5 ms·

Are liberals on the wrong side of history

26 points by npalli 10y ago

belovedeagle 10y ago
Someone needs to let the author in on the minor fact that classical liberalism and "liberalism" in America today have little to do with each other, and that the "rise of Trump" really has very little bearing on classical liberalism, as devastating as it might seen to American "liberals".
- sidlls 10y ago
  They also should let him know that a series of rambling interludes about various "think pieces" does not a quality narrative make. I found this to be a terrible read, from start to finish. Perhaps I missed something.
  - mercer 10y ago
    I sort of liked the content of the piece even it if does feel a bit rambling. What bothers me is that I had (slight) difficulty getting through it, but the difficulty wasn't because of the rambling nature but more on sentence-by-sentence level. It seems needlessly convoluted and reminds me of the reams of academic pages I had to read in college. And it's not like I usually only read 'simple' stuff.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  Someone needs to tell all American political pundits that the election of a single person, even a party, in a single election means little in terms of history. The US presidential election is no bellwether of world opinion. Liberalism is alive and well amongst the people.
  - Turing_Machine 10y ago
    The Republicans now control the Presidency and both houses of Congress. They will almost certainly wind up controlling the Supreme Court for at least a generation, maybe two. They control 33 state governorships compared to 16 Dems and one Independent. They control 32 state legislatures, 17 with a veto-proof majority. The Dems control 13, 5 of which are veto-proof. It's not just Trump, and it's not just a single election.
    - sandworm101 10y ago
      But it remains a single country and a single election period ("election" almost always includes electing multiple people but it is still a single election process) . The dems had control only a few months ago and could have it back in a few years. SCOTUS's impact is purely local. It means little to the rest of the world in the long run. In many places (canada) US politics seems to have an opposite effect. America has shown liberals of the world how not to do things.
      - Turing_Machine 10y ago
        "But it remains a single country and a single election period ...The dems had control only a few months ago" No, they've been losing ground pretty steadily for 20 years. The media didn't pay much attention until recently because most of the losses were occurring in "flyover" areas. They're paying attention now. Even at the Federal level, the Republicans have had control of the House of Representatives since 2010, and the Senate since 2014. And I don't agree that it's just the U.S. In other countries you have Brexit, the rise of the Le Pen family in France, etc.
    - tunesmith 10y ago
      So what's your conclusion about what it is? I'll go first, I think that is mostly because of a disastrous 2010 off-year election, its ensuing redistricting period, and, well, I enjoyed this piece: http://fusion.net/the-long-lucrative-right-wing-grift-is-blowing-up-in-t-1793944216 http://fusion.net/the-long-lucrative-right-wing-grift-is-blo...
      - Turing_Machine 10y ago
        "So what's your conclusion about what it is?" Utter failure of the current Democratic Party to connect with those voters who made up its base for a century or more. I don't think there's any other way to spin it. Trump won because he carried several industrial and mining states that were traditionally Democratic strongholds. Your link is just another attempt to blame it on "stupid racists". Did it ever occur to the Dem leadership that calling people stupid racists doesn't make them more likely to vote for you? Those states all voted for Obama twice. While I suppose it's possible that everyone in those states turned into a stupid racist over the last four years, that's not where I'd place my bet.
dankohn1 10y ago
Gopnik is one of the top intellectuals writing today, and these three books are a great jumping off point for his views on Trump and other illiberalism: "Perhaps Tocqueville’s most brilliant insight (and Mishra, to his credit, cites it) was that revolutions are produced by improved conditions and rising expectations, not by mass immiseration. As Louis C.K. says, right now everything is amazing and nobody is happy. Each citizen carries on her person a computer more powerful than any available to a billionaire two decades ago, and many are using their devices to express their unbridled rage at the society that put them in our pockets."
- theparanoid 10y ago
  Real income hasn't risen for the median worker in over a decade. Nobody knows how to fix this. Paying rent without stress is better than any smartphone.
  - dankohn1 10y ago
    >Real income hasn't risen for the median worker in over a decade. Nobody knows how to fix this. The fix is as simple as sufficiently progressive taxation to make the median worker's income track the productivity growth of the economy. The fact that we have made the political choices not to follow that path (as opposed to the Scandinavian countries) is a different matter, but there is no doubt as to the ability for the government to fix the problem you laid out.
    - timbuckley 10y ago
      How does a (more) progressive tax system increase real median wage?
      - dankohn1 10y ago
        When combined with meaningful social benefits (like healthcare and daycare) and/or a negative income tax (like the earned income tax credit), it lifts the effective post-tax median wage.
rdtsc 10y ago
> The liberal millennium was upon us as the year 2000 dawned; fifteen years later, the autocratic apocalypse is at hand. Oh please. We lived in a golden age of enlightenment, peace (our past president, did after all get the Nobel Peace prize), and prosperity and now the dark ages have come. Probably brought about completely unexpectedly "by the Russians". > the failure of liberal élites around the world to address the perpetual problem of identity, Maybe one of the reasons for its failure is precisely because they addressed identity, but in the wrong way -- creating "Identity Politics". Everyone gets to get called by the label they pick for themselves and it seems everything is good. Except it is good only on the surface. Ultimately this is just impotent outrage. Those who have power still do, those that don't still don't, even if they get called however they wanted in the public sphere. It is interesting that this also gets shuffled over to the "left". That is liberals call themselves "leftists". Except, Marx would have probably laughed at that, and would have said "Why don't you destroy those who have power, instead of just forcing them to call you by a different label". > American atavism has to take into account that the same system that produced Trump had immediately before given us the eight forward-looking years of Obama, who remains a far more popular figure than his successor. Right. If the years would have been really forward looking and wonderful, we would not have ended up with a TV personality as the president. Trump is just a symptom. People expend tremendous amount of energy trying to get rid of Trump somehow. Marching, talking of impeaching, veiled and misguided hints at assassinations and so on without understanding he is a symptom of something deeper. If he is gone, there would be Trump 2.0 replacing him. And I am sure, just like I've heard people praising G.W. Bush compared to Trump, they'd be praising Trump compared to Trump 2.0.
- Toboe 10y ago
  >That is liberals call themselves "leftists" Liberals call themselves "leftists"? Only ever saw it as a derogatory from the (US) right. (Edit: fixed formatting screw up)
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Derogatory to "leftists" or to "liberals"?
- 10y ago
mcguire 10y ago
One thing you have to say about the criticisms of liberalism and its structural failures that led to WWI: at least communism, national socialism, and various totalitarianisms had some meat to them. These attacks on Enlightenment liberalism are just whining.
kapauldo 10y ago
Most of modern history is liberals slowly winning. Gender equality, slavery, gay marriage, Obama care, EPA, you name it. Progress is unstoppable.

