As someone who was raised as a staunch Christian conservative but is now a center-left liberal, it's been truly confounding to see conservatism lose its character. All the things that I appreciate in the conservatism of my family and upbringing, and that I still try to exemplify, have been drained from conservatism on the public stage. It's weird and sad.
The issue about Elon’s pro nautalism is an example of a rich man’s eccentricity is a poor man’s pathology. If some blue collar worker from Ohio has 13 kids with 4 women, he would be deemed a deadbeat dad. But Elon does it and he is lauded.
I know this sounds kind of leftwing but this is my most leftwing opinion. And I also know that he can support his kids financially. I think wealth can insulate you from a lot of the social effects of your deviancy but this is still not healthy.
And the children may have their economic needs met but they will not have their emotional needs met without their father. Just look at how many celebrity kids end up a mess.
Mike I agree. But all those women knew exactly who he was and what he was. They agreed to the deal, and now have a beautiful child to raise and love (with superior financial support!). I’m not really that bothered by it. I guess it works for them!
It doesn’t work for them, though - judging by the way at least some of the mothers resort to begging EM to respond to them in public (including about their child’s health issues), and how several of his elder children vocally oppose him. Money doesn't make up for nonexistent, neglectful, inconsistent, and/or harmful child-rearing. It’s not much different from other deadbeat parents except for the aesthetics and, like Mike said, charitable assumptions and social “pass” we unfortunately give rich people. It’s still children’s needs going unmet.
Not a fan at all of the burn-it-all-down libertarians, but definitely not wishing for the religious-family-values-hypocrites of the Dubya era to come back in full force either.
I realize that “the perfect is the enemy of the good” but as lefty reader of yours, neither of these two options sounds all that attractive. I suppose the family values part of the conservative movement at least claimed to lead with more love and empathy if you checked certain boxes. Meanwhile, the Elon bunch are pretty naked in their nihilist love of self over everyone.
Trump is an exception though, the three contenders for 2028, Vance, DeSantis, and Rubio, all as far as I know have conventional and scandal-free family lives not so different from my own except of course they are much more successful.
But regardless we find ourselves in an unusual situation, the cultural left's "Long March Through the institutions" was successful, including the Church. The number of even Seminarians who don't believe in core tenets of Christianity is stunning. Conservatives are indeed suppose to be general supporters of established authority, so where are they left when all established authority is corrupted? There is no obvious answer.
the values of the older conservative movement are obviously fading away. a look at the decline of Christianity in America has slowly trended downward since the nineties. Donald Trump has completely remade the GOP in his image. at some point in the last two decades, politics is now our operating national religion. there will be no going back.
this trend seems crystal clear to me, yet I have several liberal friends who are now insisting that we are on the verge of becoming a theocracy under Christian Nationalism. they seem to drag that argument out every 4-8 years before election season.
Trumo is clearly staffing the government with folks who want to set up a parallel to Russia's state-sponsored orthodox church and instill those right wing theological norms in statute. Doesn't require church attendance (Russia is still a fairly irreligious society).
I mean I don't think it will be a complete parallel given the numerous histori-cultural differences between the two countries, but it's clear the Project 2025 folks (like Voight) believe in a unitary republic with the executive having primacy over the judiciary and legislature, and which should have the power to establish christian conservative cultural norms via executive pronouncements (which will correspond with legal enforcement actions and criteria for federal funding).
There are numerous "charismatic" churches like the Hillsong folks that have links to right wing political groups, so they'll be some direct federal support for numerous "aligned" churches, but I don't think they'll try to establish one national church like in Russia.
when you say "having primacy over the judiciary and legislature…” does that mean changing the balance of powers laid out in the constitution or just having influence over Congress and the courts to bend to the presidents will?
I think it's a (clearly inaccurate) reading of the Constitution that's found favor in some RW circles in which the executive can overule the other two branches. The Administration clearly wants to test this out with the Supremes. The million dollar question is how do they respond if the SC says "no", which I think is highly likely. If they try to pull an Andrew Jackson and ignore the ruling, we'll be facing the biggest domestic crisis since the Civil War.
I feel we went through a version of this after 9/11, where people like Dick Cheney argued aggressively that the executive should have much more control, especially in times of crisis. unfortunately, they had some success and the critics on the other side were more than happy to use executive orders to achieve their agenda in the Obama/Biden admins.
"It’s unmoored individualism: we’ll do what we want, and if you disagree, screw you."
I've argued with Progressive/Left friends and colleagues for years that Left/feminine tends towards collectivism (e.g. Progressivism/communism/socialism) and Right/masculine individualism (e.g. autocracy/monarchy). The closer you get to the extremes the worse it gets. On the extreme Left, what Gad Saad calls "Suicidal Empathy," or caring too much about everything outside yourself. And on the extreme Right, not giving a sh*t about anyone but yourself. All things in moderation...
