4 ms·

Really we just need more labels than "left" and "right", "liberal" and "conservative". Or to accept that political discourse has moved on. For the first 2500 y

Really we just need more labels than "left" and "right", "liberal" and "conservative". Or to accept that political discourse has moved on. For the first 2500 years of democracy, the dominant topic of discussion was economic - how to distribute society's material resources - so it made sense for 18th century French journalists to categorize politicians based on their policies on that topic. Now we have a post-economic democracy where the dominant topics are along the lines of what bathrooms trans people should use, so we've repurposed "left" and "right" to categorize people based on their opinions on that topic.

gruez 1y ago
>Now we have a post-economic democracy where the dominant topics are along the lines of what bathrooms trans people should use It really isn't. https://news.gallup.com/poll/651719/economy-important-issue-2024-presidential-vote.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/651719/economy-important-issue-...
- collingreen 1y ago
  "It's the economy, stupid" doesn't seem to explain what we're watching unfold.
  - gruez 1y ago
    Caring about the economy doesn't imply economic competence. You can care a lot about your health, but go totally off the rails and end up with an ineffective treatment. Just look at Steve Jobs.
- dmurray 1y ago
  People might say the economy is more important to their voting, but it's not as prominent in the public discourse (which happens not only on the floor of Congress, speeches, and the occasional debate but in newspapers and on TV and social media). As an outsider who took a passing interest in the last presidential election, I couldn't meaningfully distinguish the candidates' economic policies (I think they both promised to cut taxes and increase government spending, while reducing inflation and the cost of living for ordinary Americans). But I could have told you where they stood on all the culture war talking points. In hindsight, you could perhaps point to things Trump said as an intention to start a trade war with all major trading partners - the defining economic policy of his term so far. But at the time, 150% tariffs on China weren't seen as any more likely than a huge wall that Mexico will pay for.
armchairhacker 1y ago
Distributing resources is still a dominant topic. Most of Trump’s notable actions are funding cuts: cutting government services which mainly distribute funds, restricting grants, threatening to tax endowments, etc.* Moreover, I think lack of resources fuels most if not all social issues; if people had more money, today’s social issues would probably be less of a concern (though they wouldn’t immediately go away and we’d probably have new issues). The biggest “evidence” is that higher-income countries correlate with less social issues: compare Denmark and Spain to the DRC and Venezuela. One plausible cause: people become pacified when they have enough food shelter etc. and don’t have to work hard, I think most wouldn’t care about trans people using the “wrong” restroom at least enough to do anything serious. However, I also think a lot of economic issues are caused by social issues, in that if we convinced more people to be altruistic and waste less money on fighting social issues (wars), more people would have more resources. All that to say: perhaps there’s no true dominant topic, and even if there is, focusing improvements on the economy or society will probably improve the other. * Trump’s other notable actions involve immigration. The majority of illegal immigrants in the US are from poor countries. Many are immigrants primarily for an opportunity to be not poor. Others are immigrants because their home country is unsafe, which is probably fueled by their country’s poverty (justified by another correlation between national poverty and safety, and more plausible explanations).
xboxnolifes 1y ago
We have them, but almost nobody uses them because most people barely know what they mean when they say "left", or "right", or "liberal", or "conservative". They're just used as a slur against the other tribe.

gruez 1y ago

>Now we have a post-economic democracy where the dominant topics are along the lines of what bathrooms trans people should use It really isn't. https://news.gallup.com/poll/651719/economy-important-issue-2024-presidential-vote.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/651719/economy-important-issue-...

collingreen 1y ago
"It's the economy, stupid" doesn't seem to explain what we're watching unfold.
- gruez 1y ago
  Caring about the economy doesn't imply economic competence. You can care a lot about your health, but go totally off the rails and end up with an ineffective treatment. Just look at Steve Jobs.
dmurray 1y ago
People might say the economy is more important to their voting, but it's not as prominent in the public discourse (which happens not only on the floor of Congress, speeches, and the occasional debate but in newspapers and on TV and social media). As an outsider who took a passing interest in the last presidential election, I couldn't meaningfully distinguish the candidates' economic policies (I think they both promised to cut taxes and increase government spending, while reducing inflation and the cost of living for ordinary Americans). But I could have told you where they stood on all the culture war talking points. In hindsight, you could perhaps point to things Trump said as an intention to start a trade war with all major trading partners - the defining economic policy of his term so far. But at the time, 150% tariffs on China weren't seen as any more likely than a huge wall that Mexico will pay for.

armchairhacker 1y ago

Distributing resources is still a dominant topic. Most of Trump’s notable actions are funding cuts: cutting government services which mainly distribute funds, restricting grants, threatening to tax endowments, etc.* Moreover, I think lack of resources fuels most if not all social issues; if people had more money, today’s social issues would probably be less of a concern (though they wouldn’t immediately go away and we’d probably have new issues). The biggest “evidence” is that higher-income countries correlate with less social issues: compare Denmark and Spain to the DRC and Venezuela. One plausible cause: people become pacified when they have enough food shelter etc. and don’t have to work hard, I think most wouldn’t care about trans people using the “wrong” restroom at least enough to do anything serious. However, I also think a lot of economic issues are caused by social issues, in that if we convinced more people to be altruistic and waste less money on fighting social issues (wars), more people would have more resources. All that to say: perhaps there’s no true dominant topic, and even if there is, focusing improvements on the economy or society will probably improve the other. * Trump’s other notable actions involve immigration. The majority of illegal immigrants in the US are from poor countries. Many are immigrants primarily for an opportunity to be not poor. Others are immigrants because their home country is unsafe, which is probably fueled by their country’s poverty (justified by another correlation between national poverty and safety, and more plausible explanations).

xboxnolifes 1y ago

We have them, but almost nobody uses them because most people barely know what they mean when they say "left", or "right", or "liberal", or "conservative". They're just used as a slur against the other tribe.