Identity politics destroyed the Democratic Party and now it is destroying the MAGAverse. Purity tests which are reflections of fear, hatred and retribution are useful in creating small coalitions of the like-minded in their insecurity, but cannot create a solid foundation for a successful society. Immigration, identitarian policy and contemptuous dismissal of those who fail the purity test dogma doomed the Democratic Party. They claimed to shun xenophobia but never did embrace xenophilia. They did not revere the other; their conduct was performative. Rather, they viewed celebrating the other as a useful tool by which they could claim moral superiority. The outcome of such psychological twists and turns was the adoption of a bizarre sort of self-loathing. Atoning for your status as an oppressive privileged white, was a means of attaining a strange sort of superiority. At least it was in certain liberal circles. Oikophobia is a strange philosophy which will not assure survival in the wild. Oikophobia does not pass the common sense test and much of America recognized it as illogical behavior. The MAGAverse is now engaging in Oikophilia but excluding anyone who does not pass their new purity tests. It is time for a change. How about an old concept which has at times offered opportunities even if all outcomes are not the same? Fair treatment for everyone. How about it? Combined with a serious commitment to civil behavior, fair treatment for everyone might have a chance at creating a foundation for a successful society.
I agree with the basic policy outline. What I wonder is whether it still would be leftist. And as such, could we convince people who are steeped in Marxism and related dogmas that they have been wrong their entire lives--even if they have been?
Hahaha....."Marxism and related dogmas". But of course right wing social democracy (an utterly failed project if there ever was one) is not a dogma? Or how about the "dogma" of centrism (Clinton, Obama etc)? Or perhaps the utterly failed dogma of neoliberalism renounced now even by its former acolytes like Brad De Long?
The problem with this is very simple. Internationalism is not negotiable. The left has never done well by capitulating to exclusivist nationalism. Remember August 1914 and Burgfried/Union Sacree. So as sensible as this sounds, it is actually a recipe for defeat and humiliation. The way forward is another: an actual social vision.
I don't understand what "internationalism" might be. Nation states have democratic political systems. They are imperfect. But what does that look like internationally? The current EU government with an unelected commission that makes rules and laws is an good example of totally undemocratic and hated post national experiment. By "intenationalism" do you mean the USA being the world's policeman?
Nationalism combined with aggressive militarism is bad. ( But the USA has been aggressive militarily for 50 years, while supposedly being "internationalist). Isn't nationalism just putting your own house in order and taking care of your own people?
Internationalism is not imperialism or the hegemony of a great power. It means a real structure of international cooperation, and certainly the greatest possible freedom of movement for people (not necessarily for capital). Nationalism obviously is a very complex phenomenon which can be combined with internationalism (e.g. France). That is why I was careful to specify that "exclusivist nationalism" is the problem. My point is simply that the idea that the left should embrace the immigration politics of the right, a politics that is saturated with racism and is also hypocritical, is disastrously wrong. There is also very little evidence to think that this is the royal road back to political relevance. Does anyone really believe that if Biden had been tougher on the border he would beaten Trump? I would hope not. Teixera is no fool, but remember this is the same man who predicted a "permanent democratic majority" a few years back.
Biden had other problems besides the border. You are quick to dismiss all critics of mass migration and borderless world as racist. Lets talk about Europe where I lived for 20 years and have family. A large percentage of Europeans are sceptical of high levels of immigration. They rightly understand that a strong social safety net and a social welfare system is not compatible with mass migration. Furthermore, in todays world, any able bodied African can get to Europe if they can scrape together the money. The rational economic decision for any able bodied African is to go to Europe. Thats tens or even hundreds of millions of people. I don't see how that makes sense - and apparently most Europeans don't either.
Been there, done that. I was part of the New Left. According to Time Magazine, way back then, Herbert Marcuse was the Guru of the New Left. When I was arrested for protesting the Vietnam war I had his book One-Dimensional Man in hand.
LBJ won 61% in 1964 (best Dem showing in its 200 year history). Then the New Left took off and in 1972, Nixon one 60%. As our New Left candidate George McGovern said, "I opened the doors to the Dem party and 20 million walked out." (I checked the numbers, he was right -- about 40% of the Party.)
Now I still like some things about the New Left. But what we need is the the return of the true progressive Left tradition. That actually pre-dates the real progressive (1890-1920) TR etc. Here's the progressive tradition we should return to: Benjamin Franklin, A. Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, MLK, LBJ, Denmark, Obama. Some mistakes, but a hell of a lot of progress.
All we need to do to rejoin that tradition is shun left Extremism (not the people, just their ideas).