I don’t think the binaries in that model are particularly coherent. The left tends toward economic collectivism but, on social issues, the North American left is far more individualistic than the right (you can screw whoever you want as long as you recognize that everyone can do the same—an inversion of the Golden Rule that primarily caters to the appetites of men!). Monarchy may be considered “right” but it’s not really an example of individualism. It’s premised on the Great Chain of Being that is about as far from individualism as you can imagine.
Zaid’s point seems to be (or where I think he may be going) is that Christianity ought to run perpendicular to the axis that runs from “unmoored individualism” (as Ayn Rand described with pleasure) to “animal collectivism” (as Orwell described with contempt). We would expect its adherents to speak and act in a way that embodies the Garden of Eden but they seem to be more intent on wallowing in the pigsty, in hope that they’ll be considered “relevant” and not just as shitty as everyone else.
I think we'll need to agree to disagree on this, especially as we're talking metaphysics, and you seem to be coming from a Christian metaphysical frame*/**. I was highlighting one quote and not objecting to anything Zaid said. I believe the point I made is consistent with your summary, re: individualism and collectivism - where you use x/y, I prefer yin/yang.
*Monarchy is power through a singular individual, hence "individualism." Perhaps there is a better word. I can understand how for a Christian the "Great Chain of Being" is a first principle, but it is not one of mine. Mswati III of Swaziland is certainly not a manifestation of God.
**We would agree that the further you go to the Left the more it resembles radical individualism (re: transgenderism), but again, it's closer to the extreme. Most contemporary Democrats profess to hold those values but do not practice them in real life. And I would argue this is akin to horseshoe theory, and I won't expound on that in a comment section.
No matter what, the world could use more virtue, and it seems to disappear at the extremes.
Ah, but arguments about facts one can just look up are boring! :)
I am coming from a Christian frame (something that is both old and new to me after spending a considerable amount of time in the secular agnostic frame) but I suppose what I was getting at is that monarchy is from a premodern frame where individualism was not really on the radar. The monarch wasn’t so much a law until himself as the source of law for the collective (and I think that applies as much to Mswati III as to Elizabeth I). The Great Chain of Being was just an example of how premoderns theorized hierarchy.
My own view aside, I was trying to wrap my head around the Christian “frame” of Zaid’s story—at least in terms of its subject/angle/etc. I wouldn’t want to burden him with a metaphysic. But I digress, and heartily agree with your last sentence: the world does need more virtue.
The reason Trump was able to dislodge the establishment GOP in 2016 is because those “values” you speak of meant nothing to most the base and were astroturfed. Most Conservatives have nothing more than an aesthetic preference for America or Christianity or the Constitution or whatever. Basically it's all just vibes. That's not a slight against them. Most people regardless of their political affiliation aren't capable of having anything more than an aesthetic preference for anything. Some really care about that stuff but for 90% of them it's just a matter of ingroup signifiers. And Trump/Elon do a better job of representing the will and interests of that ingroup than the traditional GOP ever could.
I'm sympathetic to your arguments about why the older GOP failed. It was inable to prevent a cataclysmic financial crisis and attack on American wealth and promoted endless and pointless wars. However, I don't think they discredited themselves with Christian values. I know many Republicans who still believe in those values and want to see them represented in office.
Great article. It is an interesting turn of events. We are in a state where virtue signaling is left-coded, but vice-signaling is right-coded. Hence, adultery is the strongest sign that one is a bonafide right-winger - Hegseth, Trump, White, Elon - all are proof to this.
Christian conservatives have recognized that they have no hope of regaining control of the country so are settling for just not losing. Maybe during the Bush years they could have gotten a national abortion ban, but now they can't hope for much more than repealing Roe and making it a state issue. They're not going to get sex ed or evolution out of public schools, but maybe they can finagle funding for their own schools. Sure, it seems like plenty of republicans are mostly concerned with just not having drag queens come to school assemblies, but look at how much ground that's ceding! 20 years ago they would have been demanding that schools start assemblies with a prayer (obviously a Christian prayer) and the national anthem.
They say that politics makes strange bedfellows. Jerry Falwell has been in bed with Gordon Gekko since Reagan. Maybe it used to be a marriage of equals, but now Gekko wears the pants and Falwell is settling for just rearranging the furniture. This metaphor got away from me, but the point is this is just one faction of a coalition losing power to another. Because of Trump's personal level of drama, this normal political development seems much more dramatic.
