I work at a university that serves a lot of military and has a Veteran's Success Center. After my husband died (VN Veteran/agent orange) I donated to the center and suggested our union be more engaged. I was belittled. I'd been 4 years on our bargaining team and local DEC. I felt they thought I was betraying being a Dem by suggesting engagement with our veteran's center. There was a perception that any show of patriotic activity was against democratic norms. I began university teaching when many veterans were on the faculties. There are almost none now.
I teach librarianship and when I was a student many of my profs had been in intelligence or Signals in the military. One of my profs had been the librarian to the Manhattan Project. As these people retired those teaching now have little understanding Only one of my current colleagues has served. When I expressed concern about Waltz' saying he was a CSM when he wasn't-- only two knew what a CSM was.
Her point was that previously many professors in her field were veterans, and she used unfamiliarity with military jargon as a means of determining that was no longer the case.
Both of the following statements are true.
You can be fiercely patriotic without having served or any familiarity with the military.
People who have served or simply have close familiarity with the military tend to be very patriotic.
Jim, this isn't jargon--a CSM is a senior enlisted advisor and highest-ranking non-commissioned officer in a U.S. Army unit. Anyone who is a child or spouse of a veteran or even remotely aware would know. But my university is near CENTCOM so it seemed odd to me that so few knew that TW saying he was a CSM when he wasn't was not a positive characteristic of his expressed military experience. But I also think the policy people who vetted him didn't realize how important it was that he stated this when it was not so.
"I began university teaching when many veterans were on the faculties. There are almost none now."
The previous generation of intellectuals were also drawn from working-class families. Now they draw from extremely affluent upper-middle class families. But as someone who is broadly against intellectuals carrying moral authority, I think the narrowing of their demographic base is a good thing.
You have nailed it with your assessment. I have looked at where the Democrats have been on these three issues and just thought they were complete nuts on them. In particular if they could be nuts on what I think of as very easy subjects to decide how in the world could I trust them on subjects that are actually difficult to resolve. How can I trust their judgement to implement big government systems when they can’t get these right. And how in the heck do they think we can compete with competitors like China when we don’t believe in individual merit or our country or the simplest biological facts.
It’s true that liberals won a colossal and righteous victory in the latter half of the 20th century on behalf of civil rights. Americans now overwhelmingly agree with MLK’s brilliant formulation of “content of character”.
And with the Great Society programs, we set about making that dream a reality. Liberals won the victory, and we followed their prescriptions for action. We set up armies of government employees with massive funding to wage war on poverty, discrimination, and inequality.
But liberals didn’t see that they had painted themselves into a corner. They had created a poverty industrial complex with a vested interest in making sure the programs continued forever.
People eventually noticed that despite a lot of money, the programs were not accomplishing the goal. How to explain this apparent lack of progress?
It couldn’t be the prescriptions were wrong. No, it was clearly institutional racism. The ideas were great, it was the country that was bad! Evil, in fact. Rotten to the core, right from the beginning!
They needed to protect the poverty industrial complex they built.
By way of answer, I will quote the comments of one of LBJ's Great Society anti-poverty bureaucrats, Charles R. Morris: "Like the war in Vietnam, the illusions of the anti-poverty program persisted because so many people were anxious to be gulled...With a clarity of logic that had somehow eluded the antipoverty program designers, poor people readily appreciated that bigger welfare checks were a more direct and certain way to increase their incomes than the confusing personal-improvement schemes hawked by Washington."
As a dedicated centrist who supports the notion of America being a force for good internationally and domestically, my former sense of pride in the country is shaken by a political structure that limits our choice of leadership to the MAGA Republicans or the socialist dominated Democrats. I take some consolation in supporting centrist organizations like the Liberal Patriot and No Labels, but sadly the depth of their support is very thin.
The door is wide open for a moderate Democrat - a liberal patriot - to easily beat JD Vance in 2028 by adopting Ruy's ideas. The extreme anti-tax ideology of the current GOP will be very unpopular when tax increases are needed to save Medicare and Social Security. And Trump's repulsive personality will alienate even more persuadable voters over the next three years, hurting the Republican brand.
But the hardcore Left comprises all the energy in the Democratic party almost everywhere. The Wokesters punch way above their weight in Democratic primaries because they show up at very high rates compared to less ideologically intense Democrats. The bottom line: the Democratic party won't change and they will base their electoral hopes on an economic downturn and the foibles of a very erratic President Trump.
Do you really think voters - after witnessing what's going on in Minnesota - will believe they just need to pay more taxes to the government? Seriously? And Trump has been a pig for 10+ years, hard to imagine that there are voters who aren't aware of it.
I live in Minnesota so I’m all too aware of terrible mismanagement and fraud in government programs. People will want other people to pay more taxes to preserve Social Security and Medicare and other popular programs.
Your analysis of the Democrat dilemma is accurate. Another way to describe the issue is that the Democrat leadership has stopped talking about principles and appears to be searching for effective marketing slogans. Programs that don't perform get more funding so the failures can try harder and hire more voters.
