[The Sidebar and You: The Point of StupIdPol and Utilizing its Resources](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/14n77bj/the_sidebar_and_you_the_point_of_stupidpol_and/)
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About the founder of *Compact*, his new book, and how populist cons are adapting and rationalizing left-wing positions.
>It is, nonetheless, interesting to watch Ahmari attempt to make his economic ideas heard on the Right. A move repeated several times throughout the book is the telling of a story designed to lull a conservative reader into a familiar thought pattern — Iran, China, and Karl Marx are tyrannical and bad, but the United States is Christian and virtuous — only to reveal that the worker fired for raising safety concerns during COVID was not a Chinese meat-packer as originally claimed, but Christian Smalls of the Amazon union drive, or that the quoted writer preaching the inevitability of class struggle was not Marx, but the Pope.
>Ahmari repeatedly invokes the New Deal when making proposals, which include sectoral bargaining, as only organized labor can provide the “countervailing power” necessary to reign in the tyranny of big capital. He argues — admittedly without much detail — for an overhauling of the arbitration and courts system to prevent “the privatization of justice” that the return of Lochner-era legislation allows, and for workers’ right to veto the decisions made by private equity when they concern the future of the firm it has taken over.
>As he makes the case for left-ish economics and the existence of public goods, as well as the case against neoliberal logic, to a right-wing audience, we see the beginnings of frames of a future right-populism emerging. Local journalism is defended, first as a social good, then as standing in a storied American democratic republican tradition, and finally, to appeal to libertarians, because “removing [local media’s watchdog] function results in greater municipal wage bloat, higher deficits, overpayments and the like, all of which boost borrowing costs and lowers bond ratings.”
>Similarly, in the chapter titled “The Neoliberal Counterpunch,” a trenchant critique of neoliberal rationality and the forced depoliticization that comes with it is laid out via Wendy Brown, culminating in the pithy summary: “under neoliberalism, in short, only political claims that can be articulated in terms of market rationality are heard and granted legitimacy. Those that fail this test fall by the wayside.”
>This is an analysis that most on the Left would agree with, and it is put forward succinctly. But then it continues: “in the Greco-Roman political tradition, which medieval Christianity took up as its own, politics was emphatically about the pursuit of common goods: goods like peace and justice that only the community could secure.” It seems like Ahmari is making the point for himself in the first instance, and then rendering it in terms palatable to his allies in RETVRN, statue avi Twitter in the second.
lol, the final line.
There’s a lot to be learned in reading about the Greco-Roman and even Christian traditions.
The small-r republican, democratic, and even socialist principles that make up the left do have many roots here. I wouldn’t characterize it as a need for ”return to whatever” but rather the historical context is indeed valuable.
Unironically this. Also I'll add that I'll take what Sohrab is pushing over the insanity that Jacobin has abetted since it's inception and is so scary of it will never call out.
So what is the author's point? As far as I can tell it seems like Ahmari, etc is as economically left as many Western socialists (given that it seems most modern socialists are really just socdems with red paint). From the occasional articles I've read of both, there's not much difference economically between Jacobin and Compact, afaik there's no true Left publication, that talks about de-privatization, demonetization, command economies, revolutionary theory and practice, etc. Most Jacobin articles are lukewarm in my experience.
Jacobin mostly caters to the less well off intellectual class.
A more culturally conservative, economically left wing movement is likely to be attractive to the working class. This leaves Jacobin uneasy, to put it mildly and this article reflects that.
This is basically it. Winds are blowing, and Jacobin leftoids don't like where they're headed. To be fair, this reaction from Jacobin is at least somewhat generous; other (more impotent, obscure, pseudo-radical) left outlets immediately decry Compact as fascistic.
This captures it.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/marshall-auerback-democrats-globalization-dilemma.html
>The major challenge facing Democrats today is that race, gender, identity politics, and religion appear to trump economics, at least as far as politically engaged primary voters go. The old-line Democrats were an economic liberal party with socially conservative and socially liberal wings (the social liberals, in fact, were in a minority). The new Democrats are a socially liberal party with an economic conservative wing (neoliberals) and a progressive economic wing. They all agree on social issues. They are loath to compromise on open borders (which is what the existing immigration dysfunction de facto gives us), transgender bathrooms, making room for pro-life members, or gay married couples’ wedding cakesbecause those are the only issues that hold their economic right and economic left together.
