The Liberal Patriot, Ruy Teixeira, is, in my opinion, the only sane voice I am hearing these days. He's also the ONLY one I financially will support. Thank you, Ruy. Keep up the good work and let's turn up the volume.
While I don't think the concept of the big tent is overrated (indeed, if Democrats want to govern for a decade or more, which they should seek to do, they need a big coalition), Ruy is right that it matters who calls the shots within the tent.
The big coalition the Democrats need is one that excludes the far left. Pragmatists in the party need to deliberately piss off anyone who's fine with boys in girls' sports, who wants to phase out fossil fuels, who wears a keffiyeh, and who won't support at least the deportation of people who committed crimes on top of illegal border crossings. Pushing those people out of the party will create room in the tent for a lot of moderates and disillusioned Trump supporters.
"talking about the affordability crisis and the cost-of-living will not induce these voters to forget what the party actually stands for." Spanberger seems to have won by doing just that and overriding Earle-Sears' attempt to make the election about trans stuff.
VA is a a near bright Blue state, that ended up with a Rep Governor after a transgender school rape scandal, that school officials tried to keep from parents. It hit at just the right time., a few months before the election Youngkin won. At the same time the Dem candidate admitted, he did not believe parents should determine what is taught in public schools. The mistakes cost Dems that 1 election. As always, the coverup was worse than the crime.
VA has not voted Red in a Presidential election in more than 20 years. At the same time, VA is not only home to legions of federal workers, but also scads of NGO employees. Both have seen their paychecks disappear with the Shutdown, if their jobs were not gone first with downsizing, all thanks to Trump. Even the VA margins were not really a surprise, when the current specifics are considered.
Keep in mind that the off-year electorate is completely different from the general electorate. The off-year electorate is dominated by college-educated white women, who are unusual liberal compared to college educated men or working class women. Supposedly the "Harris is for they/them" ad had a big impact on the swing states.
Political Parties seem to change course about as fast as ocean liners, like over the course of decades, maybe too slowly to miss icebergs. Look at the Republicans, they are still dealing in some quarters with free traders, support for low wage illegal labor, and no taxes on rich folks. It might take Democrats just as long to ditch woke and re embrace the working class.
Ezra Klein might see things in moral terms differently than I do, but he does support the idea of a truly big tent. Remember that essay "Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way"? Ezra disagrees with many positions on issues Kirk took, but Klein strongly supported how Kirk went about advocating his views. A big tent of Kleins would include those he disagreed with I'm sure,
The Big Tent is fundamentally impossible for Democrats. Take gender ideology as an example.
Suppose the activist base of the party stops ostracizing staunch liberals like JK Rowling. Then they will create a preference cascade in which all the liberals who quietly feel that gender ideology is misogynistic can finally speak out without fear of reputational harm, and then the transgender movement will be over. That will result in a major civil rights violation and a massive medical scandal tied around the Democrats' necks. Creating a big tent will destroy the party for a generation.
"They know the candidate’s party still thinks that transwomen are women, that biological boys should be able to play girls sports, that “gender-affirming” medical treatments for children are a great idea and should be easily available and that to question these ideas is to be on the wrong side of history itself."
Good article, and this says it all. There are those that take their wisdom from the Bible (whether they know it or not), and there are those that do what's right in their own minds. Hence our divide, in a nutshell, God bless the folks at the Liberal Patriot.
"There are those that take their wisdom from the Bible (whether they know it or not), and there are those that do what's right in their own minds. "
Excuse me, but this distinction makes no sense. For those who take their wisdom from the Bible, in whose mind do they do what's right, other than their own? Your own mind is the only one you are capable of inhabiting, and certainly the only one capable of controlling what you do.
At some fundamental level we have to use our minds to evaluate truth-claims. But William's point is that Christians use the Bible as their moral data. By contrast, secular people believe what credentialed experts tell them to believe. For a long time the prevailing belief on the left was that gender was a social construct, but biological sex was real. I once heard this explained as "the difference between boys and girls is what's between their legs, not what's in their heads." This view (falsely) holds that there is no such thing as pink brains and blue brains, but the patriarchy socializes women to have submissive and feminine traits. Then a postmodernist comes along and says "gender is deep and innate but biological sex is a social construct" and all of a sudden lifelong liberals like JK Rowling become hate-filled bigots for not getting the firmware update.