Certainly the GOP in not composed of pure reason, sweetness and light but the voters who voted for Trump were presented with an unacceptable alternative named Biden. Trump (for all his yankee BS) is trying to deliver the product he offered. He didn't hypnotize the voters. He told us what he'd try to do and is trying to follow that outline. Joe (really his handlers) promised conservative lite, blew up the budget, went socialist and lied about it.
We all do better off with a government that recognizes our common goals and sifts through contrasting tactics to achieve them. Right now the right is doing a better job of that than the Left.
Ruy, I love your optimism, but many Democrats would be voting against their self interest to vote for reimagining government. They are trying to hold on to status quo.
The failings of the Biden administration seem like a long time ago, but his policies are in place, and some people have daily reminders, adding injury to insult.
With gender policy , public schools are driving parents away. When I renewed my drivers license yesterday, the clerk mentioned to me that her 12 year old had been offered the thought that perhaps he has feelings of not being sure it he is comfortable as a boy. When a total stranger at the DMV tells me this, I know the plague of crazy is everywhere. Do you think her family will vote Democrat? Multiple that experience by the millions of voters with school children getting the same ‘guidance’. In addition the students aren’t learning a fraction of what they should.
I lived in Florida during the 2000 election. There was so much emphasis on the military ballots which were one factor in the close race. Any candidate should consider these. Democratic disparagement of patriotism may not encourage the support of these voters.
Yes, but as a former U.S. Army Armor officer I can say that many of the highly ethical and patriotic members of the Armed Forces are disgusted by Trump and Hegseth's apparent disregard for the limits on Executive power imposed by the U.S. Constitution, and the limits on the conduct of warfare imposed by the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements.
The most egregious recent example of this is not the surgical attack on Venezuela, but the top-directed lawfare against Senator Mark Kelley (a very honorable retired Navy officer) for his publicizing the FACTS regarding the duty of all Armed Forces personnel to obey only the lawful orders of superiors -- up to and including the President as Commander-in-Chief. (And just how well did Donald Trump execute his oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution against "all enemies, foreign and domestic" in his supporters' attack on the U.S. Congress on January 6, 2021?)
This was spot on. However, Ruy please don't hold your breath, waiting for Dems to adopt your policy suggestions. It would appear the notion of a moderate Dem is a myth, other than Fetterman.
Spanberger and Sherrill were famously sold as moderates last November, but the former voted with AOC 100% of the time during Biden's term, and the latter 96% of the time.
Perhaps Mamdani and his hammer and sickle staff, that believe in collective housing for everyone but their parents dwelling in 7 figure homes, might eventually push the Party back Right, if the fail is epic enough. Otherwise, Dem "moderation" does not seem to be the phrase of day, month or year.
After the tragedy of Minnesota, I expected at least a few Dems to advise, protest is fine, but it must be orderly and safe. Follow law enforcement instructions. Keep a safe distance, for your protection and that of agents. Propose legislation. Consider other avenues to aid migrants.
Instead, Dem lawmakers, with law degrees, are tossing around the word "murder" like the women walked out of a grocery, and the agent put a gun to the base of her skull and pulled the trigger. They seem to be deliberately inflaming Protesters, with no thought to their future safety.
Moreover, many Dems seem to believe federal law is no longer applicable in their cities or states, if they find it distasteful. Sanctuary state or city means local police can refuse to aid federal law enforcement. It does not mean the areas are exempt from federal law. Imagine tomorrow morning Greg Abbott decreeing federal gun laws were no longer applicable in Texas, and the ATF was barred from all enforcement measures. Dems would come unglued, but that is exactly their take on Immigration law in Blue States.
Ruy, I have no idea where you reside, but maybe the best chance for moderation is a House or Senate run by you, proposing your own common sense policies. My guess is you would have a great chance in any Purple to Red district or state. Maybe best to avoid bright Blue areas.
The biology stuff is a real sticking point for me, for more than one reason. I'll lay it out, and will preface this by saying that each point has equal importance. So I ask anyone who reads this comment not assign a hierarchy when in fact for me the hierarchy of objections is flat, while the nature of expression forces an order even when it's not by importance.
The first point to make is that, to me, the biological details are oddly secondary. What really sticks out, and I doubt just to me, is the absurdity of even having the discussion. I think of Orwell's "1984," in which Winston Smith is tortured into saying that 2+2=5, or whatever they say it equals. The core trans activist argument is that someone can decide their sex, which just isn't true, and can change their sex with a combination of drugs and cosmetic surgery, which is also false.
That this even winds up being debated is, by itself, outlandish to put it mildly. Homo sapiens is a mammal, and mammals are sexually dimorphic. Period. That there are hermaphrodites ("intersexed") only proves the point. And the whole sex change phenomenon actually has nothing to do with intersexed, because no one EVER chooses to be intersexed, a condition that's always accompanied by other problems that no one would ever want.