I definitely agree that the conservative movement has lost something important when it comes to questions of character and values. I don't know if you've read them, but your point here reminded me of this article (https://americancompass.org/how-the-decline-of-evangelicalism-helped-elect-donald-trump/) and sort of this one too (https://www.thefp.com/p/elon-musk-ashley-st-clair-and-the). I think that this is all downstream of changing cultural norms at large; I guess it's the result of liberals winning key battles of the culture wars, for better or for worse. I've read that religion is becoming more common among young people, so hopefully we can see some sort of moral revival soon.
The problem of the so-called "left" was that it weaponized altruism and "good manners" to keep people in their place while it catered to the powerful, and after a while people grew jaded.
If you hadn't figured it out yet, many of us are tired of the hypocrisy and "rules for thee but not for me," and in this nostalgia you have for "old conservative values," you deliberately or accidentally elide over what was hidden behind all those "nice manners" and "family values," and that was an utter apathy to the issues of the masses and the consequences of their trade deals and empowering of corporations to the point where we now have companies with far more power than our government. They sold out the American people, all while going to church and loving on their beautiful children and wife and never saying a mean thing.
I'll take mean people who break stuff in an attempt to fix it any day over "nice" and "good" people who do nothing while the situation continues to erode because it doesn't affect them. Given the last election, I don't really think I'm alone.
“Break stuff…in an attempt to fix it.” Usually we’d expect the breaking to be selective and directed toward a state that someone could recognize as being “repaired”. If my mechanic used a cut off wheel to remove a seized bolt or rusted out part, I’d consider that a judicious application of destructive force. If he just willy-nilly took a sledgehammer to my car, I’d have some questions.
Well, we're not talking about a car. We're talking about a bloated government that has impoverished its citizenry to enrich themselves and their donors. There's not much that could be broken that people on the ground would notice more than the people padding their wallets. Hence the hysteria.
My take is that we're needing to trade in 'some' core conservative values in order to radically cut the federal debt and 'save' the economy and way of life for future generations. Prior to Trump, neither party (and the values they espoused from the stump) every took seriously the cutting and scoping down of federal government. It was all performative. For decades and decades, it's been just a 'trade' between the 2 major parties of who gets the majority spoils/grift rights. For example, under Bush Jr., 60/40 of that grift via the agencies towards Republicans. Under Obama, it shifts the other direction, 60/40, towards the Democrats. It's why George and Barrie called themselves 'brothers by another mother'. It's also why we recently see McConnell and Schumer batting for the same team. Well, DJT is blowing up this system. The Long Twentieth Century is coming to an end. And to do this 4th Turning, some prior 'values' are going by the wayside. Right now, I gladly take the trade. Even if I lament it has to be a binary result. Because there is a 'spring' on the other side, that doesn't take civil war bloodshed to achieve.
And that was really my point. I lament too that it is binary, but it does seem to be. I think what bothers me is that I come across all these people who seem to feel that all government needs is a little tweaking, that basically it works quite well and we risk destroying something precious and vital. That is so far from the truth. Yes, government is vital, but the level to which it actually isn’t working is making it more a threat to the well-being of individual systems and the populace as a whole than if we brought it back to the foundation and just put back what we really needed, a lot wiser this time around. (I know that last is a pipe dream, but the point remains the same.)
I actually agree with you on the government bloat, and the fact that it has been used as an enrichment program for sinecured politicians and their donors. And I can understand why you might be highly skeptical of foreign “aid” that is little more than soft power projection (maybe PEPFAR aside?).
But do you honestly believe these cuts (e.g. shutting the CFPB, the agency that would be responsible for regulating Musk’s payment-services-everything-app, or firing veterans in the Bronx and forest service workers) are hurting the robber barons and not the people on the ground?
Do I believe that cutting things will help people on the ground? Depends on what they cut. Do I believe it will hurt them? Depends on what they cut. I know someone in the Forest Service. He doesn’t seem particularly concerned. Given the corporate capture of most agencies, they’re next to useless anyway. I just know this. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. It’s time for something different. And if we were going to worry about people losing jobs, that boat has sailed. It’s a hypocritical worry after the COVID shutdowns and the unfettered immigration and the outsourcing and the automation. It seems like we only worry about certain people losing their jobs.
It depends on what they cut — indeed. Though you kind of evaded my question as to whether these cuts will negatively impact the oligarchs in any way.
I did like your point about fretting over a few thousand federal workers when every (small) business in the country was shut down during COVID.
I confess I have the luxuries of (a) having zero influence, and (b) living a few kilometers north of your northern border (though political waves in the U.S. don’t stop at the border). As a result, I can shrug, “It’s too soon to say—let’s wait and see.”
