Republican election denialism should be condemned. But this person has nothing to say about Hillary Cinton and the Democratic Party's election denialism--watch Matt Taibbi's video to see how bad it was. Everyone remembers four years of the mainstream liberals calling Trump an "illegitimate president." To leave out all of that context is to completely shred your credibility on the subject, and expose yourself as a partisan hack. Just because Trump and some Republicans may have been even worse is no justification.
Who are these “Christian Nationalists”? I’m not aware of any. Are they worth discussing? Is there a prominent leader of this movement? What are their goals? Do they have any elected representatives?
What “political violence” is being referred to in Montana and Arizona? I am pretty up on the news but was not aware that there was any.
As an outside observer, again. I find most of the issues that Ms Kleinfeld points at very real and concerning. But.
But I find the exclusive focus on the illiberal trends of Republicans and how to fix them quite a problem in itself, and destined to weaken whatever convincing arguments she poses. All right, she is a Democrat, this does not mean that she needs to be inherently blind to the damaging policies and ideologies that the Democrats have in the majority embraced, no matter if just as virtue signalling to a vocal and bullying minority in their base. The problem with Republicans is a mirror of that, they also embrace extreme positions upheld by a vocal and bullying minority of their base.
Unless the thinkers of both parties become capable of disentangling themselves from the frame of mind that makes them blind to the disastrous positions in their own camp, you will have increasing polarization, inability to debate constructively, and a society increasingly founded on those thin identities that are so damaging.
Politicians get elected on the interests of their voters, but once they are in power they govern over everybody and they need to take into account the good of everybody, and the country as a whole, not just of the side who elected them (a lesson best learned by reading old Gladstone). We are missing greatly on that attitude nowadays, unfortunately. And the peculiar structure of the Unites States as a union is probably an exacerbating factor in that.
I am not so sure about the optimism concerning civil war either. Although I am hopeful, mostly because of the strength and even mindedness of the US Military so far, I am not convinced that just the absence of a brutal and corrupt state is a safety trait. It matters what people believe, in this world where beliefs grow disconnected from facts thanks to us all getting so much of our knowledge from virtual environments that all appear equally real. And people on both sides of the polarisation believe that the government is both brutal and corrupt.
There are two kinds of civil wars: the ones that blow up because several factions struggle violently for power in a society without a strong, long established state (which have been almost all the civil wars in the last century, aside from revolutions against tyrannical governments); and the ones that blow up in strong, established states, out of two ideologies that become incompatible and reach for the power to annihilate the opponent: such was the British Civil War, and before it, all the civil wars that ravaged Europe in the larger context of the Wars of Religion of the 17th century, and after it the very Civil War in the United States.
We should not sit on the assumption that because the state and democratic institutions are strong and established we can rule out civil war. For it just takes enough people to hate enough the ways of their neighbours, to hate with a righteous and unbending mind, and to have weapons easily in reach. All conditions that could be easily fulfilled in today's USA.
The hope, again, it is boring and trite and I feel it makes me sound like a wet blanket: dismantle the hatred and unreason on both sides. And your side first, because you have more power on it.
This was good one! I love it when published papers are cited in the discussion. I often want to dig deeper and it would be great to get links or full citations in the program notes. Maybe even cross links to relevant prior episodes like with Richard Reeves episode in this case. Ok…firing up Google Scholar here.
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this episode. Thank you for pointing out the way Republicans have become more diverse while being more hardline in their social conservatism. That’s something my fellow Democrats really need to grapple with.
(It would also make sense for the left to rethink whether the terms “white” and “of color” even make sense. As this podcast shows, racial labels obscure a huge amount of diversity.)
We heard a lot about 'voter suppression' before the 2022 elections. It was always a lie and 2022 turnout proved it. Now Kleinfeld is repeating the already disproven lie. As for corporate director being Repubilcan, so what? Big corporations are ruled by the 'woke mind virus' (credit Elon Musk) which dictates DEI, not matter what the facts are.