The second point is closely related, and that's about the false distinction between sex and gender that's favored by these activists. The idea is supposedly that sex is the biology while gender is the expression. Really? Then why do they want to change the sex designation on various official documents? Why do they want to take hormones and have surgery, both of which aim at the morphology rather than the expression?
The reality is that the activists want to erase "the binary" in biology. As for gender, well, if for purposes of argument we accept the distinction, the reality there is that sex and gender are closely related for most people, but also that there is variation on the expression side of things. So, again, why do they want to force the genders into the same binary that they pretend to oppose? They talk out of both sides of their mouths, but that's what "progressives" do. Critical thinking has never been their strong point.
Third point. Being homosexual, I am painfully aware of the old trope that gay men might as well be women, and the reverse for lesbians. This is exacerbated by the reality of the evidence, which is that, on average, gay men tend to be more classically feminine and lesbians tend to be more classically masculine than the archetypes. It's by no means universally the case, but it's a reality. So then what? Do we look at, say, a 13-year-old boy who'll never be mistaken for Sgt. Rock in 10 years and try to tell him that maybe he's really a girl inside and should "transition?"
That's what the activists have been doing, and it's as wrong as the forced "sex change" operations (which now would be "gender transitions") that took place in South Africa, and still take place in Iran right now. Same goes for what young "tomboys," lesbian or not, are being told. You're really a boy. How about a "transition?" Um, how about something different? How about a therapist telling that young not-Sgt. Rock that G.I. Joe ain't the only way to be a man? How about telling the "tomboy" that this stage of youth is pretty common among girls, and it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you?
Fourth, and closely related to the third: LGBTQIA+ etc. So now there's this big category where unrelated or at least quite tangentially related elements are thrown into a stock pot and treated the same way. Um, no. To the gay men and lesbians I know, "the binary," i.e. male and female, are just as significant to us as they are to our hetero cousins. No one asked us about the T or the I or the A or that + sign, and what the hell is that Q about?
Finally, here I am, having written a long comment about something that's absurd. A tiny group of activists, aided by the degraded legacy media, has forced this on people. I am convinced that the TQIA+ survives because the overwhelming majority of people, including not only heterosexuals but also LGs (incidentally, the B only matters when the L or G is involved), find the TQIA+ stuff uncomfortable and strange, and abandon the conversation to the activists because no one needs the hassle.
And then someone finds out that their second grader has been asked what "gender" he thinks he is, and it's off to the races. Things get dicey, and there's the Democratic Party, having been taken over by "progressives," standing for absurdity, and actually wondering why so many people think they are absolutely, positively, totally full of merde. Wow, who knew? I did.
A solid programme, as liberal nationalism has always been, but there are a few oversimplifications here, and I've mentioned before that I find this one to be the most overlooked throughout all these debates:
>>"the real solution [for the left] is to worry less about merit and more about equal outcomes—'equity' in parlance of our times. This is nuts."<<
It is indeed nuts if you look at 'equity' in a simplistic and extreme way--as progressives often do-- but not entirely so if you understand it in a more nuanced fashion. Here's the rub: if the goal is a meritocracy (as I agree it should be), then you can't get away from the fact that meritocracy isn't sustainable without a middle class. Societies without middle classes very reliably end up as some manner of autocratic regime, be it fascist, communist, or a neo-feudal failed state. Meritocracy isn't really possible in those sort of illiberal systems.
So while the primary emphasis should absolutely be on promoting merit-based policies, you also need to ensure the policies you promote are such that they will achieve a generally-but-not-perfectly equitable distribution--a 'bell curve'--of outcomes. By that I mean the lion's share of social outcomes are clustered in the middle of the distribution (that's the middle class and the 'hump' in the bell), and only a significant minority of them cluster around the extreme outcomes (extreme wealth or extreme poverty) at the steep edges of the bell.
And sustaining a middle class, historically, has usually meant that, on occasion, you need to introduce some kind of artificial support system--something like, say, pensions and Social Security for the elderly, for example--or stage some kind of temporary intervention to prevent mass polarization. (This is sort of what Keynes--one of history's most prominent liberal nationalists and an eminent pragmatist--was getting at) I agree that DEI as we currently know it does not fall into this category--but if you rule out these kinds of interventions *completely*, you will likely not wind up with a meritocracy. You will wind up with the exact opposite. *That* is the complex reality of merit-based governance and merit-based philosophy. Fortunately, liberal nationalism is a philosophy uniquely suited to dealing with that complexity; unfortunately, no philosophy at all will equip someone to deal with it if they try to hand-wave away its existence entirely.
While I also appreciate the economic benefits of free markets -- in terms of maximizing societal output -- I also recognize a value to a society in limiting "income inequality." It reduces the happiness of people below the highest economic levels (the "right tail" of the bell curve) even though they are arguably better off in terms of their material wealth.
In conjunction with the accurate realization that "the rich" have disproportionate political power per capita, this contributes to the political polarization that we see today, and in the extreme can lead to revolutions against "wealthy plutocrats" of the type in Russia and Cuba.