This is particularly ironic because the brave new world of leftism holds that women are inherently submissive and passive. So instead of saying that women can be tomboys, they are really actual boys. And instead of saying men can be feminine, they are really actual women. Thus submissiveness becomes a much more inherently feminine trait under gender ideology.
A very simplistic summation of things, that also very disingenuously claims that secularists are "told" what to think by others, yet Christians are just have an unquestionable access to the truth. Or, you could say, secularists think for themselves, whereas Christians are told what to think by an old book. Choose your story.
The interesting thing, though, is your agreement with the 'gender radicals' about the "pink and blue brains". It's an irony that the supposedly radical progressive view of the sexes now holds the view that human brains are fundamentally and irreducibly 'pink or blue', despite the fact that the human bodies 'assigned' to those brains are apparently arbitrary. This is not only a very reductive, and unprogressive, view of male/female psychology, but a deeply old-fashioned, Cartesian attitude to the mind/body relationship.
I don't think that's accurate--that presumes a neatly segregated 'moral dataset' that doesn't exist. The texts of theological discourse and scientific discourse are historically and discursively intertwined in all sorts of ways, and the interpretive framework by which they are consumed is always unique to the individual. (There is no free-standing, 'uninterpreted' text--both secular and religious people make that epistemological mistake quite often) So in reality the beliefs of both secular and religious people are influenced by both scientific and religious discourse, and the texts they are rooted in.
Furthermore, religious paradigms are no less subject to change and 'firmware updates' than scientific ones. I.e., the pope is broadly accepted as the supreme religious authority, then suddenly a guy named Luther comes along with 95 theses and *update* actually papal decrees don't mean anything. Then Henry VIII comes along and *update* actually the King is the head of the church. Or, most salient in the American context, chattel slavery is divinely sanctioned by God then abolitionism/civil war/etc. *update* actually it's completely unChristian. As for 'belief in credentialed experts', again, it's not just a secularist thing--I'm sure you're aware of the scores of Christians who only vaguely know what's in the Bible, and rely on the pastor/priest/whoever and the Sunday sermon to tell them what it's all about. Indeed, I'd argue it's that capacity for evolution that keeps religions alive. A religion that completely lacks mutability is one that quickly dies out as the world changes.
That elections for Congress have become nationalized is often lamented by pundits. But that nationalization is completely rational: the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate make laws and regulations at the federal government level. Voters should make their voting decisions with that factor in mind, not who has the most pleasing smile, or who helped Grandma cut through red tape at the Social Security office. Do you overall like what the Republican President is doing? Then vote for Republicans for Congress. If you overall don't like what he is doing, vote for Democrats.
This is an especially weak take. Ruy kind of refutes himself right here:
***"At the margin, that would certainly be helpful. But would that really solve the fundamental image problem that bedevils the Democrats?"***
--both political parties have image problems, and for that reason (plus several others), in the current polarized political paradigm, *all elections are won on the margins*. Winning the margins is how you win power, period. Until the paradigm changes, that isn't going to change either.
The only way folks like Orban, Erdogan, et al. (or, on the left, people like Chavez in Venezuela) have overcome this is by explicit state repression and/or corruption of the electoral apparatus. Absent this, diversification is strength, and lack of a big tent will mean lack of a durable electoral coalition, for either the GOP or the DNC. As such, the underpinning precept behind every argument made in this article applies as much to Republicans as to Democrats. It might be a bit more accurate were the fundamental thesis instead "At the margin, [a big tent/diversification] would certainly be helpful. But would that really solve the fundamental image problem that bedevils [*the two American political parties*]?" No, it wouldn't. But unless a viable third party shows up, or Americans suddenly become comfortable with a monarchical system, there's no alternative to the two parties right now. And Americans are famously *not* cool with monarchies.
I ifrst noticed this developing feature of American politcs after the 1994 Democratic bloodbath where a number of midwestern, southern and western Democrats went down. In conversation a midwestern colleague said that gun control (Brady and Assault Weapons ban) had killed them. Didn't they vote against it, I asked. Yes, he said, but people are realizing that if the Democrats contol the House you're going to get gun control no matter how your own rep voted. As I recall Marge Roukema eventually quit because she was facing an analogous fate in NJ no matter how she herself voted.
The Liberal Patriot, Ruy Teixeira, is, in my opinion, the only sane voice I am hearing these days. He's also the ONLY one I financially will support. Thank you, Ruy. Keep up the good work and let's turn up the volume.