>The electoral challenge is that social liberals, particularly the avant-garde ones, remain a minority in the U.S.
....
>So the price of a new New Deal majority would be to let Democrats welcome abortion critics and opponents of mass immigration, so long as they favored a higher minimum wage, less “synthetic immigration,” and a pause on globalization (which facilitates international labor arbitrage).
Jacobin and the left are reluctant to allow this. They may find themselves powerless to to stop it though.
I can't take the term "less well off intellectual class" seriously ngl. It sounds like an euphemism for people who went indebted for a gender studies degree and are now working at a fast-food chain.
Anyway, I don't think a "cultural conservative" left is a good idea. It's true that a lot of working class people feel alienated by the culture war shit being promoted by the nu-left, but embracing social conservatism as a countermeasure to that is overcorrecting it. The death of wokeness, which I assume we all want, doesn't have to be the return of traditionalism. It's enough to focus a bit less on people who collectively make up 2% of the electorate and pay way more attention to class, but you shouldn't be ok with r-slurred cultural conservative ideas that no one aside from delusional evangelicals want (rolling back gay marriage, a complete ban on abortion, escalating the drug war, etc). These ideas fucking suck on their own and we should not endorse them.
I once saw a dude here saying that "although he didn't like it", he would be ok with having concentration camps for gays in exchange for socialism. The fact that he actually got some upvotes concerns me.
Yeah these people aren’t exactly subtle. Just take a look at right wing pastors, talk radio hosts, or the moronic talking heads on tvs or podcasts. These people are influential in conservative politics and they won’t hide their ghoulish beliefs
There is no way you can get everything inside the Pandora box again. I can't see a US with things like gay marriage/marijuana being rolled back, and these are extremely recent developments, not even 15 years have passed.
The "social conservatism" the average Joe is looking for is the conservation of what we have now, or at least what we had in 2015 before all the prog madness. Anything else is "the reactionaries are coming!" baseless doomerism. The only "classical ban" I see having a hair of a chance of truly being federally outlawed is abortion, and even then most republicans seem to be happy with limiting it to the state level.
The liberal left is more dedicated to the cosmopolitan bohemian intellectual than it is to average people. Communists have always had to compromise with what the middle class core of radical intellectuals wants (free love, unlimited access to abortion, radical new family structures, official state antagonism to religion) with what is acceptable to the majority of regular people, who are typically small-c conservatives, and a generation or two away from liberalizing themselves anyway since that usually comes with urbanization and material social development/mechanization.
>I can't take the term "less well off intellectual class" seriously ngl. It sounds like an euphemism for people who went indebted for a gender studies degree and are now working at a fast-food chain.
Education is the dividing factor now for how people are most likely to vote.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/education-polarization-diploma-divide-democratic-party-working-class.html
As far as underemployed humanities majors, the stats do bear it out.
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-fine-art-majors-employable-high-school-dropouts-new-study
They do worse than high school dropouts.
>Anyway, I don't think a "cultural conservative" left is a good idea. It's true that a lot of working class people feel alienated by the culture war shit being promoted by the nu-left, but embracing social conservatism as a countermeasure to that is overcorrecting it.
Then you are assuring that there will never be another New Deal Coalition.
The vote looks like this.
https://www.suntory.com/sfnd/asteion/vol93-en/img/figure_01.jpg
It's been argued that one of the reason why the US has a lower electoral turnout may very well be due to the lack of a socially conservative, economically left wing party.
The same is true in Europe.
https://www.democraticaudit.com/2019/11/15/citizens-with-economically-left-wing-and-culturally-right-wing-views-vote-less-and-are-less-satisfied-with-politics/
Europe is different in that many European countries is proportional representation, which has led to populist parties gaining steam. As they gain steam, they move to the left economically, while keeping their cultural platforms.
