What's the evidence for this, for example?:
The Right that emerges from this time will be more orientated to families & workers, not big business.Really? Where's the sign of that in America? Or is this just theorising on the never never?
Connolly makes a lot of Trump having won due to appeal to those that economic (and cultural?) liberalism has left behind - he ignores things like the substantial majority vote win by Clinton; the actual failure of Trump to reinvigorate industries he said he would; the long term uncertain effect of his populist trade wars; the uncertain effect of long term massive increase in government debt; the boosting the military while at the same time saying he will use it less.
You and Connolly seem to want to make a boogeyman of "liberalism", yet don't get into the nitty gritty of economic policy (well, Connolly doesn't.) Because, let's face it, economics is complicated and populism in only benefiting your own nation's population is not all that moral if the rest of the world is in poverty. Globalisation is supported by the Catholic Church because of the wealth generation in poorer countries it can create, if done properly. Conservative Catholics, like Connolly, seem to ignore that and want to welcome the retreat into isolationism that ultimately hurts everyone.
If you and Connolly want to make a useful contribution, start critiquing actual economic policies: what should happen with tax rates; how to deal with corporations gaming governments out of tax by their international and financing arrangements; how to respond to the "gig" economy; and how all policy needs to be geared towards averting disaster climate change affecting huge parts of the world within a couple of generations.
All this bleating about "woke capital", and how the Left is more interested in lattes than appealing to the (increasingly hard to define) working class, and getting upset because of college students being too politically correct, is just fiddling around the edges of what's important.
I've been saying this to you for years now, as you seem to retreat more and more into the weird world of conservatives who are more interested in criticising the Left for not being what you want it to be, while ignoring what the Right is actually doing.
Soony appears to be catallaxyising.
ReplyDeleteHow ironic is that.
A conservative believes in a rules based trading system both internal and external. Trump does not.
They uphold institutions. Trump wants to destroy them.
No conservative could support Trump.
It is a strange article trying to show up to people he has an intellect.
ReplyDeleteDoes he realise that Trump is a big business President. Numerous blogs has shown up Trump's de-regulation as dong just that. I wonder if Soony has caught up with this yet.
to think a property developer would support lat alone advance market competition shows a low level of intelligence.
The Right that emerges from this time will be more orientated to families & workers, not big business.
ReplyDeleteLaughable, the GOP is totally captured by big business.
Conservatives spend incredible amounts of time lambasting the Left but when it comes to their policy prescriptions it is catch phrases like cut taxes! get rid of red\green tape! restore family values! respect hard work! the climate cult must be abolished!
No detail, just catch phrases.
PS: I don't have any time for that woke stuff and I think the Left has been far too captured by that. So I can't win in this modern world.
Yes, John - I have always agreed that some "woke" stuff and identity politics is annoyingly overblown.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me, at the moment, that the left has just about fully reverted to the state of uncritical sympathy to aboriginal heritage and history claims that we saw under the Hawke and Keating government (and led to the Hindmarsh Island fiasco). For example, as I posted here before, I don't know of any actual serious historian who has made detailed commentary on that Dark Emu book,but it is seemingly being lauded by teachers as overturning everything previously understood about aboriginal history. And there was some feature in the Guardian recently where the author went and made a sort of bread from some native grass or other, and Lefty types were almost weeping with what a moving story it was.
I think we are also getting back to the situation that any natural feature can be claimed to be important to current aborigines, and no one can ever question it forever.
But regardless, in the big picture, these issues are not that important and it is wrong to spent too much energy on dismissing them.
Steve I know you too are tired of the woke stuff and if it is any consolation I think the non-activist Left is increasingly turning against it.
ReplyDeleteDark Emu is rubbish. It is a desperate attempt to portray aborigines as an advanced civilisation. Yesterday I watched a documentary on the first cities in Africa, emerging circa 1000AD. Remarkable developments. Nothing like it in Australia, not even close. It is just a brute fact that aboriginal culture stagnated for the same reason so that many cultures stagnate, the absence of inter-cultural exchange.
The activism in indigenous matters is dangerous because it doesn't address many of the real problems facing aborigines. For example they keep complaining about aboriginal health issues. Eighty to ninety percent of health is about personal behavior. It's not rocket science, it's not difficult, and there is little the government can do about it.
Sacred sites? If we adopted the same attitude there would be "Caucasian" sacred sites everywhere. I find the concept of a sacred site to be ridiculous but obviously throughout the world many people think differently.