TLP Weekend Edition (September 14-15, 2024)
TLP Weekend Edition (September 14-15, 2024)
What we're reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.
📖 “The Complicated Rise of the Right in Germany’s Left-Behind Places,” by Alec MacGillis. In The New Yorker, ProPublica investigative reporter Alec MacGillis writes about his recent visit to Thuringia ahead of state elections in Germany which were dominated by non-traditional parties. Assessing the anti-establishment appeal of both the right-populist Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) and the left-populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), MacGillis writes that those ideological categories may need some adjusting:
What seemed clear was that it no longer made much sense to describe German politics in left-right terms. Klaus Dörre, a sociologist at the University of Jena, told me that the real divide was now “green-blue”: a cultural and regional divide between big-city professionals and workers elsewhere. “Trust in the elites has gone to the devil,” he said. This distrust extended to young people, among whom the AfD did especially well, which Dörre attributed partly to lingering alienation over covid restrictions.
Wagenknecht herself argued against the left-right dichotomy, in response to questions that I sent her, by taking aim at the parties she was seeking to supplant. “The traditional left-wing parties are no longer ‘left’ in the sense that they are focussed on social justice and the needs of people for whom things are not going so well or who live in regions that are grappling with deindustrialization, depopulation, and crumbling infrastructure,” she said…
She also rejected attempts to frame her party as “extreme left,” opposite the AfD’s “extreme right.” “We stand for social justice and détente. We defend free speech and seek sensible economic policy for the middle class,” she said. “What is extreme about that?”
📊 "America's Eight Political Tribes," by Echelon Insights. The GOP-leaning polling outfit has produced a new analysis of the American electorate by developing eight distinct clusters of voters based on political attitudes about social, economic, and institutional trust issues. They examine how each group thinks and votes as well as their respective demographic make-ups.
Interestingly, “Liberal Patriots” emerge as a distinct voting bloc constituting 14 percent of the electorate, defined as: “Older liberals who believe America is the best country in the world, don’t believe America is racist, oppose defunding the police, and support an active foreign policy.”
Check it out for yourself and see which group you might best fit into!
📚 Eric Hobsbawm: A Life in History, by Richard Evans. A fascinating biography of one of the greatest historians of the 20th century by Sir Richard Evans, himself a leading historian (see his excellent trilogy on the Third Reich).
In A Life in History, Richard Evans tells the story of Hobsbawm as an academic, but also as witness to history itself, and of the twentieth century's major political and intellectual currents. Eric not only wrote and spoke about many of the great issues of his time, but participated in many of them too, from Communist resistance to Hitler to revolution in Cuba, where he acted as an interpreter for Che Guevara. He was a prominent part of the Jazz scene in Soho in the late 1950s and his writings played a pivotal role in the emergence of New Labour in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Haven't read Hobsbawm? You should! All of his stuff is great, including any of his books of essays. For the full treatment, see Hobsbawm’s "Age of" series (a quartet of magisterial books including The Age of Revolution, The Age of Capital, The Age of Empire, and The Age of Extremes) covering world history between 1789 and 1991.
📺 Slow Horses—Season Four, on Apple TV+. One of the best shows on television is back for another crack season. Based on the excellent “Slough House” series by author Mick Herron, the show covers the antics of tossed-aside MI5 agents under the direction of Jackson Lamb—the slovenly, hilarious, and witty head of Slough House played perfectly by Gary Oldman. Season four is adapted from Herron’s book, Spook Street, with new episodes premiering on Wednesdays.
🎸 The Gathering, by Arbouretum. Baltimore psych legends Arbouretum play a rare matinee show this weekend at the Metro, showcasing their heavy riffs, driving rhythms, and mystical lyrics. All of their albums are masterly but check out their fourth one, The Gathering, to get familiar with the band including this sludgy 7-minute gem, “The White Bird.”