26 points by npalli 10y ago

Someone needs to let the author in on the minor fact that classical liberalism and "liberalism" in America today have little to do with each other, and that the "rise of Trump" really has very little bearing on classical liberalism, as devastating as it might seen to American "liberals".

sidlls 10y ago
They also should let him know that a series of rambling interludes about various "think pieces" does not a quality narrative make. I found this to be a terrible read, from start to finish. Perhaps I missed something.
- mercer 10y ago
  I sort of liked the content of the piece even it if does feel a bit rambling. What bothers me is that I had (slight) difficulty getting through it, but the difficulty wasn't because of the rambling nature but more on sentence-by-sentence level. It seems needlessly convoluted and reminds me of the reams of academic pages I had to read in college. And it's not like I usually only read 'simple' stuff.
sandworm101 10y ago
Someone needs to tell all American political pundits that the election of a single person, even a party, in a single election means little in terms of history. The US presidential election is no bellwether of world opinion. Liberalism is alive and well amongst the people.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  The Republicans now control the Presidency and both houses of Congress. They will almost certainly wind up controlling the Supreme Court for at least a generation, maybe two. They control 33 state governorships compared to 16 Dems and one Independent. They control 32 state legislatures, 17 with a veto-proof majority. The Dems control 13, 5 of which are veto-proof. It's not just Trump, and it's not just a single election.
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    But it remains a single country and a single election period ("election" almost always includes electing multiple people but it is still a single election process) . The dems had control only a few months ago and could have it back in a few years. SCOTUS's impact is purely local. It means little to the rest of the world in the long run. In many places (canada) US politics seems to have an opposite effect. America has shown liberals of the world how not to do things.
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      "But it remains a single country and a single election period ...The dems had control only a few months ago" No, they've been losing ground pretty steadily for 20 years. The media didn't pay much attention until recently because most of the losses were occurring in "flyover" areas. They're paying attention now. Even at the Federal level, the Republicans have had control of the House of Representatives since 2010, and the Senate since 2014. And I don't agree that it's just the U.S. In other countries you have Brexit, the rise of the Le Pen family in France, etc.
  - tunesmith 10y ago
    So what's your conclusion about what it is? I'll go first, I think that is mostly because of a disastrous 2010 off-year election, its ensuing redistricting period, and, well, I enjoyed this piece: http://fusion.net/the-long-lucrative-right-wing-grift-is-blowing-up-in-t-1793944216 http://fusion.net/the-long-lucrative-right-wing-grift-is-blo...
    - Turing_Machine 10y ago
      "So what's your conclusion about what it is?" Utter failure of the current Democratic Party to connect with those voters who made up its base for a century or more. I don't think there's any other way to spin it. Trump won because he carried several industrial and mining states that were traditionally Democratic strongholds. Your link is just another attempt to blame it on "stupid racists". Did it ever occur to the Dem leadership that calling people stupid racists doesn't make them more likely to vote for you? Those states all voted for Obama twice. While I suppose it's possible that everyone in those states turned into a stupid racist over the last four years, that's not where I'd place my bet.