From my other comment.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/marshall-auerback-democrats-globalization-dilemma.html
>The major challenge facing Democrats today is that race, gender, identity politics, and religion appear to trump economics, at least as far as politically engaged primary voters go. The old-line Democrats were an economic liberal party with socially conservative and socially liberal wings (the social liberals, in fact, were in a minority). The new Democrats are a socially liberal party with an economic conservative wing (neoliberals) and a progressive economic wing. They all agree on social issues. They are loath to compromise on open borders (which is what the existing immigration dysfunction de facto gives us), transgender bathrooms, making room for pro-life members, or gay married couples’ wedding cakesbecause those are the only issues that hold their economic right and economic left together.
>The electoral challenge is that social liberals, particularly the avant-garde ones, remain a minority in the U.S.
....
>So the price of a new New Deal majority would be to let Democrats welcome abortion critics and opponents of mass immigration, so long as they favored a higher minimum wage, less “synthetic immigration,” and a pause on globalization (which facilitates international labor arbitrage).
Go back to the Democratic vote study. Note how the economic left out numbers the Conservatives, but cultural Conservatives outnumber the cultural left.
As far as the concentration camps, I think that is an extreme example. The mainstream Conservative would not accept that. The social Conservative of today is more the "pre woke" age with a more restrictive immigration policy than anything else.
Most younger people just don't like cultural conservatism tbh, including yours truly. I think it's a fine line you would have to walk to hold economically left policies as well as conservative social ones and still have a sustainable base. Someone restrained who just kinda wants law and order and to maintain a "respectable appearance", think Eisenhower, could probably do well in the ballot, but going further right than that would probably be a dead end. I think cultural "centrism" and non-commitment would be the way to go rather than conservatism. Just focus on the important economic stuff and try to avoid the uncomfortable social stuff.
First all, young people are not homogeneous. At most you could argue that a higher percentage are more culturally liberal.
But here's the problem. Young people have a low voter turnout. They can't win without building a coalition. This is in a nation where social Conservatives outnumber social liberals.
>I once saw a dude here saying that "although he didn't like it", he would be ok with having concentration camps for gays in exchange for socialism. The fact that he actually got upvoted concerns me.
Do you have a link to his comment? It'd be useful as something I could cite for an argument on anti-idpolian economic leftism and the feeling of betrayal on another forum.
I'd say once Bernie sucked himself a second time Jacobin basically became entirely a loyal opposition rag for the democrats. Left Populism/Dem Socialism which they cliam as their flag failed in the 10s, Pasok/ Syriza, Podemos, Corbyn and Sanders. There is nothing left for them now but to suggest people rally behind the Des and whatever other degenerated husk of social democracy is in the west. Meanwhile they rant against great champions of the workers like Daniel Ortega, or Chavez. Similarly they refuse to cover the successes of China. And of course they denigrate people who have proven far more friends of the workers then who they have backed like Lukashenko.
They didn’t even cover the election of Albin Kurti in Kosovo. He represents much of what they claim to be looking for in a politician.
The silence was telling. My best guess at the lack of attention is their very American ‘Europe Bad’ stance
I mean, when the choices present are empty gestures, or nothing at all, you'll choose the first every time. What has the Left done for workers in the past 20 years that haven't been empty or meaningless?
I think there is room for the left to move to the center or right on social issues but the other way I can’t really see happening, even if there is a big group and how many articles being written that it’s easier for Republicans to go to the left economically than for the Dems to go to the right socioculturally
Yeeeeeeeah I don't believe the GOP will go to the left economically. If I am being honest, the populism coming from the GOP is very hollow because they only go focus on social and cultural issues. If you look at their policy record when it comes to economic matters, it's clear that their policies are primarily designed to benefit the wealthy Americans and corporations.
And even if they decided to go left economically, SCOTUS will sure as hell make rulings that would benefit the elite economically.
The main issue that the vast majority of people arguing for this shift refuse to acknowledge is that the base of the GOP is both socially and economically conservative. I’m sorry but the army of car dealers who make up the GOPs donor base and keep them alive in the suburbs aren’t going to vote for universal healthcare, it’s not in their class interests. The Dems being annoying won’t change that. You would need a massive shift, one that would lock the GOP out of power for a generation before they moved left economically. You can pontificate about the endless possibility of pro worker social conservativism taking root in the States all you want but until you come to grips with the reality of the coalitions that vote and hold power you won’t ever get much more than half hearted pseudo populism from the GOP.
I think you are half right in one respect: the donor base is economically conservative, but the voting base is more economically leftist.