Why do they need to impact oligarchs? But if the oligarchs were getting kickbacks through, say, USAID (as many were), they will be affected. They will perhaps impact corrupt bureaucrats and politicians. And if we can bring down government spending or send spending to more worthwhile causes, that is also a good thing.
But it sounds like you have internalized the attitude that government is necessary to “fix” things and basically a societal good, which is what I would expect from someone of a Canadian or European temperament. Not a criticism, just a suggestion that your attitude is not the same as someone raised in the American milieu, particularly outside the political spectrum ideology.
Trump's approval will be historically bad within a year. People voted for a reversion to the pre-2018 mean re: woke cultural weaponization. A majority of his voters didn't vote for a completely dismantling of the federal government.
I mean . ."empowering of corporations" . .do you not see this Administration removing any and all consumer protections and guardrails against corporate power?
If you mean "completely dismantling government" is firing 300 probationary FAA employees out of 10,000, then I think we'll be fine. And polling, even when honest, means nothing unless you ask why people don't approve (maybe he's doing too much; maybe it's not enough, perhaps they're watching too much MSNBC and listening to too much NPR). And as I said, even when honest, which they rarely are.
And when you worry about consumer protections, you're worrying about tabby cats when there's a lion at your back. There is *no* meaningful control on corporate power in this country, and being charged 30% on a credit card is the least of your worries. The fact that you need that credit card to survive is a sign of how far gone we are and is in fact the bigger problem.
The problem we're having here is that you still don't see what is, only what you want to be.
This. I just realized that politics for the powerful was always a politics of self interest, but liberalism (on both the left and right) made up a story that the common man had to seek out the ideal and the true and figure out the best political philosophy for all and vote along that ideal.
A return to voting for self interest will be bad for the rainbow coalition minoritarian politics of the new left, but might be good for the mass politics of the old class-based left.
Thanks for the article. Remember that the association between Republicans and conservatism didn't fully evolve until the Big Sort in the 1990s. Before then, you had "liberal Democrats," "moderate Democrats," "conservative Democrats," "liberal Republicans," "moderate Republicans," and "conservative Republicans." This probably kept our government more functional, as the parties had more viewpoint diversity and it was possible to get bipartisan support for bills.
I think one key piece of having morally upstanding leaders is that it--to some extent--justifies government action that expects (or demands) morally upstanding people.
On the left/progressive side, all the talk about climate change and degrowth is weakened by the obvious wealth and status of the loudest proponents. "If you're so focused on reducing your carbon footprint, why haven't you moved you, your parents, and your in-laws into the kind of mixed-use apartment building you advocate for?"
And on the right/conservative/reactionary side, I hear so much talk about "low-trust societies" and "urban disorder" as reasons for reducing migration or abortion or divorce. But if your leaders and heroes are willful philanderers cackling at the suffering of others, I do not trust that you're in politics for honorable reasons.
I appreciate the call to return to traditional values, but who is going to lead by example? Even those who are not sexually immoral live in a 1950s-style cloud cuckoo land where we can all attain a home "somewhere that's green" if we just work hard enough. If that's true, please explain why "the working poor" and "the working homeless" is a thing.
Women are being told to get married and be homemakers, but where are the marriageable men with good jobs to provide for them? I work because I don't want to starve. And I'm married.
Women are told, "Have a quiverful of babies. Child-free people are evil." I have no kids because I didn't want to rear them in poverty on government benefits. I've always been told to live within my means, so I did. I totally cut my cloth according to my means. And stable work is hard to come by; having been made redundant from my last job, I was obliged to take a lower-paying job because that's all I could get. I'm on a six month probation. So, while we are not claiming any government benefits there's no way we could afford to raise a child, so we have none.
Don't get me started on institutions. Scratch the surface and what do you find? A wretched hive of villainy and scum. Even in churches, child abusers prosper until they are caught, then they get a light sentence because of the "good" they have allegedly done in their communities.
I believe in the principles behind respect for authority but when the authorities are found to be mired in corruption, what then? We're supposed to respect education but scientists are ruled more by political considerations than the scientific method these days. Law enforcement puts convicted rapists in the same cells as women on the basis of a self-reported gender identity, and describes these men as women.
My faith in conservatism has completely gone, though I retain a sentimental affection for its ideals. Ditto old-style Eisenhower political positions, but none of it seems to work. I'm politically homeless.
This article seems so odd: Reagan was the first divorced President, Newt Gingrich was having an affair with his aide while the Clinton scandal was ongoing, there is nothing new under the sun.
Right. Strom Thurmond was a segregationist who had a biracial child out of wedlock. They peddled piety to dupes, Trump and Musk just cant be bothered with the theater.
As someone who was raised as a staunch Christian conservative but is now a center-left liberal, it's been truly confounding to see conservatism lose its character. All the things that I appreciate in the conservatism of my family and upbringing, and that I still try to exemplify, have been drained from conservatism on the public stage. It's weird and sad.
