4 ms·

A lot more people used to speak about this, from all regions of the political grid. It almost seems as if a primary outcome of the Obama administration was to

A lot more people used to speak about this, from all regions of the political grid. It almost seems as if a primary outcome of the Obama administration was to coopt the left into supporting the bureaucratic establishment at all costs, especially if any critique of it could be characterized as populist and icky.

xxpor 4y ago
That's probably more of a result of education polarization really taking off during his time. Who is the bureaucracy? White collar workers.
- rgrieselhuber 4y ago
  I would argue that it’s more the government and private sector partnerships, the revolving doors, etc.
anigbrowl 4y ago
I'd say a lot of today's left got radicalized during the Obama administration as it became apparent that Obama valued pragmatism and continuity rather than risking political dislocation by bringing wars to an abrupt end or major restructuring of financial markets. This might have worked great with a less ideologically driven opposition. Unfortunately that radicalized sector has often drifted towards a kind of antipolitics because the center-left has been comparatively ineffective and unable to respond adequately to the startling rightward shift of the GOP. The Democrats tend to cling to a rules-based system as the basis of a political mandate while the Republicans have had a strategy of opportunistically rewriting the rules at the first opportunity since at least the Gingrich era. In a way I don't blame them, it keeps working for them and a lot of their voters just aren't as hung up on intellectual consistency/credibility as the Democrats. It's perfectly acceptable for political surrogates on the right to state openly and explicitly that they DGAF about anything other than winning.
- rgrieselhuber 4y ago
  I was definitely disappointed in that as well. The whole thing soured me on politics, in general, other than on a metapolitical / observational level. What has been strange to witness, in my view, is how the left was indeed radicalized during these years but, if anything, they seem to have moved in this weird direction of being part of the machinery of the establishment vs. their historical stance of being decidedly the opposite (at least in my view). The other weirdness between the left and the right is the pretension that the core of either party are actually going to do anything for their respective bases vs. just continue to do whatever it takes to perpetuate their own power / positions, and yet neither side can see beyond this to find what is likely a great deal of common ground.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    In any radical politics there's a dynamic tension between the pure principle-driven action and the pragmatic-systematic option of leveraging the existing political or legal infrastructure, and trying to maintain enough respectability to gain authority without becoming disconnected from your motivating principles. It's demoralizing from a civic idealism standpoint, but I've found that looking at it from a resource mobilization perspective make it easier - albeit at the price of sometimes feeling cynical or callous.

xxpor 4y ago

That's probably more of a result of education polarization really taking off during his time. Who is the bureaucracy? White collar workers.

rgrieselhuber 4y ago
I would argue that it’s more the government and private sector partnerships, the revolving doors, etc.

anigbrowl 4y ago

I'd say a lot of today's left got radicalized during the Obama administration as it became apparent that Obama valued pragmatism and continuity rather than risking political dislocation by bringing wars to an abrupt end or major restructuring of financial markets. This might have worked great with a less ideologically driven opposition. Unfortunately that radicalized sector has often drifted towards a kind of antipolitics because the center-left has been comparatively ineffective and unable to respond adequately to the startling rightward shift of the GOP. The Democrats tend to cling to a rules-based system as the basis of a political mandate while the Republicans have had a strategy of opportunistically rewriting the rules at the first opportunity since at least the Gingrich era. In a way I don't blame them, it keeps working for them and a lot of their voters just aren't as hung up on intellectual consistency/credibility as the Democrats. It's perfectly acceptable for political surrogates on the right to state openly and explicitly that they DGAF about anything other than winning.

rgrieselhuber 4y ago
I was definitely disappointed in that as well. The whole thing soured me on politics, in general, other than on a metapolitical / observational level. What has been strange to witness, in my view, is how the left was indeed radicalized during these years but, if anything, they seem to have moved in this weird direction of being part of the machinery of the establishment vs. their historical stance of being decidedly the opposite (at least in my view). The other weirdness between the left and the right is the pretension that the core of either party are actually going to do anything for their respective bases vs. just continue to do whatever it takes to perpetuate their own power / positions, and yet neither side can see beyond this to find what is likely a great deal of common ground.
- anigbrowl 4y ago
  In any radical politics there's a dynamic tension between the pure principle-driven action and the pragmatic-systematic option of leveraging the existing political or legal infrastructure, and trying to maintain enough respectability to gain authority without becoming disconnected from your motivating principles. It's demoralizing from a civic idealism standpoint, but I've found that looking at it from a resource mobilization perspective make it easier - albeit at the price of sometimes feeling cynical or callous.