My MAIN proposals for the solution to this do not require centralized control of the economy. They are:
1. Expand progressive taxation of income and -- particularly -- of inheritance.
2. As a word to the super-rich like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk who SHOULD be wise -- follow the example of Warren Buffett and stop your in-your-face conspicuous consumption of consumer goods like multiple luxury homes, jet aircraft, and yachts.
3. If you can't see "profitable" ways of investing your disposable income, then give it to charity. That's not only a matter of community responsibility, but of your families' long-term self-interest.
1. I'm advocating taking more money MAINLY from those who have extremely high ability to afford it, to finance programs that -- yes -- benefit low income people REGARDLESS OF RACE and other forms of self-identity, but also that benefit all of us including national defense, public education, public health, retirement security, and public infrastructure.
2. As a higher income individual myself, that wouldn't affect MY OWN life all that much, but in my opinion -- with a background in such things as economics, civil engineering, and national security -- would affect the lives of many others including my descendants, especially those who might not be as adept as I have been at "making money." I don't know how it would affect you, but that obviously appears to be your only concern. While I support your right to express your opinions online and in voting, I don't respect your opinions as a matter either of concern for others who are less fortunate or even as a matter of "enlightened self-interest."
3. As to "virtue signaling," by the traditional American standards of what constitutes "virtue," my only regret is that I have not been more effective in advancing those in my roles as an Army officer, a professional civil engineer, and an American citizen promoting intelligent, ethical BALANCE in public policies. In posts that are too numerous to reiterate here, I have criticized specific left-wing policies on many issues including racial preferences, immediate shut-down of fossil fuel extraction, open borders, and taxes on "wealth."
So, if you and other extreme conservatives are as smart as you think you are and want to criticize anyone as being an ignorant leftist "virtue signaler," you had better pick on somebody else. (Try "Phosphorus," for example.)
1. Taking more money from anyone - even those that YOU decide can 'afford' it - is a ridiculous proposal given the demonstrable inability of our government to prevent fraud and outright theft. Giving money to NGOs to hire lefty cronies at six figure plus wages is a hard no.
2. You are completely and totally and utterly ignorant about me and my religious service and charity work. If you consider good works to be advocating that you take money from someone, funnel it thru an NGO to p*ss it away, and then pat yourself on the back as being 'enlightened,' then go for it.
3. I am not an 'extreme conservative, just someone with a brain. I didn't call you an 'ignorant leftist' in my original post, but if the shoe fits...
I agree entirely with what Ruy Teixeira says here, as well as the other two parts of this series. What I don't understand is how polls show the Democrats to be at record lows in pupularity but they still win elections. Is it solely because Trump is viewed as toxic? Or is it that most Democrats go into the voting booth and just automatically vote for the ticket because that is how they have voted since their college years. There seems to be a rigid mindset that ignores counter arguments, no matter how valid they are. An example would be Biden's view that he would have won the 2024 election had he stayed in the race. You will never convince him otherwise. Another example would be the belief of many if not most Democrats that in Charlottesville, Trump said that neo-Nazis and white supremacists were "very fine people." You will never convince them otherwise. My own view is that it is the very heavy mindset on the part of Democrats that it is better to vote for the Democrat, regardless of what Ruy Teixeira has said about their views on merit, biology and patriotic realism.
Ruy asks: "how to reach ordinary working-class voters" and how to "deliver what these voters want."
But the Left has always experienced itself as fighting for the oppressed underclass against the oppressors. That's what wage and hour law were about, and civil rights, and gay rights: fighting for the oppressed. It was political dynamite when workers and immigrants were a majority of voters. Today, not so much.
When it comes to delivering what oppressed voters want, I propose that nobody has a clue, leat of all the left, and the history of the last 100 years bears witness to this.
I say that the way to approach politics is to acknowledge that nobody ha a clue.
I remind everyone of working-class philosopher Eric Hoffer's words:
"What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation."
"Equality of opportunity" as the standard to which liberals should aspire suffers from the reality that not everyone is born or raised equal. We benefit (or suffer) from unequal genetic endowments and unequal upbringings.....delivered via our birth parents. Schools and community not only cannot eliminate these endowments, they often actually deepen them. And positive assortative dating/mating entrenches these differences.
While liberals may alway aspire to equality of outcome across demographics, it cannot be the only goal post against which every government action is evaluated.
I work at a university that serves a lot of military and has a Veteran's Success Center. After my husband died (VN Veteran/agent orange) I donated to the center and suggested our union be more engaged. I was belittled. I'd been 4 years on our bargaining team and local DEC. I felt they thought I was betraying being a Dem by suggesting engagement with our veteran's center. There was a perception that any show of patriotic activity was against democratic norms. I began university teaching when many veterans were on the faculties. There are almost none now.
In the late 70s three quarters of people in congress had served.
I teach librarianship and when I was a student many of my profs had been in intelligence or Signals in the military. One of my profs had been the librarian to the Manhattan Project. As these people retired those teaching now have little understanding Only one of my current colleagues has served. When I expressed concern about Waltz' saying he was a CSM when he wasn't-- only two knew what a CSM was.