The issue about Elon’s pro nautalism is an example of a rich man’s eccentricity is a poor man’s pathology. If some blue collar worker from Ohio has 13 kids with 4 women, he would be deemed a deadbeat dad. But Elon does it and he is lauded.
I know this sounds kind of leftwing but this is my most leftwing opinion. And I also know that he can support his kids financially. I think wealth can insulate you from a lot of the social effects of your deviancy but this is still not healthy.
And the children may have their economic needs met but they will not have their emotional needs met without their father. Just look at how many celebrity kids end up a mess.
Mike I agree. But all those women knew exactly who he was and what he was. They agreed to the deal, and now have a beautiful child to raise and love (with superior financial support!). I’m not really that bothered by it. I guess it works for them!
Decades of research all shares the same conclusion . . Kids need fathers in their lives and stable home situations. It doesn't work for them.
It doesn’t work for them, though - judging by the way at least some of the mothers resort to begging EM to respond to them in public (including about their child’s health issues), and how several of his elder children vocally oppose him. Money doesn't make up for nonexistent, neglectful, inconsistent, and/or harmful child-rearing. It’s not much different from other deadbeat parents except for the aesthetics and, like Mike said, charitable assumptions and social “pass” we unfortunately give rich people. It’s still children’s needs going unmet.
Not a fan at all of the burn-it-all-down libertarians, but definitely not wishing for the religious-family-values-hypocrites of the Dubya era to come back in full force either.
I realize that “the perfect is the enemy of the good” but as lefty reader of yours, neither of these two options sounds all that attractive. I suppose the family values part of the conservative movement at least claimed to lead with more love and empathy if you checked certain boxes. Meanwhile, the Elon bunch are pretty naked in their nihilist love of self over everyone.
Trump is an exception though, the three contenders for 2028, Vance, DeSantis, and Rubio, all as far as I know have conventional and scandal-free family lives not so different from my own except of course they are much more successful.
But regardless we find ourselves in an unusual situation, the cultural left's "Long March Through the institutions" was successful, including the Church. The number of even Seminarians who don't believe in core tenets of Christianity is stunning. Conservatives are indeed suppose to be general supporters of established authority, so where are they left when all established authority is corrupted? There is no obvious answer.
the values of the older conservative movement are obviously fading away. a look at the decline of Christianity in America has slowly trended downward since the nineties. Donald Trump has completely remade the GOP in his image. at some point in the last two decades, politics is now our operating national religion. there will be no going back.
this trend seems crystal clear to me, yet I have several liberal friends who are now insisting that we are on the verge of becoming a theocracy under Christian Nationalism. they seem to drag that argument out every 4-8 years before election season.
Trumo is clearly staffing the government with folks who want to set up a parallel to Russia's state-sponsored orthodox church and instill those right wing theological norms in statute. Doesn't require church attendance (Russia is still a fairly irreligious society).
which denomination would be state sponsored and how do you think this right wing theocracy would manifest?
I mean I don't think it will be a complete parallel given the numerous histori-cultural differences between the two countries, but it's clear the Project 2025 folks (like Voight) believe in a unitary republic with the executive having primacy over the judiciary and legislature, and which should have the power to establish christian conservative cultural norms via executive pronouncements (which will correspond with legal enforcement actions and criteria for federal funding).
There are numerous "charismatic" churches like the Hillsong folks that have links to right wing political groups, so they'll be some direct federal support for numerous "aligned" churches, but I don't think they'll try to establish one national church like in Russia.
gotcha.
when you say "having primacy over the judiciary and legislature…” does that mean changing the balance of powers laid out in the constitution or just having influence over Congress and the courts to bend to the presidents will?
I think it's a (clearly inaccurate) reading of the Constitution that's found favor in some RW circles in which the executive can overule the other two branches. The Administration clearly wants to test this out with the Supremes. The million dollar question is how do they respond if the SC says "no", which I think is highly likely. If they try to pull an Andrew Jackson and ignore the ruling, we'll be facing the biggest domestic crisis since the Civil War.
I feel we went through a version of this after 9/11, where people like Dick Cheney argued aggressively that the executive should have much more control, especially in times of crisis. unfortunately, they had some success and the critics on the other side were more than happy to use executive orders to achieve their agenda in the Obama/Biden admins.
I guess we will find out soon enough...
I've been waiting for someone talented to write this piece.
"It’s unmoored individualism: we’ll do what we want, and if you disagree, screw you."