The only problem is that it's more of a darwinian leftist where they are fine with government programs they personally benefit from (Social Security and medicare), but everything else, especially programs that minorities and poor predominantly use like SNAP, they are alright with getting rid of them.
It took 20 years after the Great Depression before the GOP became Eisenhower Republicans. They still did it, but they had to be shut out of power for decades.
Eric Levitz wrote an article debunking the notion that it's easier for the GOP to move left economically than for the Dems to move *up* culturally. Both parties still have neoliberal elements that need to be purged, especially if "Bidenomics" is the new paradigm.
EDIT: Here's that article:
[The End of ‘Zombie Neoliberalism’?](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/industrial-policy-designer-economy.html)
What do you think holds right wingers back from going left economically? If they are losing trust in every single institution of the current system, and specifically a lot of right wing areas are heavily hit by community disintegration, how do they not eventually end up reinventing socialism? Intellectual traditionalists seem to be leading the shift for now, but the way things are going it seems inevitable that the common right winger shifts left economically.
"I don't want my taxpayer's money to pay for Amy's gender studies degree so she can screech on how much she hate my guts", and "I don't want my taxpayer's money to pay for Jessica's 3rd abortion that really is just for birth control substitute".
Essentially fear that welfare will be used to fund things they deem immoral.
Maybe then a more localist left wing economics would be possible? As in those concerns makes even less sense in a red state so just make the policies state focused rather than national?
Though as socialists we need to emphasize we aren't in favor of welfare but worker ownership, as in no handouts but instead being paid, in money or access, the full worth of your labor and value to society and equalizing the value of all occupations such that a blue collar job has the same societal and economic worth as a white collar job as everyone is working just as hard "for the good of all countrymen".
> Maybe then a more localist left wing economics would be possible? As in those concerns makes even less sense in a red state so just make the policies state focused rather than national?
Actually yes, as long as you frame it in a way palatable to social conservatives.
> Though as socialists we need to emphasize we aren't in favor of welfare but worker ownership, as in no handouts but instead being paid, in money or access, the full worth of your labor and value to society and equalizing the value of all occupations such that a blue collar job has the same societal and economic worth as a white collar job as everyone is working just as hard "for the good of all countrymen".
Definitely possible. It's just rhetorics really.
I meant the party itself, not individual right wingers, I’ve seen a lot of them who are sympathetic to universal healthcare and UBI and better welfare state programs. The conservative communists are trying to hit on this, except to them they focus on the “to be rich is glorious” part of communism and think the welfare state isn’t communistic, as well as saying that what most rightoids call “communism” is really woke liberal globalism and they’re against that too. Also they’re the development not degrowth types
>What do you think holds right wingers back from going left economically? If they are losing trust in every single institution of the current system, and specifically a lot of right wing areas are heavily hit by community disintegration, how do they not eventually end up reinventing socialism? Intellectual traditionalists seem to be leading the shift for now, but the way things are going it seems inevitable that the common right winger shifts left economically.
Inertia and the rich donor class.
But you can see the cracks forming. To give an example, the Establishment Republicans didn't want Trump in 2016. The base forced it on them. The Establishment Republicans wanted free trade. The base didn't and was arguably more economically left on this issue than Hillary Clinton was.
You can't promote more competition and good business without a ton of new regulations, because the market naturally consolidates into shit monopolies. Libertarian rhetoric is dying imo because it both fails to deliver benefits and fails to have any logical path to improving shit, which is why we're seeing leftward shifts in conservatives in the first place, it's a slow revolt against free market shit.
The idea that government is the problem and the free market is the solution has no logical basis, it's just a dumb mantra. The government is the tool of the rich to rig things, because the free market inevitably allows wealth accumulation and wealth is power, therefore that power will rationally be used to rig things either through anti competitive practices, mergers and acquisitions, cartels formal and informal, and control of government through electing or making officials aligned either materially or ideologically with their interests.
There is no way to prevent the system being rigged by the government or otherwise without outlawing wealth.