Yes and no. Not fair or wise to judge people on their familiarity with your acronyms.
I get the sense she’s simply judging people’s familiarity with the military based on their familiarity with military jargon, not their personal worth.
So someone's not familiar with the military. What's wrong with that?
Nothing, which was my point.
Her point was that previously many professors in her field were veterans, and she used unfamiliarity with military jargon as a means of determining that was no longer the case.
Both of the following statements are true.
You can be fiercely patriotic without having served or any familiarity with the military.
People who have served or simply have close familiarity with the military tend to be very patriotic.
Jim, this isn't jargon--a CSM is a senior enlisted advisor and highest-ranking non-commissioned officer in a U.S. Army unit. Anyone who is a child or spouse of a veteran or even remotely aware would know. But my university is near CENTCOM so it seemed odd to me that so few knew that TW saying he was a CSM when he wasn't was not a positive characteristic of his expressed military experience. But I also think the policy people who vetted him didn't realize how important it was that he stated this when it was not so.
"I began university teaching when many veterans were on the faculties. There are almost none now."
The previous generation of intellectuals were also drawn from working-class families. Now they draw from extremely affluent upper-middle class families. But as someone who is broadly against intellectuals carrying moral authority, I think the narrowing of their demographic base is a good thing.
You have nailed it with your assessment. I have looked at where the Democrats have been on these three issues and just thought they were complete nuts on them. In particular if they could be nuts on what I think of as very easy subjects to decide how in the world could I trust them on subjects that are actually difficult to resolve. How can I trust their judgement to implement big government systems when they can’t get these right. And how in the heck do they think we can compete with competitors like China when we don’t believe in individual merit or our country or the simplest biological facts.
It’s true that liberals won a colossal and righteous victory in the latter half of the 20th century on behalf of civil rights. Americans now overwhelmingly agree with MLK’s brilliant formulation of “content of character”.
And with the Great Society programs, we set about making that dream a reality. Liberals won the victory, and we followed their prescriptions for action. We set up armies of government employees with massive funding to wage war on poverty, discrimination, and inequality.
But liberals didn’t see that they had painted themselves into a corner. They had created a poverty industrial complex with a vested interest in making sure the programs continued forever.
People eventually noticed that despite a lot of money, the programs were not accomplishing the goal. How to explain this apparent lack of progress?
It couldn’t be the prescriptions were wrong. No, it was clearly institutional racism. The ideas were great, it was the country that was bad! Evil, in fact. Rotten to the core, right from the beginning!
They needed to protect the poverty industrial complex they built.
By way of answer, I will quote the comments of one of LBJ's Great Society anti-poverty bureaucrats, Charles R. Morris: "Like the war in Vietnam, the illusions of the anti-poverty program persisted because so many people were anxious to be gulled...With a clarity of logic that had somehow eluded the antipoverty program designers, poor people readily appreciated that bigger welfare checks were a more direct and certain way to increase their incomes than the confusing personal-improvement schemes hawked by Washington."
Daniel Moynihan tried to warn them that their policies would produce more damage than good. They refused to listen and called him a racist.
Great analysis…but they don’t show much sign of re-examining their positions!
As a dedicated centrist who supports the notion of America being a force for good internationally and domestically, my former sense of pride in the country is shaken by a political structure that limits our choice of leadership to the MAGA Republicans or the socialist dominated Democrats. I take some consolation in supporting centrist organizations like the Liberal Patriot and No Labels, but sadly the depth of their support is very thin.
The door is wide open for a moderate Democrat - a liberal patriot - to easily beat JD Vance in 2028 by adopting Ruy's ideas. The extreme anti-tax ideology of the current GOP will be very unpopular when tax increases are needed to save Medicare and Social Security. And Trump's repulsive personality will alienate even more persuadable voters over the next three years, hurting the Republican brand.
But the hardcore Left comprises all the energy in the Democratic party almost everywhere. The Wokesters punch way above their weight in Democratic primaries because they show up at very high rates compared to less ideologically intense Democrats. The bottom line: the Democratic party won't change and they will base their electoral hopes on an economic downturn and the foibles of a very erratic President Trump.
Do you really think voters - after witnessing what's going on in Minnesota - will believe they just need to pay more taxes to the government? Seriously? And Trump has been a pig for 10+ years, hard to imagine that there are voters who aren't aware of it.
I live in Minnesota so I’m all too aware of terrible mismanagement and fraud in government programs. People will want other people to pay more taxes to preserve Social Security and Medicare and other popular programs.
Could be the big donors would get behind a moderate Democrat. That looks like the only path to have a chance.
Your analysis of the Democrat dilemma is accurate. Another way to describe the issue is that the Democrat leadership has stopped talking about principles and appears to be searching for effective marketing slogans. Programs that don't perform get more funding so the failures can try harder and hire more voters.
