TLP Weekend Edition (March 1-2, 2025)

What we're reading and checking out.

New Order paying homage to Ian Curtis in front of a jazzed crowd in Osaka, Japan, February 25, 2025. (Author photo)

📰 “In an Age of Right-Wing Populism, Why Are Denmark’s Liberals Winning?,” by David Leonhardt. NYT columnist David Leonhardt interviewed Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who argues that her leftist-oriented Social Democrats have found success at a time when much of the rest of the Western world has swung right because she got one key issue right: immigration. Leonhardt writes:

Leftist politics depend on collective solutions in which voters feel part of a shared community or nation, [Frederiksen] explained. Otherwise, they will not accept the high taxes that pay for a strong welfare state. 'Being a traditional Social Democratic thinker means you cannot allow everyone who wants to join your society to come,' Frederiksen says. Otherwise, 'it’s impossible to have a sustainable society, especially if you are a welfare society, as we are.' High levels of immigration can undermine this cohesion, she says, while imposing burdens on the working class that more affluent voters largely escape, such as strained benefit programs, crowded schools and increased competition for housing and blue-collar jobs. Working-class families know this from experience. Affluent leftists pretend otherwise and then lecture less privileged voters about their supposed intolerance.

📖 “A Way Out of the DEI Wars,” by Rick Kahlenberg. TLP interviewed Rick on this week’s podcast. His provocative new report for PPI asks: “When both sides in the DEI wars suppress free speech and try to police how citizens think, what is the way out? This report lays out a completely different vision that would end troubling DEI bureaucracies and replace them with new forms of civic education that seek to bring people of different backgrounds together and emphasize what they have in common as Americans.” Read the entire report and please listen to the new podcast.

📰 “Why Dems Are in the Wilderness,” by Kimberley Strassel. Strassel is certainly no member of the “resistance” but in her latest WSJ column she wisely counsels Republicans not to follow the lead of the Democrats in becoming addled by its hyper-online and close-minded activist base:

If Democrats didn’t already know the progressive agenda was a political loser (and Kamala Harris’s campaign subterfuge proves they did), they do now. What to do with an ash heap of a political platform, one nonetheless rigidly enforced by liberal shock troops, and no charismatic figure with the spine or know-how to lead a change of direction? Engage muscle memory and do the easy: fight, fight, fight. Thus the bizarre sight of Democrats rallying fervently in favor of government waste, fraud and inefficiency. Expect this to continue.

This could be the MAGA future. The GOP is a party of many factions, and their policy disagreements frequently produce stalemates and governing heartache. Influential Trump supporters are honing their own methods for stamping out even mild disagreement with the president’s approach: rally online supporters to pile on, label the target a member of the “uniparty” or the “establishment,” threaten a primary. This exact playbook was exercised numerous times over the past few weeks of nomination votes. “Rules for Radicals.”

It’s a recipe for intellectual stagnation. It’s a departure from the modern conservative movement, which has been defined by its innovative ideas, from school choice to civil-service reform. It sits unnaturally in a movement that has long prized individualism and entrepreneurship and condemned the left’s collectivism. It mistakes the goal of party unity (the act of members compromising on strongly held positions for a legislative victory) with the tyranny of party conformity (think like we do, or get the boot).

And look how it worked out for Democrats.

🍿 Flow, on Prime Video. This film is up for best animated feature at the Oscars this Sunday. From Rotten Tomatoes’ summary of this beautiful creation:

A wondrous journey, through realms natural and mystical, Flow follows a courageous cat after his home is devastated by a great flood. Teaming up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog to navigate a boat in search of dry land, they must rely on trust, courage, and wits to survive the perils of a newly aquatic planet. From the boundless imagination of the award-winning Gints Zilbalodis (Away) comes a thrilling animated spectacle as well as a profound meditation on the fragility of the environment and the spirit of friendship and community. Steeped in the soaring possibilities of visual storytelling, Flow is a feast for the senses and a treasure for the heart.

🎸 New Order, Live in Japan, 1985. TLP is visiting family in Japan and got the chance to see a seasoned New Order play to a packed and enthusiastic house in Osaka. Sumner’s vocals showed some natural aging but the music and songs remain ace 40+ years on. Grab an Asahi and check out this choice version of “Sunrise” at Koseinenkin Hall in Tokyo from New Order’s 1985 tour of Japan. Enjoy the weekend friends!