TLP Weekend Edition (March 7-8, 2026)
What we're reading and checking out.
📖 “Why Rustin? Why Now?” by Damage Magazine and Dustin Guastella. On their excellent Substack, Damage Magazine and Dustin Guastella offer some remarks to introduce their new book, Rustin’s Challenge, collecting key writings of the great civil rights leader Bayard Rustin along with some political commentary.
It’s easy to flatten Bayard Rustin into a kind of stock character: the 1960s activist, the outsider, the agitator, the dreamy idealist. This is wrong.
Rustin was hard-nosed and iron-willed. He was suspicious of the young New Left—and they were suspicious of him. He didn’t like sentimental liberalism. He didn’t like fads. He was, throughout his life, obsessively concerned with one problem: the problem of social class, or the problem of who gets what, and who does what, in a rich, industrial society.
Even his commitment to civil rights (for which he was immortalized most recently in a 2023 Netflix movie produced by the Obamas) wasn’t an end in itself, but rather, was a means to building what he really wanted: a movement for economic equality and social solidarity…
That brings us to the second part of the question: Why now?
Coming of age in the 1930s Rustin’s political sensibilities were shaped by the organizations and philosophy of what we now call the Old Left. That Left was characterized by a singular focus on the plight of the working masses, the failures of the economic system, and the determination to forge a new social compact. He swam among the reformers and radicals of the 1940s and the civil rights change-makers of the 1950s. He was, therefore, exceptionally well-positioned to see both the virtues of the New Deal, which he fought to advance, and the emerging vices of the New Left.
The new progressives of the ‘60s, he observed, were increasingly quick to “substitute self-expression for politics.” They embraced personal autonomy as the highest good and endorsed a permanent revolution in cultural norms. They were obsessed with the psychological problems of racism and sexism but less excited by questions of how an economy should be run, the way a national budget should be organized, what to do about jobs, and who would pay for which programs and why. We still live in the long shadow of that Left; the shadow of 1968. And this shadow is now so long it’s sometimes hard to see the edges of it, or the light beyond it.
Today progressives still focus the lion’s share of their energy on cultural priorities, demands for tolerance, and radical-sounding slogans—to defund this or abolish that—which have no hope of attracting the kind of durable majorities needed to achieve reform.
Rustin witnessed the emergence of these progressive pathologies firsthand. Just as one can identify the exact moment when a bell is struck but can never quite pinpoint when the ringing stops, the counterproductive tendencies that would shape the Left for the next several decades were perfectly clear to him then. They were new and sharp, representing a break from what had come before. And, he feared, this approach to politics was a step backward that would only contribute to the slowing, or even reversal, of American political progress.
His diagnoses were prescient. In the 1970s, Rustin castigated comfortable professional-class liberals who, armed with a sense of moral superiority, attacked working-class whites as “privileged.” He predicted the rise of the urban riots that bubbled up across the United States in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, noting that those at the bottom of society were trapped in a “cycle of frustration.” He feared that demands to overturn everything, injunctions to violence, and slogans meant to scandalize, no matter how emotionally appealing, would succeed in changing nothing. Today—when protests bloom overnight on social media, demand the world, then recede just as quickly as they materialized—his criticisms are just as apt.
A man ahead—way ahead—of his time.
🎙️ “Can C-SPAN Pull Off ‘Crossfire,’ but With Civility?,” by Michael M. Grynbaum. Folks may remember the show “Crossfire,” which aired on CNN for 23 years from 1982 to 2005 (and again, briefly, from 2013 to 2014). During its run, Crossfire produced high-profile, often testy clashes between politicians and pundits from both sides of the aisle. It shut down in 2005, not long after a memorable appearance by Jon Stewart, who excoriated its then-hosts, Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson, for “hurting America” with the program. Fast-forward another 20 years, and one of the original Crossfire producers, Sam Feist, has now taken his talents to C-SPAN, where he pitched a similar—but in some ways polar opposite—idea: “Ceasefire.”
Feist said he envisioned the new venture as respectful dialogues between lawmakers from each side of the political spectrum. “No shouting, no fighting, no acrimony. Just two American political leaders with a willingness to find common ground.” In the early running, the show has featured a slate of notable names, including Governors Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) and Matt Meyer (D-DE), former Congressmen Charlie Dent (R-PA) and Steve Israel (D-NY), and Mayors Todd Glorida (D-San Diego) and David Holt (R-Oklahoma City). Check out the full archive of interviews from the show here.
🇮🇷 “The third Gulf war: one week on,” by The Economist. If you’re looking for a non-political and more strategic examination of the war in Iran, The Intelligence experts nicely explain the early goals of the conflict, battlefield developments, and missile stockpiles, along with an obituary examining the life of the late Ayatollah Khamenei.
The podcast is available on their site and other platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
🏏 India vs. New Zealand, Men’s T20 Cricket World Cup Final, from the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, India. Test cricket purists may pinch their noses at the shorter version of the game, but India and New Zealand put on a cracking display of this great sport in the semis, especially the Kiwis’ “nine-wicket demolition of previously unbeaten South Africa that left fans and pundits rubbing their eyes in disbelief.”
The final should be thrilling viewing, as “India’s bid to become the first team to retain the T20 World Cup will collide with New Zealand’s quest for a maiden global white-ball crown when the finalists step on to the field at the world’s largest cricket stadium on Sunday. The 20-team tournament will end in an Ahmedabad amphitheater where more than 100,000 fans will expect a gladiatorial slugfest, and most will hope for a home triumph.”