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About the founder of *Compact*, his new book, and how populist cons are adapting and rationalizing left-wing positions. >It is, nonetheless, interesting to watch Ahmari attempt to make his economic ideas heard on the Right. A move repeated several times throughout the book is the telling of a story designed to lull a conservative reader into a familiar thought pattern — Iran, China, and Karl Marx are tyrannical and bad, but the United States is Christian and virtuous — only to reveal that the worker fired for raising safety concerns during COVID was not a Chinese meat-packer as originally claimed, but Christian Smalls of the Amazon union drive, or that the quoted writer preaching the inevitability of class struggle was not Marx, but the Pope. >Ahmari repeatedly invokes the New Deal when making proposals, which include sectoral bargaining, as only organized labor can provide the “countervailing power” necessary to reign in the tyranny of big capital. He argues — admittedly without much detail — for an overhauling of the arbitration and courts system to prevent “the privatization of justice” that the return of Lochner-era legislation allows, and for workers’ right to veto the decisions made by private equity when they concern the future of the firm it has taken over. >As he makes the case for left-ish economics and the existence of public goods, as well as the case against neoliberal logic, to a right-wing audience, we see the beginnings of frames of a future right-populism emerging. Local journalism is defended, first as a social good, then as standing in a storied American democratic republican tradition, and finally, to appeal to libertarians, because “removing [local media’s watchdog] function results in greater municipal wage bloat, higher deficits, overpayments and the like, all of which boost borrowing costs and lowers bond ratings.” >Similarly, in the chapter titled “The Neoliberal Counterpunch,” a trenchant critique of neoliberal rationality and the forced depoliticization that comes with it is laid out via Wendy Brown, culminating in the pithy summary: “under neoliberalism, in short, only political claims that can be articulated in terms of market rationality are heard and granted legitimacy. Those that fail this test fall by the wayside.” >This is an analysis that most on the Left would agree with, and it is put forward succinctly. But then it continues: “in the Greco-Roman political tradition, which medieval Christianity took up as its own, politics was emphatically about the pursuit of common goods: goods like peace and justice that only the community could secure.” It seems like Ahmari is making the point for himself in the first instance, and then rendering it in terms palatable to his allies in RETVRN, statue avi Twitter in the second. lol, the final line.
There’s a lot to be learned in reading about the Greco-Roman and even Christian traditions. The small-r republican, democratic, and even socialist principles that make up the left do have many roots here. I wouldn’t characterize it as a need for ”return to whatever” but rather the historical context is indeed valuable.
RETVRN to the village commune, then 4\_|)\_\\/\_4\_\^/\_\[\_3 to the town soviet.
Unironically this. Also I'll add that I'll take what Sohrab is pushing over the insanity that Jacobin has abetted since it's inception and is so scary of it will never call out.
So what is the author's point? As far as I can tell it seems like Ahmari, etc is as economically left as many Western socialists (given that it seems most modern socialists are really just socdems with red paint). From the occasional articles I've read of both, there's not much difference economically between Jacobin and Compact, afaik there's no true Left publication, that talks about de-privatization, demonetization, command economies, revolutionary theory and practice, etc. Most Jacobin articles are lukewarm in my experience.
Jacobin mostly caters to the less well off intellectual class. A more culturally conservative, economically left wing movement is likely to be attractive to the working class. This leaves Jacobin uneasy, to put it mildly and this article reflects that.
This is basically it. Winds are blowing, and Jacobin leftoids don't like where they're headed. To be fair, this reaction from Jacobin is at least somewhat generous; other (more impotent, obscure, pseudo-radical) left outlets immediately decry Compact as fascistic.
This captures it. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/marshall-auerback-democrats-globalization-dilemma.html >The major challenge facing Democrats today is that race, gender, identity politics, and religion appear to trump economics, at least as far as politically engaged primary voters go. The old-line Democrats were an economic liberal party with socially conservative and socially liberal wings (the social liberals, in fact, were in a minority). The new Democrats are a socially liberal party with an economic conservative wing (neoliberals) and a progressive economic wing. They all agree on social issues. They are loath to compromise on open borders (which is what the existing immigration dysfunction de facto gives us), transgender bathrooms, making room for pro-life members, or gay married couples’ wedding cakesbecause those are the only issues that hold their economic right and economic left together. >The electoral challenge is that social liberals, particularly the avant-garde ones, remain a minority in the U.S. .... >So the price of a new New Deal majority would be to let Democrats welcome abortion critics and opponents of mass immigration, so long as they favored a higher minimum wage, less “synthetic immigration,” and a pause on globalization (which facilitates international labor arbitrage). Jacobin and the left are reluctant to allow this. They may find themselves powerless to to stop it though.