Both both DSA and CRT are utopian. And these new "progressives" follow the 3rd progressive party that was founded by the CPUSA as a front to run Henry Wallace in 1948. Utopianism is deadly.
If I understand Teixeira correctly, the new left would be (A) more pragmatic and less dogmatic and (B) approximately right rather than exactly wrong. As a child of the mid-20th century, I would hardly recognize the new and improved left as being left of some imaginary center.
Excellent and hard hitting piece. But one element is missing. Covid authoritarian policies. Left wing pundits seem terrified to touch this one. Texeira alluded to the covid19 systemic breakdown in the intro, he didnt go any further.
Everyone recognizes that "trust" was lost during the covid years. Yeah, no sh*t. Do y'all remember : Lockdowns.. Businesses shuttered... Government checks sent out to everyone which ignited inflation... Schools closed for 2 years in blue cities... First graders expected to learn on zoom..( Of course the most vulnerable kids were hurt the most- and the lefties didn't care).
Masks were mandated although we were regularly treated to the spectacle of our elites gathering without masks eve early on when the pandemic was supposedly so dreadfully dangerous ( among the mask and distancing violators: Gavin Newsom, the Johnson government, Niall Ferguson the British pandemic scientist who modeled the expected death toll).
Then, it's the get out of jail card we knew was coming...Big pharma rolls out a brand new vaccine technology that the NY Times trumpets (front page) as 98% effective. Its mandated, even for pregnant women and young people. Natural immunity is ignored. The vaccine doesnt prevent infection or transmission. Lots of people get bad side effects, including myocarditis and heart attacks.
Through all this authoritarian nightmare, the "experts" were repeatedly wrong, but they never admitted or apologized. Once again, as with climate change extremism, as with mass immigration, who was pushing back against covid extremism?? The right wing populists!
I emphatically disagree about the objection to 'equity': 'Lack of proportional representation of racial groups in desirable positions or achievements is taken as evidence...Therefore, the outcomes should be equalized regardless of merit'. Equal representation, 'equity', isn't the goal but significant disparities are compelling evidence for ongoing discrimination--largely unintentional. As a women, there are a great many jobs for which I wouldn't even be considered. And it isn't that women don't want to do those jobs--they just know that they'll be wasting their time applying, and may just be embarrassed.
And suppose you're turned down for a job. How can you provide compelling evidence that it was because you were a woman applying for a 'man's job' if not by noting that few if any women worked at that job? The issue isn't 'equity', isn't equal representation, or 'diversity': it's giving women a fair shot at getting non-traditional jobs. And that means looking at past hiring practices and the proportion of women in an occupation.
(1) I applied for a job driving a machine to sweep a factory floor. On the phone the person asked me whether I was applying for the job for myself. I said I was. He excused himself and, after a sotto voce conversation said the job wasn't available any longer.
(2) I applied for a job as a dishwasher. The guy said 'the job isn't for you' because it would involve 'lifting heavy trays'. I took this case to the EEOC and won a token settlement.
(3) Not my case but more recently a woman who needed to get trained for reasonably well-paying work quickly took a 6 month course to train as a truck driver. She was turned down for trucker jobs because the firms, afraid of sexual harassment suits, insisted that they could only take on women to train if there was a woman available to train them. And, since women are only 3% of the occupation women to do the training weren't widely available.
I support WINTER (Women in Non-Traditional Employment Roles) https://www.winterwomen.org/ which runs pre-apprenticeship training to get women into apprenticeships for construction trades. I'm not interested in college grad jobs, where women are doing just fine.
I agree that women are likely discriminated against for the roles you are referring to and that is something we need to fix. However, most of the focus of "equity" has been on CEO roles and high paying roles in finance and maybe tech and computer science. It's hard to believe that women applying for these roles are discriminated against, in fact at this point they are likely being privileged.
I agree. At my university there's affirmative action for faculty positions but none for staff positions, which are highly sex segregated. And similarly for student work-study positions. I'm not interested in the high end. But please note 2/3 of the population are competing for jobs at the low end.
"Hard economic times and slow economic growth typically generate pessimism about the future and fear of change, not broad support for more democracy and social reform. In contrast, when times are good—when the economy is expanding and living standards are steadily rising for most of the population—people see better opportunities for themselves and are more inclined toward social generosity, tolerance, and collective advance."
It may be just a coincidence, but an aversion to conditions in which living standards are steadily rising and people can see better opportunities for themselves is an earmark of Leninist leftists, for whom such conditions pose an obstacle to revolution.