The game starts at 9:30AM EST and can be viewed on Willow TV in the USA.
🎹 What Day Is It, by Fonville x Fribush featuring Alan Good Parker. If you’re looking for a little musical relaxation over the weekend, this organ trio from Richmond, Virginia, has you covered.
Fonville x Fribush is the brand new musical collaboration from acclaimed drummer Corey Fonville (Butcher Brown) and organ player Sam Fribush. Charlie Hunter introduced the two young producers, allowing their collective ear, musical talents and friendship to bring out the best in one another. Together with undiscovered guitarist Alan Parker, the debut album is a tasty mixture that just may reignite a newfound appreciation for the organ trio sound. Meant to inspire a generation that’s ready for something more than reimagined blues, funk and boogaloo, this record pushes the limits of organ trio music into something more youthful and fresh.
Enjoy a little sample of the record, “Dinner Bell.”
Interesting article about Rustin! Apparently the left has a more complicated history than I realize!
The Enlightenment View of Rights
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Here is a basic history of the Left for those who never went down the continental philosophy rabbit role.
The Enlightenment philosopher John Locke's work was beautifully summarized in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government"
This allowed both secular deists and devout Christians to work on the same foundation with the same worldview. They both believed in *individual* rights and that these rights had a higher authority than any government. That would all change with Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
The General Will
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Rousseau zigged where his Enlightenment counterparts zagged. He argued that the Enlightenment was a mistake. Science, reason, and individual rights had not created freedom, but oppression. He believed in the myth of the Noble Savage, where primitive man did not fight or wage war because the earth provided enough for everyone (this is not true: Lawrence Keeley, Napoleon Chagnon and other anthropologists have shown that primitive tribes are extremely warlike and fight for women, honor, land, cattle).
Rousseau said that society went wrong when a man first put a fence around some land and said "this is mine". This led to a competition where people fenced off more and more land, until some people had way more than the needed, and others didn't have enough. This is why the Left, even to this day, tends to dislike technology and modern civilization even though Leftists make up the wealthiest class.
Rousseau said it was too late to go back to these primitive times, but we could recreate their spirit. He did this by rejecting the individual rights vision of freedom and embracing what he called "The General Will" - what's good for society as a whole. Freedom came from submission to the "General Will". And - the four most chilling words in all of human history - said that those who refused to submit should be "forced to be free".
Rousseau's vision of "freedom" led to the Reign of Terror, fascism, Nazism, communism, and of course, the New Left today. In The History of Western Philosophy, Bertrand Russell wrote, “At the present time, Hitler is an outcome of Rousseau; Roosevelt and Churchill, of Locke.” The philosopher Paul Strathern agrees. In Hume in 90 Minutes, he writes: “Rousseau’s ideas were to inspire both the glories and the excesses of the French Revolution, and continued to play a similar role in the twentieth century. His ideas are recognizable in both fascism and communism, as well as in the underlying drift towards self-expression and liberalism.”
Marx's failed prophecy
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Hume did not believe in abolishing all private property. But Marx would take the next logical step. Marx also had a theory of history - or as us Christians put it, an eschatology (end times) - that the advanced capitalist states would grow more and more unequal until the working class rebelled, at which point communism and true human freedom would emerge. Unfortunately, that prophecy never came true. In fact, England, America and Germany seemed to be growing less and less interested in communism as time passed. Instead, communism only happened in the peasant society of Russia. This caused a crisis on the Left.
One response was fascism, which was created by atheist intellectuals steeped in Continental Philosophy who were ex-socialists. The other response leads to the New Left. An Italian philosophy Antonio Gramsci argued that material conditions alone would not lead to socialism. Not if capitalists controlled education, the media, art, and music. He called this "cultural hegemony" and this power could be used to get workers to buy into the system that oppressed them. The socialists needed to gain cultural hegemony. This is the "Gramscian march through the institutions" that was finally completed sometime around 2010ish.
Critical Theory and the New Left
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In the 1930s a group called the Frankfurt School built on Gramsci's analysis of how capitalism can indoctrinate workers into buying into the system and justify oppression. They began to apply this concept more broadly. This is called Critical Theory. One notable insight is that workers had been "bought off" by programs like Social Security and labor regulations and they no longer saw themselves as genuine outsiders. The next revolution would not come from workers, but from women and minorities, including sexual minorities. This is the origin of "the groups".
The Frankfurt School also influenced by Freude's view of sexual repression and began to argue that monogamy led to authoritarianism. The Frankfurt-adjascent psychologist Wilhelm Reich argued this explicitly in The Sexual Revolution, published in 1936. It shows up in a very unfalsiable way in Herbert Marcuse's book Eros and Civilization, published in 1955. I say unfalsifiable because he adds a concept of "repressive desublimation". Basically starts with the stock idea that monogamy leads to authoritarianism, but then "repressive desublimation" adds the idea that promiscuity can also be used for authoritarianism. His example was the Hitler Youth. The Nazis winked at good Aryan boys being promiscuous. It blew off steam, kept them in line, and would only result in more Aryan genes being spread.
So while the Critical Theorists advocated for the Sexual Revolution, they could also look at 30% of the population being plunged into poverty via single motherhood, and this poverty being concentrated among minorities, and wash their hands of it saying "we wanted enlightened eroticism, not repressive desublimation".
Critical Theory spawned Critical Race Theory and identity politics (the activist wing of Critical Theory) and here we are.