Certainly the GOP in not composed of pure reason, sweetness and light but the voters who voted for Trump were presented with an unacceptable alternative named Biden. Trump (for all his yankee BS) is trying to deliver the product he offered. He didn't hypnotize the voters. He told us what he'd try to do and is trying to follow that outline. Joe (really his handlers) promised conservative lite, blew up the budget, went socialist and lied about it.
We all do better off with a government that recognizes our common goals and sifts through contrasting tactics to achieve them. Right now the right is doing a better job of that than the Left.
Ruy, I love your optimism, but many Democrats would be voting against their self interest to vote for reimagining government. They are trying to hold on to status quo.
The failings of the Biden administration seem like a long time ago, but his policies are in place, and some people have daily reminders, adding injury to insult.
With gender policy , public schools are driving parents away. When I renewed my drivers license yesterday, the clerk mentioned to me that her 12 year old had been offered the thought that perhaps he has feelings of not being sure it he is comfortable as a boy. When a total stranger at the DMV tells me this, I know the plague of crazy is everywhere. Do you think her family will vote Democrat? Multiple that experience by the millions of voters with school children getting the same ‘guidance’. In addition the students aren’t learning a fraction of what they should.
And of course democrats are being blamed for lack of respect for the law, law enforcement officers, and the Chief Executive working to enforce the laws that Congress passed. Presidents have been deporting them illegals for years. https://latinonewsnetwork.com/community/who-deported-more-migrants-obama-or-trump-we-checked-the-numbers/
Voters are reminded everyday that the democrats agenda hasn’t changed.
Absolutely brilliant! The entire series has been! Kudos to Ruy! Unfortunately, the left and the Democrats will NOT change.
I lived in Florida during the 2000 election. There was so much emphasis on the military ballots which were one factor in the close race. Any candidate should consider these. Democratic disparagement of patriotism may not encourage the support of these voters.
Yes, but as a former U.S. Army Armor officer I can say that many of the highly ethical and patriotic members of the Armed Forces are disgusted by Trump and Hegseth's apparent disregard for the limits on Executive power imposed by the U.S. Constitution, and the limits on the conduct of warfare imposed by the Geneva Conventions and other international agreements.
The most egregious recent example of this is not the surgical attack on Venezuela, but the top-directed lawfare against Senator Mark Kelley (a very honorable retired Navy officer) for his publicizing the FACTS regarding the duty of all Armed Forces personnel to obey only the lawful orders of superiors -- up to and including the President as Commander-in-Chief. (And just how well did Donald Trump execute his oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution against "all enemies, foreign and domestic" in his supporters' attack on the U.S. Congress on January 6, 2021?)
You certainly don't speak for everyone in the military. Many highly ethical and patriotic members I know are perfectly happy with current leadership.
This was spot on. However, Ruy please don't hold your breath, waiting for Dems to adopt your policy suggestions. It would appear the notion of a moderate Dem is a myth, other than Fetterman.
Spanberger and Sherrill were famously sold as moderates last November, but the former voted with AOC 100% of the time during Biden's term, and the latter 96% of the time.
Perhaps Mamdani and his hammer and sickle staff, that believe in collective housing for everyone but their parents dwelling in 7 figure homes, might eventually push the Party back Right, if the fail is epic enough. Otherwise, Dem "moderation" does not seem to be the phrase of day, month or year.
After the tragedy of Minnesota, I expected at least a few Dems to advise, protest is fine, but it must be orderly and safe. Follow law enforcement instructions. Keep a safe distance, for your protection and that of agents. Propose legislation. Consider other avenues to aid migrants.
Instead, Dem lawmakers, with law degrees, are tossing around the word "murder" like the women walked out of a grocery, and the agent put a gun to the base of her skull and pulled the trigger. They seem to be deliberately inflaming Protesters, with no thought to their future safety.
Moreover, many Dems seem to believe federal law is no longer applicable in their cities or states, if they find it distasteful. Sanctuary state or city means local police can refuse to aid federal law enforcement. It does not mean the areas are exempt from federal law. Imagine tomorrow morning Greg Abbott decreeing federal gun laws were no longer applicable in Texas, and the ATF was barred from all enforcement measures. Dems would come unglued, but that is exactly their take on Immigration law in Blue States.
Ruy, I have no idea where you reside, but maybe the best chance for moderation is a House or Senate run by you, proposing your own common sense policies. My guess is you would have a great chance in any Purple to Red district or state. Maybe best to avoid bright Blue areas.
The biology stuff is a real sticking point for me, for more than one reason. I'll lay it out, and will preface this by saying that each point has equal importance. So I ask anyone who reads this comment not assign a hierarchy when in fact for me the hierarchy of objections is flat, while the nature of expression forces an order even when it's not by importance.
The first point to make is that, to me, the biological details are oddly secondary. What really sticks out, and I doubt just to me, is the absurdity of even having the discussion. I think of Orwell's "1984," in which Winston Smith is tortured into saying that 2+2=5, or whatever they say it equals. The core trans activist argument is that someone can decide their sex, which just isn't true, and can change their sex with a combination of drugs and cosmetic surgery, which is also false.