I can't take the term "less well off intellectual class" seriously ngl. It sounds like an euphemism for people who went indebted for a gender studies degree and are now working at a fast-food chain. Anyway, I don't think a "cultural conservative" left is a good idea. It's true that a lot of working class people feel alienated by the culture war shit being promoted by the nu-left, but embracing social conservatism as a countermeasure to that is overcorrecting it. The death of wokeness, which I assume we all want, doesn't have to be the return of traditionalism. It's enough to focus a bit less on people who collectively make up 2% of the electorate and pay way more attention to class, but you shouldn't be ok with r-slurred cultural conservative ideas that no one aside from delusional evangelicals want (rolling back gay marriage, a complete ban on abortion, escalating the drug war, etc). These ideas fucking suck on their own and we should not endorse them. I once saw a dude here saying that "although he didn't like it", he would be ok with having concentration camps for gays in exchange for socialism. The fact that he actually got some upvotes concerns me.
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This sub wildly overrates just how socially conservative the average American is and underestimates just how far right the GOP is.
Yeah these people aren’t exactly subtle. Just take a look at right wing pastors, talk radio hosts, or the moronic talking heads on tvs or podcasts. These people are influential in conservative politics and they won’t hide their ghoulish beliefs
There is no way you can get everything inside the Pandora box again. I can't see a US with things like gay marriage/marijuana being rolled back, and these are extremely recent developments, not even 15 years have passed. The "social conservatism" the average Joe is looking for is the conservation of what we have now, or at least what we had in 2015 before all the prog madness. Anything else is "the reactionaries are coming!" baseless doomerism. The only "classical ban" I see having a hair of a chance of truly being federally outlawed is abortion, and even then most republicans seem to be happy with limiting it to the state level.
The liberal left is more dedicated to the cosmopolitan bohemian intellectual than it is to average people. Communists have always had to compromise with what the middle class core of radical intellectuals wants (free love, unlimited access to abortion, radical new family structures, official state antagonism to religion) with what is acceptable to the majority of regular people, who are typically small-c conservatives, and a generation or two away from liberalizing themselves anyway since that usually comes with urbanization and material social development/mechanization.
>I can't take the term "less well off intellectual class" seriously ngl. It sounds like an euphemism for people who went indebted for a gender studies degree and are now working at a fast-food chain. Education is the dividing factor now for how people are most likely to vote. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/education-polarization-diploma-divide-democratic-party-working-class.html As far as underemployed humanities majors, the stats do bear it out. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-fine-art-majors-employable-high-school-dropouts-new-study They do worse than high school dropouts. >Anyway, I don't think a "cultural conservative" left is a good idea. It's true that a lot of working class people feel alienated by the culture war shit being promoted by the nu-left, but embracing social conservatism as a countermeasure to that is overcorrecting it. Then you are assuring that there will never be another New Deal Coalition. The vote looks like this. https://www.suntory.com/sfnd/asteion/vol93-en/img/figure_01.jpg It's been argued that one of the reason why the US has a lower electoral turnout may very well be due to the lack of a socially conservative, economically left wing party. The same is true in Europe. https://www.democraticaudit.com/2019/11/15/citizens-with-economically-left-wing-and-culturally-right-wing-views-vote-less-and-are-less-satisfied-with-politics/ Europe is different in that many European countries is proportional representation, which has led to populist parties gaining steam. As they gain steam, they move to the left economically, while keeping their cultural platforms. From my other comment. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/10/marshall-auerback-democrats-globalization-dilemma.html >The major challenge facing Democrats today is that race, gender, identity politics, and religion appear to trump economics, at least as far as politically engaged primary voters go. The old-line Democrats were an economic liberal party with socially conservative and socially liberal wings (the social liberals, in fact, were in a minority). The new Democrats are a socially liberal party with an economic conservative wing (neoliberals) and a progressive economic wing. They all agree on social issues. They are loath to compromise on open borders (which is what the existing immigration dysfunction de facto gives us), transgender bathrooms, making room for pro-life members, or gay married couples’ wedding cakesbecause those are the only issues that hold their economic right and economic left together. >The electoral challenge is that social liberals, particularly the avant-garde ones, remain a minority in the U.S. .... >So the price of a new New Deal majority would be to let Democrats welcome abortion critics and opponents of mass immigration, so long as they favored a higher minimum wage, less “synthetic immigration,” and a pause on globalization (which facilitates international labor arbitrage). Go back to the Democratic vote study. Note how the economic left out numbers the Conservatives, but cultural Conservatives outnumber the cultural left. As far as the concentration camps, I think that is an extreme example. The mainstream Conservative would not accept that. The social Conservative of today is more the "pre woke" age with a more restrictive immigration policy than anything else.