While I don't think the concept of the big tent is overrated (indeed, if Democrats want to govern for a decade or more, which they should seek to do, they need a big coalition), Ruy is right that it matters who calls the shots within the tent.
The big coalition the Democrats need is one that excludes the far left. Pragmatists in the party need to deliberately piss off anyone who's fine with boys in girls' sports, who wants to phase out fossil fuels, who wears a keffiyeh, and who won't support at least the deportation of people who committed crimes on top of illegal border crossings. Pushing those people out of the party will create room in the tent for a lot of moderates and disillusioned Trump supporters.
I'd rather they stay and vote, but not have a place on the platform or legislation, or even as interns etc.
"talking about the affordability crisis and the cost-of-living will not induce these voters to forget what the party actually stands for." Spanberger seems to have won by doing just that and overriding Earle-Sears' attempt to make the election about trans stuff.
VA is a a near bright Blue state, that ended up with a Rep Governor after a transgender school rape scandal, that school officials tried to keep from parents. It hit at just the right time., a few months before the election Youngkin won. At the same time the Dem candidate admitted, he did not believe parents should determine what is taught in public schools. The mistakes cost Dems that 1 election. As always, the coverup was worse than the crime.
VA has not voted Red in a Presidential election in more than 20 years. At the same time, VA is not only home to legions of federal workers, but also scads of NGO employees. Both have seen their paychecks disappear with the Shutdown, if their jobs were not gone first with downsizing, all thanks to Trump. Even the VA margins were not really a surprise, when the current specifics are considered.
Keep in mind that the off-year electorate is completely different from the general electorate. The off-year electorate is dominated by college-educated white women, who are unusual liberal compared to college educated men or working class women. Supposedly the "Harris is for they/them" ad had a big impact on the swing states.
Agree that this was a low-engagement, low-turnout round of elections.
Would next year's midterms be considered an "on" or "off" election?
Political Parties seem to change course about as fast as ocean liners, like over the course of decades, maybe too slowly to miss icebergs. Look at the Republicans, they are still dealing in some quarters with free traders, support for low wage illegal labor, and no taxes on rich folks. It might take Democrats just as long to ditch woke and re embrace the working class.
Ezra Klein might see things in moral terms differently than I do, but he does support the idea of a truly big tent. Remember that essay "Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way"? Ezra disagrees with many positions on issues Kirk took, but Klein strongly supported how Kirk went about advocating his views. A big tent of Kleins would include those he disagreed with I'm sure,
The Big Tent is fundamentally impossible for Democrats. Take gender ideology as an example.
Suppose the activist base of the party stops ostracizing staunch liberals like JK Rowling. Then they will create a preference cascade in which all the liberals who quietly feel that gender ideology is misogynistic can finally speak out without fear of reputational harm, and then the transgender movement will be over. That will result in a major civil rights violation and a massive medical scandal tied around the Democrats' necks. Creating a big tent will destroy the party for a generation.
"They know the candidate’s party still thinks that transwomen are women, that biological boys should be able to play girls sports, that “gender-affirming” medical treatments for children are a great idea and should be easily available and that to question these ideas is to be on the wrong side of history itself."
Good article, and this says it all. There are those that take their wisdom from the Bible (whether they know it or not), and there are those that do what's right in their own minds. Hence our divide, in a nutshell, God bless the folks at the Liberal Patriot.
"There are those that take their wisdom from the Bible (whether they know it or not), and there are those that do what's right in their own minds. "
Excuse me, but this distinction makes no sense. For those who take their wisdom from the Bible, in whose mind do they do what's right, other than their own? Your own mind is the only one you are capable of inhabiting, and certainly the only one capable of controlling what you do.
At some fundamental level we have to use our minds to evaluate truth-claims. But William's point is that Christians use the Bible as their moral data. By contrast, secular people believe what credentialed experts tell them to believe. For a long time the prevailing belief on the left was that gender was a social construct, but biological sex was real. I once heard this explained as "the difference between boys and girls is what's between their legs, not what's in their heads." This view (falsely) holds that there is no such thing as pink brains and blue brains, but the patriarchy socializes women to have submissive and feminine traits. Then a postmodernist comes along and says "gender is deep and innate but biological sex is a social construct" and all of a sudden lifelong liberals like JK Rowling become hate-filled bigots for not getting the firmware update.
