - that will result in option two: civil war, since there is no way on Earth the American ruling class is going down without a fight, and they've got enough lower-class dupes on their side to put up an actual fight (and win, in my opinion, but that remains to be seen). Most of the proclaimed goals of liberal parties in Europe really aren't that different than the central policies of Democrats, the key difference is that left half of our political spectrum vanished in the 1920s-1930s. Traditionally, the most "leftist" someone could be in the US is some type of social liberal that wants moderate improvements to the social safety net and a much greater expansion of individual freedom on a social level. As far as the only outcome that could change things, actual leftists taking over the Democrats, we will have to see. There is still the possibility of enough leverage being applied without direct armed conflict to get some improvements to happen but this would only occur if these "new Democrats" were willing to be completely hard line. It is almost certain the response from the media would be completely negative (think of the coverage of Sanders/Corbyn but far worse). Also, keeping the status quo is natural for almost all forms of liberalism as long as individual property rights are not impinged. The only people who would have a real problem with it are the left ledge of liberals, but it seems most of them are realizing they actual believe in some sort of moderate form of socialism. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Jan 19, 2017 |
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Jan 19, 2017 08:23
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Typo posted:Even class resentment works a lot better for the right than for the left, if you look at rural white working class voting trump as a big gently caress-you to coastal liberal elites, it's pretty much case in point of class resentment. That is probably because a "cultural elite" is a easy target for the traditional media, anger has to be directed somewhere. At the same time largely nothing is done to such a "cultural elite" since the companies that own the media also own movie studios and other cultural outlets. Also, the marginals especially in the Rust Belt are the important group to watch. It is generally expected people with money are more often than not going to vote Republican, this isn't unexpected. The unexpected part was Trump was able to "recruit" elements of the working class to his side through populist rhetoric, especially about trade and immigration. In general, neither liberals or the democratic party seem to have an answer to the switch than to just hoping Trump destroys himself. By and large liberals, such as traditional liberals of the 19th century, are desperate not to acknowledge class. If you acknowledge class then it opens a paradox box of issues that often difficult for liberalism to answer. Obviously, the are still a small number of American liberals that acknowledge this, in reality they would probably some type of moderate socialists in another country. So the question is, are liberals going to acknowledge class or not?
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Jan 21, 2017 15:19
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TyroneGoldstein posted:I don't know how they possibly can. I may be channeling a bit of Chris Hedges here, but liberal elites are just as tied to the current (ailing) order of things as the FYGM crowd of astronomically wealthy individuals such as Charles and David Koch. Well the first step is admitting there is a problem in the first place, not only with the obvious outcome that is around us but how we talk about what is happening. I actually really do hope that "liberal" is eventually completely ditched as a catch-all term for "not-conservative." That said, there is the ultimate issue of the fact that upper-middle class (and often well educated) people maybe want to seem "open minded" and compassionate but ultimately there are silent class loyalties at play. These are people that have more or less stayed where they were in income terms or maybe had moderate gains. They feel guilty their country is rapidly becoming a nightmare but in the end they aren't going to stick their neck out for what isn't their fight. It isn't that much generational either, some upper-middle class millennials may be temporarily struggling now but they will eventually (they hope at least) inherit their parents wealth. They aren't necessarily malicious people, but often very poor allies who often will turn very quickly. Also, as you have said, they are people that completely dominate the Democratic Party, local offices and many if not most NGOs. Ultimately, it is going to have to come down to whether people are going to put aside their silent class allegiance or not to keep the country from turning into the authoritarian wreck it is on track to becoming. Either way, it is going to be real ugly but the question is if there really still any hope or not more than maybe we can buy a little more time in 2020.
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Jan 21, 2017 18:30
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