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I think if you watch Andreessen & Horowitz describe their thinking, it will explain their perspective [1]. For others, such as Musk, I don't think it's as much
by claytongulick 2y ago
I think if you watch Andreessen & Horowitz describe their thinking, it will explain their perspective [1].
For others, such as Musk, I don't think it's as much "turning to the right" as it is that many on the left, which used to be a bastion of civil liberties and free speech protection, have abandoned that position and embraced speech suppression.
This has become so pronounced that the label "liberal" is pretty confusing these days, and many folks feel the need to clarify that they believe in "liberalism" as in "Classical liberalism" [2] because many modern "liberals" have moved away from many of those traditional beliefs.
There also seems to be a strong and growing anti-capitalist sentiment in the Democrat party which has driven some business folks that were traditionally "left" away from that ideology.
And while it may sound a bit trite, I think another factor is that they are simply getting older.
The phrase "if you're not a liberal in your 20's you have no heart, if you're not conservative in your 30's you have no brain" has existed in some form since the 1700s [3] and been remarked on even in the American Journal of Medicine [4]. It's pretty common for people's viewpoint to change with age.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_sNclEgQZQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_sNclEgQZQ
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_liberalism
[3] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/
[4] https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(16)30193-0/pdf https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(16)30193-0/pdf
- ben_w 2y agoFWIW, "liberal" was used by the American right as an ironic snipe at the American left for as long as I've been paying attention to international (I'm British) politics. 25 years ago, it was about guns.