Friends, the fact that so many young people are attracted by the siren song of leftism is a source of profound disappointment for many conservatives, as it should be. This "poll" professes to measure some of the shockingly liberal and unpatriotic sentiments of the younger generation, and thus, despite its serious methodological flaws, it can serve as a wake-up call for those on the right who believe that "the children are the future," as, of course, in a literal sense they are. The Left is doing a full court press to convince children and young adults that America is a hellscape of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and transphobia, and only the Democrats can save us from the KKK/Republican Party. Many youngsters are swallowing the bait. Be afraid!
http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/11/29/young-americans-millennials-believe-america-racist-not-greatest-country
Secondly, you may wish to read one of Victor Davis Hanson's articles, which are always stimulating. In this article, Hanson opines that Trump's rashest and most juvenile remarks and tweets are hurting him with the sort of moderate, suburban voters he needs to win re-election in 2020. To a point, I agree. Trump's style irks many people, and he could smooth out some of the hard edges of that style in order to minimize his offensiveness. What Hanson doesn't seem to get, though, is how little style or substance matters when the media is determined to make you look bad. Many of Trump's "outrageous" tweets aren't in fact outrageous at all. They're just spun that way by a hostile press corps. Unless Trump gets some handle on the media, and shames or intimidates them into moderating their bias, his stylistic changes won't accomplish much, in my view.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2018/11/29/is_there_a_51_percent_solution_for_trump_138775.html
And here's another article that echoes my position that, unless conservatives learn how to reverse the Left's domination of the media and many other culturally pivotal institutions, our collective goose is cooked:
https://spectator.us/cultural-conservatism-demographics/
Dr. Waddy: I'm going to respond more than once to your essay and to the articles, all of which I read: One of the articles makes reference to "reproductive advantages the right may possess in its appeal to such as Catholics". Being from profoundly Catholic Buffalo I think the Catholic aversion to the leftist flagship advocacy of the unbridled murder of unborn humans is a prime factor in this phenomenom and its not going away.
ReplyDeleteBut, I've always thought the leftist infection would subside with the exit of the boomers. You have expressed and supported credible doubt as to that.
One article you cited said that Dems appeal to and connect powerfully with those who see themselves as economic conservatives and social liberals.
Further asserted is that in the business world, such people have much influence. I believe that, having experienced one of the ( I would say) elite cultures of young Americans through a close relative.
More later: Dr.Waddy - your concerns are legitimate.
Dr. Waddy: Leftists economics appear to my amateur eye not to work for a society blessed with free enterprise generated prosperity but it is clear that some business leaders ( eg Nike and Dicks) think it wise to back leftist social causes. That may bespeak any increasing tendency which would exacerbate the lack of right wing cultural leverage over economics you cited.
ReplyDeleteClass in America fascinates me. Having grown up in a yet affluent section of working class Buffalo, worked in several blue collar jobs, living happily now in an intensely conservative rural region and embracing its customs but also having some college and some intellectual interests I've experienced the society of a wide range of cultures. Uneasiness and awkwardness does obtain at times but I reject the idea that intense class conflict exists. A Corrections Officer retirement party might not be a sought after experience for the country club set but I don't see intense and mutual antipathy guaranteed in such a situation. What form then would the extinction of the "deplorables" from opioids and economic euthanasia take? Of course if the left acquires the complete dominance it seeks we would all be equally subject only (except of course for the "more equal".) Physical extinction of all dissenters would assuredly be vigorously pursued. We "deplorables" just sent one who would gladly do this packing. I'd be inclined to think incipient leftist sway would lead to the breakup of the U.S. rather than the death of the real America. And I fully agree that we in that blessed state do face a most determined and vicious enemy which has made appalling inroads in key institutions.
Intriguing thoughts, Jack. I don't see class conflict as inevitable either. In fact, I think Americans generally have a good opinion of the richest and most successful among us. By and large, Americans don't hanker for the destruction of the rich; we hanker to BECOME the rich. Seems healthy to me. It's a peculiarly Marxist misconception that everyone who enjoys wealth, or status, or power, must have gotten it by devious and selfish means. Nothing could be further from the truth. High achievement is something to be celebrated, not stigmatized or punished.
