A very perceptive article by Damon. When I read the NYT interview with Ross Douthat I was struck by how articulate and thoughtful Vance was. Here is someone that can’t be written off as a blowhard whose primary talent is incendiary provocations, but a man who can formulate a real political philosophy. Two things I felt Vance failed to address in the interview: 1. the real inflationary effect of tariffs and who would be affected by those (surely it is the working class people he wants to help), and 2. his rationalization of election denials (2020) is a weak argument in view of the fact that every attempt to leverage whatever irregularities they could dig up failed in courts, including in front of friendly judges. One senses he knows to avoid too much discussion of this as he is on thin ice.
There are other things I disagree with him about — his views on the Ukraine war are wildly oversimplified imo — but he does a good job of making his case. There’s no way around it, Vance is a smart cookie. Probably opportunistic, but hey, it’s politics, let’s get real.
The other takeaway from the whole article for me is that the Republican Party has now fully reinvented itself and is no longer merely a personality cult. Meanwhile the Democratic Party is dying a slow death with an uninspiring senile leader who refuses to let new blood rise.
An ideological construction that synthesizes social conservatism, economic regulation addressing the standard of living, and retrenchment in foreign policy is exactly what is needed to forge constructive national consensus, taking the nation beyond myopic Reaganism and toxic woke leftism. But policies to raise wages must be combined with decisive governmental steps to increase production in strategic areas, in order to avoid inflation. And retrenchment in foreign policy must be in the form of comprehensive anti-imperialism, leaving behind the imperialist mentality that is the trapdoor for endless wars.
Also: With Vance, Trump tells people it's OK to change your mind, as long you come around to liking me. It used to be that flip-flopping was considered political suicide. Trump now welcomes flip-floppers.
I disagree with Vance on many things, but at least he seems to have principles and ideas. Biden, on the other hand, has the Democrats running on a theme, which is that the other guys are worse.
It is hard for leftists to acknowledge that the conservative right may actually have thinkers and policies that are intellectually grounded and coherent. The irony now is that the left has abandoned those very principles themselves and bought into revenge thinking while Vance and others such as Ramaswamy struggle openly with the challenge of improving wellbeing for the working classes at the same time as sustaining economic growth.
Vance was pitch perfect last night. No poor person is privileged regardless of race or gender. It was a right cross to the glass jaw of the divisive identity politics of the Democrats.
Well that’s certainly true, but I don’t think Vance said much else of import. Most of the speech was just empty cheerleading. His one big issue was the loss of American manufacturing and all the ills that flowed from that. But there is a great deal more to be said about that and how to remedy it that he didn’t touch on. He made up some facts, notably that wage growth soared for the first time in decades under Trump. I just isn’t true, but the crowd loved it (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/) . And his theme of national unity and hope seemed at the same time cribbed from an Obama speech, and totally insincere given the narrowminded social and cultural ideas of his party.
An Ivy League elite and awful caricature of his homunculus he used to portray his “cultural identity” and amazing redemption arc, in his made for Hollywood auto erotica. He’s just another grifter who “bootstrapped” himself out of poverty, never mind the heavy federal subsidies that allowed him to grow comfortable as a conservative pseudo-intellectual, attend elite universities and prestigious schools, pursuing artsy philosophical theories, while unironically chastising his peers for structural inequality beyond their control. Then to top it off, once he became independently wealthy, he would advocate revoking those same policies and programs that allowed him to flourish despite mommy’s little helpers and a loving supportive home with his grandparents. His entire mythology reeks of self-gratification and undeserved adulation for just doing the right thing. Not even a remotely unconventional or otherwise prohibitive course of educational success with nary a serious self-assessment of personal achievement or the degree of accomplishment
In addition to the immediate concerns about the upcoming 2024 presidential election, the future hoovers--now with a bright, young, energetic and galvanizing potential candidate for 2028 and further. I think Damon's analysis is absolutely significant and see this: "the Ohio senator is an attack dog for the former President, but he is also something more emergent and interesting: he is the fuse that Trump lit." - https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/why-donald-trump-picked-j-d-vance-for-vice-president ).The only addition I would make is for us to start considering all the other new developments/groups/people that have come to latch onto this Trump-initiated tidal wave. Damon lists "new quarterly journal American Affairs, new think tank American Compass, revamped postliberal First Things magazine (this being one of several exertions by the youngish Catholic post-liberal component also found in the Federalist Society under Leonard Leo, and which animates our supreme court as well), a series of conferences devoted to National Conservatism, and a more rabidly antiliberal Claremont Institute—all of them trying to develop a constellation of ideas for After Trump." To this I would add certain Evangelical Christian initiatives (such as Ziklag - https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-ziklag-secret-christian-charity-2024-election ), the erratic but monied support of Elon Musk, and (perhaps in the margins) the "techno-monarchy" orientations of Curtis Yarvin/Mencius Moldbug (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin ). For analysts, I think it is also important to watch how these varied groups and persuasions move forward, unite, or contest one another, also bearing in mind that at least some of them have foreign "twins" or else are likely to influence foreign developments.