I've argued with Progressive/Left friends and colleagues for years that Left/feminine tends towards collectivism (e.g. Progressivism/communism/socialism) and Right/masculine individualism (e.g. autocracy/monarchy). The closer you get to the extremes the worse it gets. On the extreme Left, what Gad Saad calls "Suicidal Empathy," or caring too much about everything outside yourself. And on the extreme Right, not giving a sh*t about anyone but yourself. All things in moderation...
I don’t think the binaries in that model are particularly coherent. The left tends toward economic collectivism but, on social issues, the North American left is far more individualistic than the right (you can screw whoever you want as long as you recognize that everyone can do the same—an inversion of the Golden Rule that primarily caters to the appetites of men!). Monarchy may be considered “right” but it’s not really an example of individualism. It’s premised on the Great Chain of Being that is about as far from individualism as you can imagine.
Zaid’s point seems to be (or where I think he may be going) is that Christianity ought to run perpendicular to the axis that runs from “unmoored individualism” (as Ayn Rand described with pleasure) to “animal collectivism” (as Orwell described with contempt). We would expect its adherents to speak and act in a way that embodies the Garden of Eden but they seem to be more intent on wallowing in the pigsty, in hope that they’ll be considered “relevant” and not just as shitty as everyone else.
I think we'll need to agree to disagree on this, especially as we're talking metaphysics, and you seem to be coming from a Christian metaphysical frame*/**. I was highlighting one quote and not objecting to anything Zaid said. I believe the point I made is consistent with your summary, re: individualism and collectivism - where you use x/y, I prefer yin/yang.
*Monarchy is power through a singular individual, hence "individualism." Perhaps there is a better word. I can understand how for a Christian the "Great Chain of Being" is a first principle, but it is not one of mine. Mswati III of Swaziland is certainly not a manifestation of God.
**We would agree that the further you go to the Left the more it resembles radical individualism (re: transgenderism), but again, it's closer to the extreme. Most contemporary Democrats profess to hold those values but do not practice them in real life. And I would argue this is akin to horseshoe theory, and I won't expound on that in a comment section.
No matter what, the world could use more virtue, and it seems to disappear at the extremes.
Ah, but arguments about facts one can just look up are boring! :)
I am coming from a Christian frame (something that is both old and new to me after spending a considerable amount of time in the secular agnostic frame) but I suppose what I was getting at is that monarchy is from a premodern frame where individualism was not really on the radar. The monarch wasn’t so much a law until himself as the source of law for the collective (and I think that applies as much to Mswati III as to Elizabeth I). The Great Chain of Being was just an example of how premoderns theorized hierarchy.
My own view aside, I was trying to wrap my head around the Christian “frame” of Zaid’s story—at least in terms of its subject/angle/etc. I wouldn’t want to burden him with a metaphysic. But I digress, and heartily agree with your last sentence: the world does need more virtue.
The reason Trump was able to dislodge the establishment GOP in 2016 is because those “values” you speak of meant nothing to most the base and were astroturfed. Most Conservatives have nothing more than an aesthetic preference for America or Christianity or the Constitution or whatever. Basically it's all just vibes. That's not a slight against them. Most people regardless of their political affiliation aren't capable of having anything more than an aesthetic preference for anything. Some really care about that stuff but for 90% of them it's just a matter of ingroup signifiers. And Trump/Elon do a better job of representing the will and interests of that ingroup than the traditional GOP ever could.
I'm sympathetic to your arguments about why the older GOP failed. It was inable to prevent a cataclysmic financial crisis and attack on American wealth and promoted endless and pointless wars. However, I don't think they discredited themselves with Christian values. I know many Republicans who still believe in those values and want to see them represented in office.
Great article. It is an interesting turn of events. We are in a state where virtue signaling is left-coded, but vice-signaling is right-coded. Hence, adultery is the strongest sign that one is a bonafide right-winger - Hegseth, Trump, White, Elon - all are proof to this.
Christian conservatives have recognized that they have no hope of regaining control of the country so are settling for just not losing. Maybe during the Bush years they could have gotten a national abortion ban, but now they can't hope for much more than repealing Roe and making it a state issue. They're not going to get sex ed or evolution out of public schools, but maybe they can finagle funding for their own schools. Sure, it seems like plenty of republicans are mostly concerned with just not having drag queens come to school assemblies, but look at how much ground that's ceding! 20 years ago they would have been demanding that schools start assemblies with a prayer (obviously a Christian prayer) and the national anthem.
They say that politics makes strange bedfellows. Jerry Falwell has been in bed with Gordon Gekko since Reagan. Maybe it used to be a marriage of equals, but now Gekko wears the pants and Falwell is settling for just rearranging the furniture. This metaphor got away from me, but the point is this is just one faction of a coalition losing power to another. Because of Trump's personal level of drama, this normal political development seems much more dramatic.