This is particularly ironic because the brave new world of leftism holds that women are inherently submissive and passive. So instead of saying that women can be tomboys, they are really actual boys. And instead of saying men can be feminine, they are really actual women. Thus submissiveness becomes a much more inherently feminine trait under gender ideology.
A very simplistic summation of things, that also very disingenuously claims that secularists are "told" what to think by others, yet Christians are just have an unquestionable access to the truth. Or, you could say, secularists think for themselves, whereas Christians are told what to think by an old book. Choose your story.
The interesting thing, though, is your agreement with the 'gender radicals' about the "pink and blue brains". It's an irony that the supposedly radical progressive view of the sexes now holds the view that human brains are fundamentally and irreducibly 'pink or blue', despite the fact that the human bodies 'assigned' to those brains are apparently arbitrary. This is not only a very reductive, and unprogressive, view of male/female psychology, but a deeply old-fashioned, Cartesian attitude to the mind/body relationship.
I don't think that's accurate--that presumes a neatly segregated 'moral dataset' that doesn't exist. The texts of theological discourse and scientific discourse are historically and discursively intertwined in all sorts of ways, and the interpretive framework by which they are consumed is always unique to the individual. (There is no free-standing, 'uninterpreted' text--both secular and religious people make that epistemological mistake quite often) So in reality the beliefs of both secular and religious people are influenced by both scientific and religious discourse, and the texts they are rooted in.
Furthermore, religious paradigms are no less subject to change and 'firmware updates' than scientific ones. I.e., the pope is broadly accepted as the supreme religious authority, then suddenly a guy named Luther comes along with 95 theses and *update* actually papal decrees don't mean anything. Then Henry VIII comes along and *update* actually the King is the head of the church. Or, most salient in the American context, chattel slavery is divinely sanctioned by God then abolitionism/civil war/etc. *update* actually it's completely unChristian. As for 'belief in credentialed experts', again, it's not just a secularist thing--I'm sure you're aware of the scores of Christians who only vaguely know what's in the Bible, and rely on the pastor/priest/whoever and the Sunday sermon to tell them what it's all about. Indeed, I'd argue it's that capacity for evolution that keeps religions alive. A religion that completely lacks mutability is one that quickly dies out as the world changes.
That elections for Congress have become nationalized is often lamented by pundits. But that nationalization is completely rational: the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate make laws and regulations at the federal government level. Voters should make their voting decisions with that factor in mind, not who has the most pleasing smile, or who helped Grandma cut through red tape at the Social Security office. Do you overall like what the Republican President is doing? Then vote for Republicans for Congress. If you overall don't like what he is doing, vote for Democrats.
We're going to need a new tent.
This is an especially weak take. Ruy kind of refutes himself right here:
***"At the margin, that would certainly be helpful. But would that really solve the fundamental image problem that bedevils the Democrats?"***
--both political parties have image problems, and for that reason (plus several others), in the current polarized political paradigm, *all elections are won on the margins*. Winning the margins is how you win power, period. Until the paradigm changes, that isn't going to change either.
The only way folks like Orban, Erdogan, et al. (or, on the left, people like Chavez in Venezuela) have overcome this is by explicit state repression and/or corruption of the electoral apparatus. Absent this, diversification is strength, and lack of a big tent will mean lack of a durable electoral coalition, for either the GOP or the DNC. As such, the underpinning precept behind every argument made in this article applies as much to Republicans as to Democrats. It might be a bit more accurate were the fundamental thesis instead "At the margin, [a big tent/diversification] would certainly be helpful. But would that really solve the fundamental image problem that bedevils [*the two American political parties*]?" No, it wouldn't. But unless a viable third party shows up, or Americans suddenly become comfortable with a monarchical system, there's no alternative to the two parties right now. And Americans are famously *not* cool with monarchies.
I feel like the Libertarians were gaining some steam there for a while. Where did all of them go?
I ifrst noticed this developing feature of American politcs after the 1994 Democratic bloodbath where a number of midwestern, southern and western Democrats went down. In conversation a midwestern colleague said that gun control (Brady and Assault Weapons ban) had killed them. Didn't they vote against it, I asked. Yes, he said, but people are realizing that if the Democrats contol the House you're going to get gun control no matter how your own rep voted. As I recall Marge Roukema eventually quit because she was facing an analogous fate in NJ no matter how she herself voted.
Oh Ruy. Let the progressives, socialists, and antisemites have their fun.
Excellent!