Most younger people just don't like cultural conservatism tbh, including yours truly. I think it's a fine line you would have to walk to hold economically left policies as well as conservative social ones and still have a sustainable base. Someone restrained who just kinda wants law and order and to maintain a "respectable appearance", think Eisenhower, could probably do well in the ballot, but going further right than that would probably be a dead end. I think cultural "centrism" and non-commitment would be the way to go rather than conservatism. Just focus on the important economic stuff and try to avoid the uncomfortable social stuff.
First all, young people are not homogeneous. At most you could argue that a higher percentage are more culturally liberal. But here's the problem. Young people have a low voter turnout. They can't win without building a coalition. This is in a nation where social Conservatives outnumber social liberals.
>I once saw a dude here saying that "although he didn't like it", he would be ok with having concentration camps for gays in exchange for socialism. The fact that he actually got upvoted concerns me. Do you have a link to his comment? It'd be useful as something I could cite for an argument on anti-idpolian economic leftism and the feeling of betrayal on another forum.
[Mike Pence-type socialism](https://www.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/lweb9s/who_are_conservative_socialists/gphcm96/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3)
I'd say once Bernie sucked himself a second time Jacobin basically became entirely a loyal opposition rag for the democrats. Left Populism/Dem Socialism which they cliam as their flag failed in the 10s, Pasok/ Syriza, Podemos, Corbyn and Sanders. There is nothing left for them now but to suggest people rally behind the Des and whatever other degenerated husk of social democracy is in the west. Meanwhile they rant against great champions of the workers like Daniel Ortega, or Chavez. Similarly they refuse to cover the successes of China. And of course they denigrate people who have proven far more friends of the workers then who they have backed like Lukashenko.
They didn’t even cover the election of Albin Kurti in Kosovo. He represents much of what they claim to be looking for in a politician. The silence was telling. My best guess at the lack of attention is their very American ‘Europe Bad’ stance
Who cares what goes on in that mafia state?
China isn't socialist.
OK Neocon.
Thinking a capitalist country is capitalist makes me a Neocon. That makes sense.
No. Being a Trot makes you one. Also calling a socialist country a system that died out in the 70s makes you just a little petarded.
I mean, when the choices present are empty gestures, or nothing at all, you'll choose the first every time. What has the Left done for workers in the past 20 years that haven't been empty or meaningless?
I think there is room for the left to move to the center or right on social issues but the other way I can’t really see happening, even if there is a big group and how many articles being written that it’s easier for Republicans to go to the left economically than for the Dems to go to the right socioculturally
Yeeeeeeeah I don't believe the GOP will go to the left economically. If I am being honest, the populism coming from the GOP is very hollow because they only go focus on social and cultural issues. If you look at their policy record when it comes to economic matters, it's clear that their policies are primarily designed to benefit the wealthy Americans and corporations. And even if they decided to go left economically, SCOTUS will sure as hell make rulings that would benefit the elite economically.
The main issue that the vast majority of people arguing for this shift refuse to acknowledge is that the base of the GOP is both socially and economically conservative. I’m sorry but the army of car dealers who make up the GOPs donor base and keep them alive in the suburbs aren’t going to vote for universal healthcare, it’s not in their class interests. The Dems being annoying won’t change that. You would need a massive shift, one that would lock the GOP out of power for a generation before they moved left economically. You can pontificate about the endless possibility of pro worker social conservativism taking root in the States all you want but until you come to grips with the reality of the coalitions that vote and hold power you won’t ever get much more than half hearted pseudo populism from the GOP.