That this even winds up being debated is, by itself, outlandish to put it mildly. Homo sapiens is a mammal, and mammals are sexually dimorphic. Period. That there are hermaphrodites ("intersexed") only proves the point. And the whole sex change phenomenon actually has nothing to do with intersexed, because no one EVER chooses to be intersexed, a condition that's always accompanied by other problems that no one would ever want.
The second point is closely related, and that's about the false distinction between sex and gender that's favored by these activists. The idea is supposedly that sex is the biology while gender is the expression. Really? Then why do they want to change the sex designation on various official documents? Why do they want to take hormones and have surgery, both of which aim at the morphology rather than the expression?
The reality is that the activists want to erase "the binary" in biology. As for gender, well, if for purposes of argument we accept the distinction, the reality there is that sex and gender are closely related for most people, but also that there is variation on the expression side of things. So, again, why do they want to force the genders into the same binary that they pretend to oppose? They talk out of both sides of their mouths, but that's what "progressives" do. Critical thinking has never been their strong point.
Third point. Being homosexual, I am painfully aware of the old trope that gay men might as well be women, and the reverse for lesbians. This is exacerbated by the reality of the evidence, which is that, on average, gay men tend to be more classically feminine and lesbians tend to be more classically masculine than the archetypes. It's by no means universally the case, but it's a reality. So then what? Do we look at, say, a 13-year-old boy who'll never be mistaken for Sgt. Rock in 10 years and try to tell him that maybe he's really a girl inside and should "transition?"
That's what the activists have been doing, and it's as wrong as the forced "sex change" operations (which now would be "gender transitions") that took place in South Africa, and still take place in Iran right now. Same goes for what young "tomboys," lesbian or not, are being told. You're really a boy. How about a "transition?" Um, how about something different? How about a therapist telling that young not-Sgt. Rock that G.I. Joe ain't the only way to be a man? How about telling the "tomboy" that this stage of youth is pretty common among girls, and it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you?
Fourth, and closely related to the third: LGBTQIA+ etc. So now there's this big category where unrelated or at least quite tangentially related elements are thrown into a stock pot and treated the same way. Um, no. To the gay men and lesbians I know, "the binary," i.e. male and female, are just as significant to us as they are to our hetero cousins. No one asked us about the T or the I or the A or that + sign, and what the hell is that Q about?
Finally, here I am, having written a long comment about something that's absurd. A tiny group of activists, aided by the degraded legacy media, has forced this on people. I am convinced that the TQIA+ survives because the overwhelming majority of people, including not only heterosexuals but also LGs (incidentally, the B only matters when the L or G is involved), find the TQIA+ stuff uncomfortable and strange, and abandon the conversation to the activists because no one needs the hassle.
And then someone finds out that their second grader has been asked what "gender" he thinks he is, and it's off to the races. Things get dicey, and there's the Democratic Party, having been taken over by "progressives," standing for absurdity, and actually wondering why so many people think they are absolutely, positively, totally full of merde. Wow, who knew? I did.
A solid programme, as liberal nationalism has always been, but there are a few oversimplifications here, and I've mentioned before that I find this one to be the most overlooked throughout all these debates:
>>"the real solution [for the left] is to worry less about merit and more about equal outcomes—'equity' in parlance of our times. This is nuts."<<
It is indeed nuts if you look at 'equity' in a simplistic and extreme way--as progressives often do-- but not entirely so if you understand it in a more nuanced fashion. Here's the rub: if the goal is a meritocracy (as I agree it should be), then you can't get away from the fact that meritocracy isn't sustainable without a middle class. Societies without middle classes very reliably end up as some manner of autocratic regime, be it fascist, communist, or a neo-feudal failed state. Meritocracy isn't really possible in those sort of illiberal systems.
So while the primary emphasis should absolutely be on promoting merit-based policies, you also need to ensure the policies you promote are such that they will achieve a generally-but-not-perfectly equitable distribution--a 'bell curve'--of outcomes. By that I mean the lion's share of social outcomes are clustered in the middle of the distribution (that's the middle class and the 'hump' in the bell), and only a significant minority of them cluster around the extreme outcomes (extreme wealth or extreme poverty) at the steep edges of the bell.
And sustaining a middle class, historically, has usually meant that, on occasion, you need to introduce some kind of artificial support system--something like, say, pensions and Social Security for the elderly, for example--or stage some kind of temporary intervention to prevent mass polarization. (This is sort of what Keynes--one of history's most prominent liberal nationalists and an eminent pragmatist--was getting at) I agree that DEI as we currently know it does not fall into this category--but if you rule out these kinds of interventions *completely*, you will likely not wind up with a meritocracy. You will wind up with the exact opposite. *That* is the complex reality of merit-based governance and merit-based philosophy. Fortunately, liberal nationalism is a philosophy uniquely suited to dealing with that complexity; unfortunately, no philosophy at all will equip someone to deal with it if they try to hand-wave away its existence entirely.