dankohn1 10y ago

Gopnik is one of the top intellectuals writing today, and these three books are a great jumping off point for his views on Trump and other illiberalism: "Perhaps Tocqueville’s most brilliant insight (and Mishra, to his credit, cites it) was that revolutions are produced by improved conditions and rising expectations, not by mass immiseration. As Louis C.K. says, right now everything is amazing and nobody is happy. Each citizen carries on her person a computer more powerful than any available to a billionaire two decades ago, and many are using their devices to express their unbridled rage at the society that put them in our pockets."

theparanoid 10y ago
Real income hasn't risen for the median worker in over a decade. Nobody knows how to fix this. Paying rent without stress is better than any smartphone.
- dankohn1 10y ago
  >Real income hasn't risen for the median worker in over a decade. Nobody knows how to fix this. The fix is as simple as sufficiently progressive taxation to make the median worker's income track the productivity growth of the economy. The fact that we have made the political choices not to follow that path (as opposed to the Scandinavian countries) is a different matter, but there is no doubt as to the ability for the government to fix the problem you laid out.
  - timbuckley 10y ago
    How does a (more) progressive tax system increase real median wage?
    - dankohn1 10y ago
      When combined with meaningful social benefits (like healthcare and daycare) and/or a negative income tax (like the earned income tax credit), it lifts the effective post-tax median wage.

rdtsc 10y ago

> The liberal millennium was upon us as the year 2000 dawned; fifteen years later, the autocratic apocalypse is at hand. Oh please. We lived in a golden age of enlightenment, peace (our past president, did after all get the Nobel Peace prize), and prosperity and now the dark ages have come. Probably brought about completely unexpectedly "by the Russians". > the failure of liberal élites around the world to address the perpetual problem of identity, Maybe one of the reasons for its failure is precisely because they addressed identity, but in the wrong way -- creating "Identity Politics". Everyone gets to get called by the label they pick for themselves and it seems everything is good. Except it is good only on the surface. Ultimately this is just impotent outrage. Those who have power still do, those that don't still don't, even if they get called however they wanted in the public sphere. It is interesting that this also gets shuffled over to the "left". That is liberals call themselves "leftists". Except, Marx would have probably laughed at that, and would have said "Why don't you destroy those who have power, instead of just forcing them to call you by a different label". > American atavism has to take into account that the same system that produced Trump had immediately before given us the eight forward-looking years of Obama, who remains a far more popular figure than his successor. Right. If the years would have been really forward looking and wonderful, we would not have ended up with a TV personality as the president. Trump is just a symptom. People expend tremendous amount of energy trying to get rid of Trump somehow. Marching, talking of impeaching, veiled and misguided hints at assassinations and so on without understanding he is a symptom of something deeper. If he is gone, there would be Trump 2.0 replacing him. And I am sure, just like I've heard people praising G.W. Bush compared to Trump, they'd be praising Trump compared to Trump 2.0.

Toboe 10y ago
>That is liberals call themselves "leftists" Liberals call themselves "leftists"? Only ever saw it as a derogatory from the (US) right. (Edit: fixed formatting screw up)
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Derogatory to "leftists" or to "liberals"?
10y ago

mcguire 10y ago

One thing you have to say about the criticisms of liberalism and its structural failures that led to WWI: at least communism, national socialism, and various totalitarianisms had some meat to them. These attacks on Enlightenment liberalism are just whining.

kapauldo 10y ago

Most of modern history is liberals slowly winning. Gender equality, slavery, gay marriage, Obama care, EPA, you name it. Progress is unstoppable.