ReplyDeleteHaving said all that, I think we have to accept the reality that, by and large, the party of the rich in this country is the Democratic Party. The number of prominent billionaires who are willing to associate themselves with the Dems is vast. After the last House election, all the most affluent districts are now in Democratic hands. The "upper class", if we may call it that, is part of the elite, and the elite seems to have bought into leftist ideology, especially its social program, hook, line, and sinker. That's tremendously disappointing and dangerous, but I don't doubt for a second that it's true.
The Democratic Party, on the other hand, while it occasionally uses the rhetoric of class conflict, is not in any meaningful sense a revolutionary party, in economic terms. It is more of a status quo party. The Democrats don't envision the elimination of the rich. Far from it. They envision a vast, bloated government that bestows its favors on those who tow the line, including the rich. Especially the rich, in fact. The reason, I feel, why so many rich people and corporations side with Democrats is that 1) these elite types accept leftist social justice dogma as true, and 2) they see much to be gained by playing along with Democratic Party policies and governmental expansion.
What is Obamacare if not a giant program of subsidies to the insurance companies that play along with Obama's vision for health care? What is the climate change lobby if not a giant conduit for the transfer of wealth from those who liberals dislike to those who liberals admire? What is the Left's passion for regulation, if not a means of bending individuals and businesses to their will...and rewarding those "in compliance" with effective monopolies? No, I think there are excellent reasons why so many rich people and corporations support Democrats. It's because capitalism itself has been thoroughly compromised by liberalism and big government. There are really only two "statistics" you need to keep track of: in the last 50 years, government has gotten continually bigger, and the distribution of wealth has become progressively more unequal. Curious, no? I say it's because the Left's egalitarian rhetoric is a sham, and the business/corporate elite knows it.
Whew! I'll step off my soapbox long enough for you to digest all that. :)
Oh, and I don't put much stock in the higher birth rates among religious Americans. The REALLY high birth rates are among the poorest and, well, "least gifted" Americans. (It's not PC to say it, but it's true.) That's not a recipe for "greatness", I fear.
Dr. Waddy: Everything you have said here makes very much sense. We may well see in the next two years(in which the Dems will think their House dominance just a step to complete restoration) a test of the true nature of their party. I'm still inclined to think that they are fundamentally infected with presumptuous Marxism but that may not explain their (I think disingenuous) worship by many in the business world. Maybe many in that class fear the tumbrels and harbor feckless hope they will be spared. Maybe also I'm way off base.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy: Nevertheless: Lenin did say capitalism would supply the rope to hang it. Limousine liberals like Ted Kennedy sneered at blue collar Boston Southies who knew what was in store for them from forced busing. Of course he sent his kids to elite schools.Nancy Pelosi deserves to have the caravan camp on her lawn. Oldsters like me will remember in the movie Spartacus the newly dictatorily empowered Crassus saying "now they will learn the price of their terrible folly". To be able to say that is a cherished leftist dream and the silly merely fashionable left would be included in the deluge.
ReplyDeleteJack, what liberals would do with total power boggles the mind and chills the heart, but we are a little ways off from that outcome. President Trump is doing his best to avoid it. My take on the Marxism question is that, yes, leftists are still Marxists in many ways, but the program of nationalization and wealth confiscation has mostly gone by the boards. The Left no longer wants to eliminate the rich -- it wants to decide who gets to be rich. In some ways, I believe that nowadays conventional Marxist ideology more thoroughly infuses the Left's social program than it does their economic program. The Left ascribes almost all inequalities and social ills to "oppression" and discrimination, and it has in mind radical and inhuman remedies for such outrages. Marx would be proud.
ReplyDeleteDr.Waddy: At one time I thought Marx to be a tragically mistaken theorist only, with human human welfare foremost in his mind and forgiveably ignorant of the monstrous consequences of his expression. But having learned of his murderous antisemitism and his enthusiastic endorsement of totalitarian suppression, I agree, he would have approved.
ReplyDeleteI would invite you to consider my development on a related theme in my blog.
I'm way ahead of you. :)
ReplyDelete