Identity politics destroyed the Democratic Party and now it is destroying the MAGAverse. Purity tests which are reflections of fear, hatred and retribution are useful in creating small coalitions of the like-minded in their insecurity, but cannot create a solid foundation for a successful society. Immigration, identitarian policy and contemptuous dismissal of those who fail the purity test dogma doomed the Democratic Party. They claimed to shun xenophobia but never did embrace xenophilia. They did not revere the other; their conduct was performative. Rather, they viewed celebrating the other as a useful tool by which they could claim moral superiority. The outcome of such psychological twists and turns was the adoption of a bizarre sort of self-loathing. Atoning for your status as an oppressive privileged white, was a means of attaining a strange sort of superiority. At least it was in certain liberal circles. Oikophobia is a strange philosophy which will not assure survival in the wild. Oikophobia does not pass the common sense test and much of America recognized it as illogical behavior. The MAGAverse is now engaging in Oikophilia but excluding anyone who does not pass their new purity tests. It is time for a change. How about an old concept which has at times offered opportunities even if all outcomes are not the same? Fair treatment for everyone. How about it? Combined with a serious commitment to civil behavior, fair treatment for everyone might have a chance at creating a foundation for a successful society.
I agree with the basic policy outline. What I wonder is whether it still would be leftist. And as such, could we convince people who are steeped in Marxism and related dogmas that they have been wrong their entire lives--even if they have been?
Hahaha....."Marxism and related dogmas". But of course right wing social democracy (an utterly failed project if there ever was one) is not a dogma? Or how about the "dogma" of centrism (Clinton, Obama etc)? Or perhaps the utterly failed dogma of neoliberalism renounced now even by its former acolytes like Brad De Long?
The problem with this is very simple. Internationalism is not negotiable. The left has never done well by capitulating to exclusivist nationalism. Remember August 1914 and Burgfried/Union Sacree. So as sensible as this sounds, it is actually a recipe for defeat and humiliation. The way forward is another: an actual social vision.
I don't understand what "internationalism" might be. Nation states have democratic political systems. They are imperfect. But what does that look like internationally? The current EU government with an unelected commission that makes rules and laws is an good example of totally undemocratic and hated post national experiment. By "intenationalism" do you mean the USA being the world's policeman?
Nationalism combined with aggressive militarism is bad. ( But the USA has been aggressive militarily for 50 years, while supposedly being "internationalist). Isn't nationalism just putting your own house in order and taking care of your own people?
Internationalism is not imperialism or the hegemony of a great power. It means a real structure of international cooperation, and certainly the greatest possible freedom of movement for people (not necessarily for capital). Nationalism obviously is a very complex phenomenon which can be combined with internationalism (e.g. France). That is why I was careful to specify that "exclusivist nationalism" is the problem. My point is simply that the idea that the left should embrace the immigration politics of the right, a politics that is saturated with racism and is also hypocritical, is disastrously wrong. There is also very little evidence to think that this is the royal road back to political relevance. Does anyone really believe that if Biden had been tougher on the border he would beaten Trump? I would hope not. Teixera is no fool, but remember this is the same man who predicted a "permanent democratic majority" a few years back.
Biden had other problems besides the border. You are quick to dismiss all critics of mass migration and borderless world as racist. Lets talk about Europe where I lived for 20 years and have family. A large percentage of Europeans are sceptical of high levels of immigration. They rightly understand that a strong social safety net and a social welfare system is not compatible with mass migration. Furthermore, in todays world, any able bodied African can get to Europe if they can scrape together the money. The rational economic decision for any able bodied African is to go to Europe. Thats tens or even hundreds of millions of people. I don't see how that makes sense - and apparently most Europeans don't either.
Been there, done that. I was part of the New Left. According to Time Magazine, way back then, Herbert Marcuse was the Guru of the New Left. When I was arrested for protesting the Vietnam war I had his book One-Dimensional Man in hand.
LBJ won 61% in 1964 (best Dem showing in its 200 year history). Then the New Left took off and in 1972, Nixon one 60%. As our New Left candidate George McGovern said, "I opened the doors to the Dem party and 20 million walked out." (I checked the numbers, he was right -- about 40% of the Party.)
Now I still like some things about the New Left. But what we need is the the return of the true progressive Left tradition. That actually pre-dates the real progressive (1890-1920) TR etc. Here's the progressive tradition we should return to: Benjamin Franklin, A. Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, MLK, LBJ, Denmark, Obama. Some mistakes, but a hell of a lot of progress.
All we need to do to rejoin that tradition is shun left Extremism (not the people, just their ideas).
Both both DSA and CRT are utopian. And these new "progressives" follow the 3rd progressive party that was founded by the CPUSA as a front to run Henry Wallace in 1948. Utopianism is deadly.