I definitely agree that the conservative movement has lost something important when it comes to questions of character and values. I don't know if you've read them, but your point here reminded me of this article (https://americancompass.org/how-the-decline-of-evangelicalism-helped-elect-donald-trump/) and sort of this one too (https://www.thefp.com/p/elon-musk-ashley-st-clair-and-the). I think that this is all downstream of changing cultural norms at large; I guess it's the result of liberals winning key battles of the culture wars, for better or for worse. I've read that religion is becoming more common among young people, so hopefully we can see some sort of moral revival soon.
The problem of the so-called "left" was that it weaponized altruism and "good manners" to keep people in their place while it catered to the powerful, and after a while people grew jaded.
If you hadn't figured it out yet, many of us are tired of the hypocrisy and "rules for thee but not for me," and in this nostalgia you have for "old conservative values," you deliberately or accidentally elide over what was hidden behind all those "nice manners" and "family values," and that was an utter apathy to the issues of the masses and the consequences of their trade deals and empowering of corporations to the point where we now have companies with far more power than our government. They sold out the American people, all while going to church and loving on their beautiful children and wife and never saying a mean thing.
I'll take mean people who break stuff in an attempt to fix it any day over "nice" and "good" people who do nothing while the situation continues to erode because it doesn't affect them. Given the last election, I don't really think I'm alone.
“Break stuff…in an attempt to fix it.” Usually we’d expect the breaking to be selective and directed toward a state that someone could recognize as being “repaired”. If my mechanic used a cut off wheel to remove a seized bolt or rusted out part, I’d consider that a judicious application of destructive force. If he just willy-nilly took a sledgehammer to my car, I’d have some questions.
Well, we're not talking about a car. We're talking about a bloated government that has impoverished its citizenry to enrich themselves and their donors. There's not much that could be broken that people on the ground would notice more than the people padding their wallets. Hence the hysteria.
My take is that we're needing to trade in 'some' core conservative values in order to radically cut the federal debt and 'save' the economy and way of life for future generations. Prior to Trump, neither party (and the values they espoused from the stump) every took seriously the cutting and scoping down of federal government. It was all performative. For decades and decades, it's been just a 'trade' between the 2 major parties of who gets the majority spoils/grift rights. For example, under Bush Jr., 60/40 of that grift via the agencies towards Republicans. Under Obama, it shifts the other direction, 60/40, towards the Democrats. It's why George and Barrie called themselves 'brothers by another mother'. It's also why we recently see McConnell and Schumer batting for the same team. Well, DJT is blowing up this system. The Long Twentieth Century is coming to an end. And to do this 4th Turning, some prior 'values' are going by the wayside. Right now, I gladly take the trade. Even if I lament it has to be a binary result. Because there is a 'spring' on the other side, that doesn't take civil war bloodshed to achieve.
And that was really my point. I lament too that it is binary, but it does seem to be. I think what bothers me is that I come across all these people who seem to feel that all government needs is a little tweaking, that basically it works quite well and we risk destroying something precious and vital. That is so far from the truth. Yes, government is vital, but the level to which it actually isn’t working is making it more a threat to the well-being of individual systems and the populace as a whole than if we brought it back to the foundation and just put back what we really needed, a lot wiser this time around. (I know that last is a pipe dream, but the point remains the same.)
I actually agree with you on the government bloat, and the fact that it has been used as an enrichment program for sinecured politicians and their donors. And I can understand why you might be highly skeptical of foreign “aid” that is little more than soft power projection (maybe PEPFAR aside?).
But do you honestly believe these cuts (e.g. shutting the CFPB, the agency that would be responsible for regulating Musk’s payment-services-everything-app, or firing veterans in the Bronx and forest service workers) are hurting the robber barons and not the people on the ground?
Do I believe that cutting things will help people on the ground? Depends on what they cut. Do I believe it will hurt them? Depends on what they cut. I know someone in the Forest Service. He doesn’t seem particularly concerned. Given the corporate capture of most agencies, they’re next to useless anyway. I just know this. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. It’s time for something different. And if we were going to worry about people losing jobs, that boat has sailed. It’s a hypocritical worry after the COVID shutdowns and the unfettered immigration and the outsourcing and the automation. It seems like we only worry about certain people losing their jobs.
It depends on what they cut — indeed. Though you kind of evaded my question as to whether these cuts will negatively impact the oligarchs in any way.
I did like your point about fretting over a few thousand federal workers when every (small) business in the country was shut down during COVID.
I confess I have the luxuries of (a) having zero influence, and (b) living a few kilometers north of your northern border (though political waves in the U.S. don’t stop at the border). As a result, I can shrug, “It’s too soon to say—let’s wait and see.”
