Incredible synthesis of how procedural liberalism became the arena rather than the competitor. That distinction between liberalism lacking an anchor versus neoliberalism having libertarian philosophy plus shareholder primacy clarifies alot I've been trying to articulate for years. The point about Democrats offering policies instead of vision really hits, especially with Build Back Better, it was just a list of good things with no unifying story. That's why nobody fought for it when Manchin gutted it, there was no ideolgy to defend.
Yeah. The asymmetry is staggering. And my fear is that Dems are just going to wait for MAGA to fail and not change at all. Then we'll end up with another Dem admin that can't deliver on a real vision. And I'm not sure what we get after another failed cycle (it only seems to get worse each time)
Is it possible that in the article about the Libertarians in "Unmasking MAGA", you didn't lay enough emphasis on the importance of libertarians as being in the driver's seat of MAGA? You did mention that libertarianism cleared the way for the other members of the coalition to come in, but it seems like libertarians per se played a pretty significant role in the buildup, right? Maybe not of MAGA per se but in the coalescence/metastasis phase over decades.
I guess I'm contradicting myself a bit. There's "MAGA" and then there are the coalition members doing their thing in the lead up to its formation. It just seems to me that a bit more emphasis could have been placed on libertarians as individuals (or at least some key thought leaders among them) and their leading role in part of this saga. I don't know. I'm not articulating this well.
In my opinion, the importance of libertarianism is at the ideological level more so than the personal level. For instance, take the Heritage Foundation/Moral Majority which were formed by Weyrich and Falwell (Falwell only for MM). They were, at their core, Corporatist/Fake Christian. But they utilized the libertarian framework as the ideological scaffolding for selling their ideas. So, this is why in Unmasking MAGA, libertarians aren't shown as being in the driver seat. Because they're not. Rand Paul is probably the only actual libertarian in congress, and I don't even think that MAGA likes him much as he has often gotten in their way.
Libertarianism provides the language of "small government," "low taxes," "pull yourself by your bootstrap" and "isolationism" that the 4 main factions use to destroy functional government that can be a check on corporate power(Corporatists), maintain separation of church and state (Fake Christians), protect and provide opportunities to minorities (White Supremacists) and maintain peaceful international relations (Warhawks).
Libertarianism is a but a tool—albeit an extremely effective one—of propaganda.
Part of the way out is to be skeptical of the media. (Easier said than done, because there are people doing their best to discourage this. "Trust me bro.") Media can in large part be blamed for what happened to the Democrat party. They, along with the constant chipping away by radical right-wingers, convinced the part to move more to the right out of fear for their jobs.
As a project in kolledge, I went to a public event & then bought 4 different newspapers (when there were 4 different newspapers to buy) to read their accounts of it. Of course there were differences in the articles, but some of the differences were real departures--not only from the other accounts, but from what I actually saw.
So what are we to believe? And who are we to believe? We can't be everywhere, which is the purpose of the media. We really need to sort out how to do this, or we'll turn into Russia.
The argument that extractionism is the culprit of social ills distills to greed and avarice in all its political and societal forms Because we are inherently spiritual beings having human experiences this tension boils down to human ego needs versus spiritual elevating principles This dialogue has to be continued with those in the Democratic party who are in positions of power to make this higher functioning argument
Incredible synthesis of how procedural liberalism became the arena rather than the competitor. That distinction between liberalism lacking an anchor versus neoliberalism having libertarian philosophy plus shareholder primacy clarifies alot I've been trying to articulate for years. The point about Democrats offering policies instead of vision really hits, especially with Build Back Better, it was just a list of good things with no unifying story. That's why nobody fought for it when Manchin gutted it, there was no ideolgy to defend.
Thanks 😊
Yeah. The asymmetry is staggering. And my fear is that Dems are just going to wait for MAGA to fail and not change at all. Then we'll end up with another Dem admin that can't deliver on a real vision. And I'm not sure what we get after another failed cycle (it only seems to get worse each time)
Is it possible that in the article about the Libertarians in "Unmasking MAGA", you didn't lay enough emphasis on the importance of libertarians as being in the driver's seat of MAGA? You did mention that libertarianism cleared the way for the other members of the coalition to come in, but it seems like libertarians per se played a pretty significant role in the buildup, right? Maybe not of MAGA per se but in the coalescence/metastasis phase over decades.
I guess I'm contradicting myself a bit. There's "MAGA" and then there are the coalition members doing their thing in the lead up to its formation. It just seems to me that a bit more emphasis could have been placed on libertarians as individuals (or at least some key thought leaders among them) and their leading role in part of this saga. I don't know. I'm not articulating this well.
In my opinion, the importance of libertarianism is at the ideological level more so than the personal level. For instance, take the Heritage Foundation/Moral Majority which were formed by Weyrich and Falwell (Falwell only for MM). They were, at their core, Corporatist/Fake Christian. But they utilized the libertarian framework as the ideological scaffolding for selling their ideas. So, this is why in Unmasking MAGA, libertarians aren't shown as being in the driver seat. Because they're not. Rand Paul is probably the only actual libertarian in congress, and I don't even think that MAGA likes him much as he has often gotten in their way.
Libertarianism provides the language of "small government," "low taxes," "pull yourself by your bootstrap" and "isolationism" that the 4 main factions use to destroy functional government that can be a check on corporate power(Corporatists), maintain separation of church and state (Fake Christians), protect and provide opportunities to minorities (White Supremacists) and maintain peaceful international relations (Warhawks).
Libertarianism is a but a tool—albeit an extremely effective one—of propaganda.
Part of the way out is to be skeptical of the media. (Easier said than done, because there are people doing their best to discourage this. "Trust me bro.") Media can in large part be blamed for what happened to the Democrat party. They, along with the constant chipping away by radical right-wingers, convinced the part to move more to the right out of fear for their jobs.
As a project in kolledge, I went to a public event & then bought 4 different newspapers (when there were 4 different newspapers to buy) to read their accounts of it. Of course there were differences in the articles, but some of the differences were real departures--not only from the other accounts, but from what I actually saw.
So what are we to believe? And who are we to believe? We can't be everywhere, which is the purpose of the media. We really need to sort out how to do this, or we'll turn into Russia.
The argument that extractionism is the culprit of social ills distills to greed and avarice in all its political and societal forms Because we are inherently spiritual beings having human experiences this tension boils down to human ego needs versus spiritual elevating principles This dialogue has to be continued with those in the Democratic party who are in positions of power to make this higher functioning argument