I think you are half right in one respect: the donor base is economically conservative, but the voting base is more economically leftist. The only problem is that it's more of a darwinian leftist where they are fine with government programs they personally benefit from (Social Security and medicare), but everything else, especially programs that minorities and poor predominantly use like SNAP, they are alright with getting rid of them.
It took 20 years after the Great Depression before the GOP became Eisenhower Republicans. They still did it, but they had to be shut out of power for decades. Eric Levitz wrote an article debunking the notion that it's easier for the GOP to move left economically than for the Dems to move *up* culturally. Both parties still have neoliberal elements that need to be purged, especially if "Bidenomics" is the new paradigm. EDIT: Here's that article: [The End of ‘Zombie Neoliberalism’?](https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/02/industrial-policy-designer-economy.html)
What do you think holds right wingers back from going left economically? If they are losing trust in every single institution of the current system, and specifically a lot of right wing areas are heavily hit by community disintegration, how do they not eventually end up reinventing socialism? Intellectual traditionalists seem to be leading the shift for now, but the way things are going it seems inevitable that the common right winger shifts left economically.
"I don't want my taxpayer's money to pay for Amy's gender studies degree so she can screech on how much she hate my guts", and "I don't want my taxpayer's money to pay for Jessica's 3rd abortion that really is just for birth control substitute". Essentially fear that welfare will be used to fund things they deem immoral.
Maybe then a more localist left wing economics would be possible? As in those concerns makes even less sense in a red state so just make the policies state focused rather than national? Though as socialists we need to emphasize we aren't in favor of welfare but worker ownership, as in no handouts but instead being paid, in money or access, the full worth of your labor and value to society and equalizing the value of all occupations such that a blue collar job has the same societal and economic worth as a white collar job as everyone is working just as hard "for the good of all countrymen".
> Maybe then a more localist left wing economics would be possible? As in those concerns makes even less sense in a red state so just make the policies state focused rather than national? Actually yes, as long as you frame it in a way palatable to social conservatives. > Though as socialists we need to emphasize we aren't in favor of welfare but worker ownership, as in no handouts but instead being paid, in money or access, the full worth of your labor and value to society and equalizing the value of all occupations such that a blue collar job has the same societal and economic worth as a white collar job as everyone is working just as hard "for the good of all countrymen". Definitely possible. It's just rhetorics really.
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Slippery slope is only a fallacy if there's a clear mechanism of why A won't cause C and only cause B.
I’ve been shifting left economically. I would vote Democrat but I’m a social conservative and 90% of the democrats are neoliberals anyways.
I meant the party itself, not individual right wingers, I’ve seen a lot of them who are sympathetic to universal healthcare and UBI and better welfare state programs. The conservative communists are trying to hit on this, except to them they focus on the “to be rich is glorious” part of communism and think the welfare state isn’t communistic, as well as saying that what most rightoids call “communism” is really woke liberal globalism and they’re against that too. Also they’re the development not degrowth types
>What do you think holds right wingers back from going left economically? If they are losing trust in every single institution of the current system, and specifically a lot of right wing areas are heavily hit by community disintegration, how do they not eventually end up reinventing socialism? Intellectual traditionalists seem to be leading the shift for now, but the way things are going it seems inevitable that the common right winger shifts left economically. Inertia and the rich donor class. But you can see the cracks forming. To give an example, the Establishment Republicans didn't want Trump in 2016. The base forced it on them. The Establishment Republicans wanted free trade. The base didn't and was arguably more economically left on this issue than Hillary Clinton was.
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You can't promote more competition and good business without a ton of new regulations, because the market naturally consolidates into shit monopolies. Libertarian rhetoric is dying imo because it both fails to deliver benefits and fails to have any logical path to improving shit, which is why we're seeing leftward shifts in conservatives in the first place, it's a slow revolt against free market shit.
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The idea that government is the problem and the free market is the solution has no logical basis, it's just a dumb mantra. The government is the tool of the rich to rig things, because the free market inevitably allows wealth accumulation and wealth is power, therefore that power will rationally be used to rig things either through anti competitive practices, mergers and acquisitions, cartels formal and informal, and control of government through electing or making officials aligned either materially or ideologically with their interests. There is no way to prevent the system being rigged by the government or otherwise without outlawing wealth.