Comments on: The Self-Identification Trap

By: superdestroyer

superdestroyer — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:22:16 +0000

You should take your thesis to its natural conclusion. If all non-whites are actually liberal and white voters are drifting leftward, then the U.S. only needs one political party. If Chicago, NYC, DC, LA, can function as one party states, then why cannot the U.S.

There are not enough small government supporting middle class whites to maintain a right of center party. So will the U.S. have two left of center parties or just one. My guess is that the U.S. will have one political party and the primaries will be the real elections. See Maryland as a good example.

By: Norwegian Shooter

Norwegian Shooter — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:20:52 +0000

“political conservatives have become steadily worse and worse at persuasion because they have allowed the ‘center-right nation’ myth to make them complacent”

Who are you talking about here?

By: Norwegian Shooter

Norwegian Shooter — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:13:52 +0000

“fairly constant leftward drift of national politics” Only if you equate leftward drift with change. Progress, yes: progressive, no. Examples where Dems have become Repubs:

National Security
Wall Street and corporate interests in general
Tax-cuts create real economic growth
Free Trade
Welfare
Energy (cap-and-trade will be gutted)

Passing the watered-down health insurance bill would count for something, but I’m not holding my breath. I usually have a hard time trying to imagine all the policy areas that might be counter-examples, so I might have missed something, but I don’t think it’s anything huge.

By: JJM keeps losing his password

JJM keeps losing his password — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:41:47 +0000

It’s always bothered me that American politicos insist on using nearly-300 year old French terms to describe politics in 21st century America. There is so little in common between a liberal in Burke’s day and a “liberal” now that I don’t even think its descriptive anymore. Furthermore, what defines “liberalism” is constantly up in the air and varies greatly be region. Obviously, the same is true for “conservative.” The only evidence that I need to point to is that fact that one of last year’s best sellers was a book asking seriously whether Hitler was a liberal, and despite the poor and unreflective scholarship, it came to a general conclusions that the word “liberal” can mean just about anything to anyone.

Terms like “neoconservative” and “progressive” are a little better, in my opinion, because they at least attempt to define current political schools of thought in contemporary terms, but even these ape previous sentiments and strain their base definitions.

At the end of the day, I always have to come back to the same conclusion; that the US is a multinational state and its various and copious number of political tribes are indescribable with a measly two or three labels. While these different groups may form temporary alliances under one of the two major political funds raising organizations, they are distinct and trying to corral them into one or two boxes is an exercise in futility.