Republican election denialism should be condemned. But this person has nothing to say about Hillary Cinton and the Democratic Party's election denialism--watch Matt Taibbi's video to see how bad it was. Everyone remembers four years of the mainstream liberals calling Trump an "illegitimate president." To leave out all of that context is to completely shred your credibility on the subject, and expose yourself as a partisan hack. Just because Trump and some Republicans may have been even worse is no justification.
Who are these “Christian Nationalists”? I’m not aware of any. Are they worth discussing? Is there a prominent leader of this movement? What are their goals? Do they have any elected representatives?
What “political violence” is being referred to in Montana and Arizona? I am pretty up on the news but was not aware that there was any.
As an outside observer, again. I find most of the issues that Ms Kleinfeld points at very real and concerning. But.
But I find the exclusive focus on the illiberal trends of Republicans and how to fix them quite a problem in itself, and destined to weaken whatever convincing arguments she poses. All right, she is a Democrat, this does not mean that she needs to be inherently blind to the damaging policies and ideologies that the Democrats have in the majority embraced, no matter if just as virtue signalling to a vocal and bullying minority in their base. The problem with Republicans is a mirror of that, they also embrace extreme positions upheld by a vocal and bullying minority of their base.
Unless the thinkers of both parties become capable of disentangling themselves from the frame of mind that makes them blind to the disastrous positions in their own camp, you will have increasing polarization, inability to debate constructively, and a society increasingly founded on those thin identities that are so damaging.
Politicians get elected on the interests of their voters, but once they are in power they govern over everybody and they need to take into account the good of everybody, and the country as a whole, not just of the side who elected them (a lesson best learned by reading old Gladstone). We are missing greatly on that attitude nowadays, unfortunately. And the peculiar structure of the Unites States as a union is probably an exacerbating factor in that.
I am not so sure about the optimism concerning civil war either. Although I am hopeful, mostly because of the strength and even mindedness of the US Military so far, I am not convinced that just the absence of a brutal and corrupt state is a safety trait. It matters what people believe, in this world where beliefs grow disconnected from facts thanks to us all getting so much of our knowledge from virtual environments that all appear equally real. And people on both sides of the polarisation believe that the government is both brutal and corrupt.
There are two kinds of civil wars: the ones that blow up because several factions struggle violently for power in a society without a strong, long established state (which have been almost all the civil wars in the last century, aside from revolutions against tyrannical governments); and the ones that blow up in strong, established states, out of two ideologies that become incompatible and reach for the power to annihilate the opponent: such was the British Civil War, and before it, all the civil wars that ravaged Europe in the larger context of the Wars of Religion of the 17th century, and after it the very Civil War in the United States.
We should not sit on the assumption that because the state and democratic institutions are strong and established we can rule out civil war. For it just takes enough people to hate enough the ways of their neighbours, to hate with a righteous and unbending mind, and to have weapons easily in reach. All conditions that could be easily fulfilled in today's USA.
The hope, again, it is boring and trite and I feel it makes me sound like a wet blanket: dismantle the hatred and unreason on both sides. And your side first, because you have more power on it.
This was good one! I love it when published papers are cited in the discussion. I often want to dig deeper and it would be great to get links or full citations in the program notes. Maybe even cross links to relevant prior episodes like with Richard Reeves episode in this case. Ok…firing up Google Scholar here.
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this episode. Thank you for pointing out the way Republicans have become more diverse while being more hardline in their social conservatism. That’s something my fellow Democrats really need to grapple with.
(It would also make sense for the left to rethink whether the terms “white” and “of color” even make sense. As this podcast shows, racial labels obscure a huge amount of diversity.)
We heard a lot about 'voter suppression' before the 2022 elections. It was always a lie and 2022 turnout proved it. Now Kleinfeld is repeating the already disproven lie. As for corporate director being Repubilcan, so what? Big corporations are ruled by the 'woke mind virus' (credit Elon Musk) which dictates DEI, not matter what the facts are.