I agree with Boyle’s take; but isn’t this more or less if not exactly President Trump’s agenda?
Is it a coincidence that Trump is a builder?
So following Boyle’s points would be directly counter to the Democratic vision for the country, of big-government retrenchment.
I feel that Bari dances around the fact that the voices which excite her are essentially populist Republican, because to declare that allegiance would ruin her brand of moderate reformer of the liberal bloc.
But sooner or later, maybe 2024, she’ll have to take a stand.
Bari, Nellie, and other old-school liberals have largely adopted populist economic positions. That's not a big step -- populist economics is more Teddy Roosevelt than Ronald Reagan. However, the social issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc...) are still a roadblock to their full populist embrace. They're liberals -- they accept the "maximal individual autonomy" position of Locke or Mill.
I respect Bari greatly, but I have no pretensions about her ideological loyalties. She and Nellie are part of the uber-educated, liberal establishment; they may play nice with us plebs, but they still think we're deplorables. And I fear that once we help them defeat the woke, they will turn on us in a heartbeat.
So I don't see it as such a zero-sum game, in that there are nuances in today's Republican coalition. Post-globalism, I don't think that Reagan's Republicanism would jibe for most Trump supporters.
I also think working-class Republicans today are pretty liberal about old-school liberal values: gay marriage, civil rights, abortion but with sane limits, and of course, free speech. Equality of opportunity, not outcome. Respect for law enforcement, but no police overreach. Guns might be a more dividing issue.
On the whole, I think that Republicans have moved to occupy the old live-and-let-live moderate left on social issues (abandoned by the Progressives) while fighting against the growth of the regulatory state. I don't believe that the Christian Right represents the future of the party.
So I feel that if Bari and Nelli were to tabulate up all the issues by party, it would be pretty clear which side of the line they'd fall. Of course I know that Bari argues against this binary political vision, but good luck with that...
Many Republicans are small-L libertarians at heart. The support for Ron Paul showed that. Unfortunately, the RINOs were in complete control of the party leadership at that point--a monopoly that it took Trump to break (with massive help from the media, who wanted him to be the candidate so Hillary would have someone she could easily beat).
I hope very much that the shotgun wedding of libertarianism and Christianity can get annulled. I'm tired of voting for people who say they're conservative only to have them spend all the focus on tax cuts. Trump did the same thing; his only actual legislative accomplishment was a tax cut. But unlike the others, he also took SCOTUS, trade, and immigration seriously with EOs.
I take it back. We don't need an annulment; we just need a new breadwinner.
Let's spend the next 50 years making the libertarian wing of the party vote for candidates who promise tax cuts, only to pass some token measure and spend all their time on working class and cultural issues. Now that would be fun.
In my experience, a lot of libertarians are atheists or agnostics. Evangelical Christians are decidedly NOT libertarian, since that requires people to be willing to "live and let live."
While libertarians do like tax cuts, the main thing they want is smaller government, along with a big rollback of federalism. Less government interference in almost everything.
Despite what you may have been told, libertarians are basically classical liberals: firm on Enlightenment principles and the Constitution.
If you're sad because libertarian-leaning Republicans are not interested in banning all abortions, repealing gay marriage, and making Evangelical Christianity the State religion, I don't have much sympathy.
I agree with Boyle’s take; but isn’t this more or less if not exactly President Trump’s agenda?
Is it a coincidence that Trump is a builder?
So following Boyle’s points would be directly counter to the Democratic vision for the country, of big-government retrenchment.
I feel that Bari dances around the fact that the voices which excite her are essentially populist Republican, because to declare that allegiance would ruin her brand of moderate reformer of the liberal bloc.
But sooner or later, maybe 2024, she’ll have to take a stand.
Bari, Nellie, and other old-school liberals have largely adopted populist economic positions. That's not a big step -- populist economics is more Teddy Roosevelt than Ronald Reagan. However, the social issues (abortion, gay marriage, etc...) are still a roadblock to their full populist embrace. They're liberals -- they accept the "maximal individual autonomy" position of Locke or Mill.
I respect Bari greatly, but I have no pretensions about her ideological loyalties. She and Nellie are part of the uber-educated, liberal establishment; they may play nice with us plebs, but they still think we're deplorables. And I fear that once we help them defeat the woke, they will turn on us in a heartbeat.
So I don't see it as such a zero-sum game, in that there are nuances in today's Republican coalition. Post-globalism, I don't think that Reagan's Republicanism would jibe for most Trump supporters.
I also think working-class Republicans today are pretty liberal about old-school liberal values: gay marriage, civil rights, abortion but with sane limits, and of course, free speech. Equality of opportunity, not outcome. Respect for law enforcement, but no police overreach. Guns might be a more dividing issue.
On the whole, I think that Republicans have moved to occupy the old live-and-let-live moderate left on social issues (abandoned by the Progressives) while fighting against the growth of the regulatory state. I don't believe that the Christian Right represents the future of the party.
So I feel that if Bari and Nelli were to tabulate up all the issues by party, it would be pretty clear which side of the line they'd fall. Of course I know that Bari argues against this binary political vision, but good luck with that...
Many Republicans are small-L libertarians at heart. The support for Ron Paul showed that. Unfortunately, the RINOs were in complete control of the party leadership at that point--a monopoly that it took Trump to break (with massive help from the media, who wanted him to be the candidate so Hillary would have someone she could easily beat).
I hope very much that the shotgun wedding of libertarianism and Christianity can get annulled. I'm tired of voting for people who say they're conservative only to have them spend all the focus on tax cuts. Trump did the same thing; his only actual legislative accomplishment was a tax cut. But unlike the others, he also took SCOTUS, trade, and immigration seriously with EOs.
I take it back. We don't need an annulment; we just need a new breadwinner.
Let's spend the next 50 years making the libertarian wing of the party vote for candidates who promise tax cuts, only to pass some token measure and spend all their time on working class and cultural issues. Now that would be fun.
In my experience, a lot of libertarians are atheists or agnostics. Evangelical Christians are decidedly NOT libertarian, since that requires people to be willing to "live and let live."
While libertarians do like tax cuts, the main thing they want is smaller government, along with a big rollback of federalism. Less government interference in almost everything.
Despite what you may have been told, libertarians are basically classical liberals: firm on Enlightenment principles and the Constitution.
If you're sad because libertarian-leaning Republicans are not interested in banning all abortions, repealing gay marriage, and making Evangelical Christianity the State religion, I don't have much sympathy.
Excellent point. Add Nellie to that. Her TGIF is customarily highlighting a panoply of leftist idiocies.