All we need do is clean house.
DSA is many things, but a "utopian extremist organization" is not among them.
If I understand Teixeira correctly, the new left would be (A) more pragmatic and less dogmatic and (B) approximately right rather than exactly wrong. As a child of the mid-20th century, I would hardly recognize the new and improved left as being left of some imaginary center.
Yes it is time for a new left, and it should sit squarely in the middle.
Excellent and hard hitting piece. But one element is missing. Covid authoritarian policies. Left wing pundits seem terrified to touch this one. Texeira alluded to the covid19 systemic breakdown in the intro, he didnt go any further.
Everyone recognizes that "trust" was lost during the covid years. Yeah, no sh*t. Do y'all remember : Lockdowns.. Businesses shuttered... Government checks sent out to everyone which ignited inflation... Schools closed for 2 years in blue cities... First graders expected to learn on zoom..( Of course the most vulnerable kids were hurt the most- and the lefties didn't care).
Masks were mandated although we were regularly treated to the spectacle of our elites gathering without masks eve early on when the pandemic was supposedly so dreadfully dangerous ( among the mask and distancing violators: Gavin Newsom, the Johnson government, Niall Ferguson the British pandemic scientist who modeled the expected death toll).
Then, it's the get out of jail card we knew was coming...Big pharma rolls out a brand new vaccine technology that the NY Times trumpets (front page) as 98% effective. Its mandated, even for pregnant women and young people. Natural immunity is ignored. The vaccine doesnt prevent infection or transmission. Lots of people get bad side effects, including myocarditis and heart attacks.
Through all this authoritarian nightmare, the "experts" were repeatedly wrong, but they never admitted or apologized. Once again, as with climate change extremism, as with mass immigration, who was pushing back against covid extremism?? The right wing populists!
I emphatically disagree about the objection to 'equity': 'Lack of proportional representation of racial groups in desirable positions or achievements is taken as evidence...Therefore, the outcomes should be equalized regardless of merit'. Equal representation, 'equity', isn't the goal but significant disparities are compelling evidence for ongoing discrimination--largely unintentional. As a women, there are a great many jobs for which I wouldn't even be considered. And it isn't that women don't want to do those jobs--they just know that they'll be wasting their time applying, and may just be embarrassed.
And suppose you're turned down for a job. How can you provide compelling evidence that it was because you were a woman applying for a 'man's job' if not by noting that few if any women worked at that job? The issue isn't 'equity', isn't equal representation, or 'diversity': it's giving women a fair shot at getting non-traditional jobs. And that means looking at past hiring practices and the proportion of women in an occupation.
Just out of curiosity, what jobs in particular are you talking about?
(1) I applied for a job driving a machine to sweep a factory floor. On the phone the person asked me whether I was applying for the job for myself. I said I was. He excused himself and, after a sotto voce conversation said the job wasn't available any longer.
(2) I applied for a job as a dishwasher. The guy said 'the job isn't for you' because it would involve 'lifting heavy trays'. I took this case to the EEOC and won a token settlement.
(3) Not my case but more recently a woman who needed to get trained for reasonably well-paying work quickly took a 6 month course to train as a truck driver. She was turned down for trucker jobs because the firms, afraid of sexual harassment suits, insisted that they could only take on women to train if there was a woman available to train them. And, since women are only 3% of the occupation women to do the training weren't widely available.
I support WINTER (Women in Non-Traditional Employment Roles) https://www.winterwomen.org/ which runs pre-apprenticeship training to get women into apprenticeships for construction trades. I'm not interested in college grad jobs, where women are doing just fine.
I agree that women are likely discriminated against for the roles you are referring to and that is something we need to fix. However, most of the focus of "equity" has been on CEO roles and high paying roles in finance and maybe tech and computer science. It's hard to believe that women applying for these roles are discriminated against, in fact at this point they are likely being privileged.
I agree. At my university there's affirmative action for faculty positions but none for staff positions, which are highly sex segregated. And similarly for student work-study positions. I'm not interested in the high end. But please note 2/3 of the population are competing for jobs at the low end.
"Hard economic times and slow economic growth typically generate pessimism about the future and fear of change, not broad support for more democracy and social reform. In contrast, when times are good—when the economy is expanding and living standards are steadily rising for most of the population—people see better opportunities for themselves and are more inclined toward social generosity, tolerance, and collective advance."
It may be just a coincidence, but an aversion to conditions in which living standards are steadily rising and people can see better opportunities for themselves is an earmark of Leninist leftists, for whom such conditions pose an obstacle to revolution.
I'm sympathetic to Rex's new left. Is there any organization, which I would like to support, that advocates this program.