I appreciate this very intelligent analysis.
While I also appreciate the economic benefits of free markets -- in terms of maximizing societal output -- I also recognize a value to a society in limiting "income inequality." It reduces the happiness of people below the highest economic levels (the "right tail" of the bell curve) even though they are arguably better off in terms of their material wealth.
In conjunction with the accurate realization that "the rich" have disproportionate political power per capita, this contributes to the political polarization that we see today, and in the extreme can lead to revolutions against "wealthy plutocrats" of the type in Russia and Cuba.
My MAIN proposals for the solution to this do not require centralized control of the economy. They are:
1. Expand progressive taxation of income and -- particularly -- of inheritance.
2. As a word to the super-rich like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk who SHOULD be wise -- follow the example of Warren Buffett and stop your in-your-face conspicuous consumption of consumer goods like multiple luxury homes, jet aircraft, and yachts.
3. If you can't see "profitable" ways of investing your disposable income, then give it to charity. That's not only a matter of community responsibility, but of your families' long-term self-interest.
#1. Take even more money from taxpayers, because the government is such a successful steward.
#2. How is this going to make my life better?
#3. Especially love this. Virtue signaling on steroids.
1. I'm advocating taking more money MAINLY from those who have extremely high ability to afford it, to finance programs that -- yes -- benefit low income people REGARDLESS OF RACE and other forms of self-identity, but also that benefit all of us including national defense, public education, public health, retirement security, and public infrastructure.
2. As a higher income individual myself, that wouldn't affect MY OWN life all that much, but in my opinion -- with a background in such things as economics, civil engineering, and national security -- would affect the lives of many others including my descendants, especially those who might not be as adept as I have been at "making money." I don't know how it would affect you, but that obviously appears to be your only concern. While I support your right to express your opinions online and in voting, I don't respect your opinions as a matter either of concern for others who are less fortunate or even as a matter of "enlightened self-interest."
3. As to "virtue signaling," by the traditional American standards of what constitutes "virtue," my only regret is that I have not been more effective in advancing those in my roles as an Army officer, a professional civil engineer, and an American citizen promoting intelligent, ethical BALANCE in public policies. In posts that are too numerous to reiterate here, I have criticized specific left-wing policies on many issues including racial preferences, immediate shut-down of fossil fuel extraction, open borders, and taxes on "wealth."
So, if you and other extreme conservatives are as smart as you think you are and want to criticize anyone as being an ignorant leftist "virtue signaler," you had better pick on somebody else. (Try "Phosphorus," for example.)
1. Taking more money from anyone - even those that YOU decide can 'afford' it - is a ridiculous proposal given the demonstrable inability of our government to prevent fraud and outright theft. Giving money to NGOs to hire lefty cronies at six figure plus wages is a hard no.
2. You are completely and totally and utterly ignorant about me and my religious service and charity work. If you consider good works to be advocating that you take money from someone, funnel it thru an NGO to p*ss it away, and then pat yourself on the back as being 'enlightened,' then go for it.
3. I am not an 'extreme conservative, just someone with a brain. I didn't call you an 'ignorant leftist' in my original post, but if the shoe fits...
I agree entirely with what Ruy Teixeira says here, as well as the other two parts of this series. What I don't understand is how polls show the Democrats to be at record lows in pupularity but they still win elections. Is it solely because Trump is viewed as toxic? Or is it that most Democrats go into the voting booth and just automatically vote for the ticket because that is how they have voted since their college years. There seems to be a rigid mindset that ignores counter arguments, no matter how valid they are. An example would be Biden's view that he would have won the 2024 election had he stayed in the race. You will never convince him otherwise. Another example would be the belief of many if not most Democrats that in Charlottesville, Trump said that neo-Nazis and white supremacists were "very fine people." You will never convince them otherwise. My own view is that it is the very heavy mindset on the part of Democrats that it is better to vote for the Democrat, regardless of what Ruy Teixeira has said about their views on merit, biology and patriotic realism.
Ruy asks: "how to reach ordinary working-class voters" and how to "deliver what these voters want."
But the Left has always experienced itself as fighting for the oppressed underclass against the oppressors. That's what wage and hour law were about, and civil rights, and gay rights: fighting for the oppressed. It was political dynamite when workers and immigrants were a majority of voters. Today, not so much.
When it comes to delivering what oppressed voters want, I propose that nobody has a clue, leat of all the left, and the history of the last 100 years bears witness to this.
I say that the way to approach politics is to acknowledge that nobody ha a clue.
I remind everyone of working-class philosopher Eric Hoffer's words:
"What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation."
"Equality of opportunity" as the standard to which liberals should aspire suffers from the reality that not everyone is born or raised equal. We benefit (or suffer) from unequal genetic endowments and unequal upbringings.....delivered via our birth parents. Schools and community not only cannot eliminate these endowments, they often actually deepen them. And positive assortative dating/mating entrenches these differences.
While liberals may alway aspire to equality of outcome across demographics, it cannot be the only goal post against which every government action is evaluated.