Why do they need to impact oligarchs? But if the oligarchs were getting kickbacks through, say, USAID (as many were), they will be affected. They will perhaps impact corrupt bureaucrats and politicians. And if we can bring down government spending or send spending to more worthwhile causes, that is also a good thing.
But it sounds like you have internalized the attitude that government is necessary to “fix” things and basically a societal good, which is what I would expect from someone of a Canadian or European temperament. Not a criticism, just a suggestion that your attitude is not the same as someone raised in the American milieu, particularly outside the political spectrum ideology.
Trump's approval will be historically bad within a year. People voted for a reversion to the pre-2018 mean re: woke cultural weaponization. A majority of his voters didn't vote for a completely dismantling of the federal government.
I mean . ."empowering of corporations" . .do you not see this Administration removing any and all consumer protections and guardrails against corporate power?
If you mean "completely dismantling government" is firing 300 probationary FAA employees out of 10,000, then I think we'll be fine. And polling, even when honest, means nothing unless you ask why people don't approve (maybe he's doing too much; maybe it's not enough, perhaps they're watching too much MSNBC and listening to too much NPR). And as I said, even when honest, which they rarely are.
And when you worry about consumer protections, you're worrying about tabby cats when there's a lion at your back. There is *no* meaningful control on corporate power in this country, and being charged 30% on a credit card is the least of your worries. The fact that you need that credit card to survive is a sign of how far gone we are and is in fact the bigger problem.
The problem we're having here is that you still don't see what is, only what you want to be.
This. I just realized that politics for the powerful was always a politics of self interest, but liberalism (on both the left and right) made up a story that the common man had to seek out the ideal and the true and figure out the best political philosophy for all and vote along that ideal.
A return to voting for self interest will be bad for the rainbow coalition minoritarian politics of the new left, but might be good for the mass politics of the old class-based left.
Thanks for the article. Remember that the association between Republicans and conservatism didn't fully evolve until the Big Sort in the 1990s. Before then, you had "liberal Democrats," "moderate Democrats," "conservative Democrats," "liberal Republicans," "moderate Republicans," and "conservative Republicans." This probably kept our government more functional, as the parties had more viewpoint diversity and it was possible to get bipartisan support for bills.
I think one key piece of having morally upstanding leaders is that it--to some extent--justifies government action that expects (or demands) morally upstanding people.
On the left/progressive side, all the talk about climate change and degrowth is weakened by the obvious wealth and status of the loudest proponents. "If you're so focused on reducing your carbon footprint, why haven't you moved you, your parents, and your in-laws into the kind of mixed-use apartment building you advocate for?"
And on the right/conservative/reactionary side, I hear so much talk about "low-trust societies" and "urban disorder" as reasons for reducing migration or abortion or divorce. But if your leaders and heroes are willful philanderers cackling at the suffering of others, I do not trust that you're in politics for honorable reasons.
I appreciate the call to return to traditional values, but who is going to lead by example? Even those who are not sexually immoral live in a 1950s-style cloud cuckoo land where we can all attain a home "somewhere that's green" if we just work hard enough. If that's true, please explain why "the working poor" and "the working homeless" is a thing.
Women are being told to get married and be homemakers, but where are the marriageable men with good jobs to provide for them? I work because I don't want to starve. And I'm married.
Women are told, "Have a quiverful of babies. Child-free people are evil." I have no kids because I didn't want to rear them in poverty on government benefits. I've always been told to live within my means, so I did. I totally cut my cloth according to my means. And stable work is hard to come by; having been made redundant from my last job, I was obliged to take a lower-paying job because that's all I could get. I'm on a six month probation. So, while we are not claiming any government benefits there's no way we could afford to raise a child, so we have none.
Don't get me started on institutions. Scratch the surface and what do you find? A wretched hive of villainy and scum. Even in churches, child abusers prosper until they are caught, then they get a light sentence because of the "good" they have allegedly done in their communities.
I believe in the principles behind respect for authority but when the authorities are found to be mired in corruption, what then? We're supposed to respect education but scientists are ruled more by political considerations than the scientific method these days. Law enforcement puts convicted rapists in the same cells as women on the basis of a self-reported gender identity, and describes these men as women.
My faith in conservatism has completely gone, though I retain a sentimental affection for its ideals. Ditto old-style Eisenhower political positions, but none of it seems to work. I'm politically homeless.
This article seems so odd: Reagan was the first divorced President, Newt Gingrich was having an affair with his aide while the Clinton scandal was ongoing, there is nothing new under the sun.
Right. Strom Thurmond was a segregationist who had a biracial child out of wedlock. They peddled piety to dupes, Trump and Musk just cant be bothered with the theater.