A very perceptive article by Damon. When I read the NYT interview with Ross Douthat I was struck by how articulate and thoughtful Vance was. Here is someone that can’t be written off as a blowhard whose primary talent is incendiary provocations, but a man who can formulate a real political philosophy. Two things I felt Vance failed to address in the interview: 1. the real inflationary effect of tariffs and who would be affected by those (surely it is the working class people he wants to help), and 2. his rationalization of election denials (2020) is a weak argument in view of the fact that every attempt to leverage whatever irregularities they could dig up failed in courts, including in front of friendly judges. One senses he knows to avoid too much discussion of this as he is on thin ice.
There are other things I disagree with him about — his views on the Ukraine war are wildly oversimplified imo — but he does a good job of making his case. There’s no way around it, Vance is a smart cookie. Probably opportunistic, but hey, it’s politics, let’s get real.
The other takeaway from the whole article for me is that the Republican Party has now fully reinvented itself and is no longer merely a personality cult. Meanwhile the Democratic Party is dying a slow death with an uninspiring senile leader who refuses to let new blood rise.
An ideological construction that synthesizes social conservatism, economic regulation addressing the standard of living, and retrenchment in foreign policy is exactly what is needed to forge constructive national consensus, taking the nation beyond myopic Reaganism and toxic woke leftism. But policies to raise wages must be combined with decisive governmental steps to increase production in strategic areas, in order to avoid inflation. And retrenchment in foreign policy must be in the form of comprehensive anti-imperialism, leaving behind the imperialist mentality that is the trapdoor for endless wars.
https://charlesmckelvey.substack.com/
Also: With Vance, Trump tells people it's OK to change your mind, as long you come around to liking me. It used to be that flip-flopping was considered political suicide. Trump now welcomes flip-floppers.
I disagree with Vance on many things, but at least he seems to have principles and ideas. Biden, on the other hand, has the Democrats running on a theme, which is that the other guys are worse.
It is hard for leftists to acknowledge that the conservative right may actually have thinkers and policies that are intellectually grounded and coherent. The irony now is that the left has abandoned those very principles themselves and bought into revenge thinking while Vance and others such as Ramaswamy struggle openly with the challenge of improving wellbeing for the working classes at the same time as sustaining economic growth.
Vance was pitch perfect last night. No poor person is privileged regardless of race or gender. It was a right cross to the glass jaw of the divisive identity politics of the Democrats.
Well that’s certainly true, but I don’t think Vance said much else of import. Most of the speech was just empty cheerleading. His one big issue was the loss of American manufacturing and all the ills that flowed from that. But there is a great deal more to be said about that and how to remedy it that he didn’t touch on. He made up some facts, notably that wage growth soared for the first time in decades under Trump. I just isn’t true, but the crowd loved it (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/) . And his theme of national unity and hope seemed at the same time cribbed from an Obama speech, and totally insincere given the narrowminded social and cultural ideas of his party.
An Ivy League elite and awful caricature of his homunculus he used to portray his “cultural identity” and amazing redemption arc, in his made for Hollywood auto erotica. He’s just another grifter who “bootstrapped” himself out of poverty, never mind the heavy federal subsidies that allowed him to grow comfortable as a conservative pseudo-intellectual, attend elite universities and prestigious schools, pursuing artsy philosophical theories, while unironically chastising his peers for structural inequality beyond their control. Then to top it off, once he became independently wealthy, he would advocate revoking those same policies and programs that allowed him to flourish despite mommy’s little helpers and a loving supportive home with his grandparents. His entire mythology reeks of self-gratification and undeserved adulation for just doing the right thing. Not even a remotely unconventional or otherwise prohibitive course of educational success with nary a serious self-assessment of personal achievement or the degree of accomplishment
…to support his tall tales of American achievement in the field of Dreams.
In addition to the immediate concerns about the upcoming 2024 presidential election, the future hoovers--now with a bright, young, energetic and galvanizing potential candidate for 2028 and further. I think Damon's analysis is absolutely significant and see this: "the Ohio senator is an attack dog for the former President, but he is also something more emergent and interesting: he is the fuse that Trump lit." - https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/why-donald-trump-picked-j-d-vance-for-vice-president ).The only addition I would make is for us to start considering all the other new developments/groups/people that have come to latch onto this Trump-initiated tidal wave. Damon lists "new quarterly journal American Affairs, new think tank American Compass, revamped postliberal First Things magazine (this being one of several exertions by the youngish Catholic post-liberal component also found in the Federalist Society under Leonard Leo, and which animates our supreme court as well), a series of conferences devoted to National Conservatism, and a more rabidly antiliberal Claremont Institute—all of them trying to develop a constellation of ideas for After Trump." To this I would add certain Evangelical Christian initiatives (such as Ziklag - https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-ziklag-secret-christian-charity-2024-election ), the erratic but monied support of Elon Musk, and (perhaps in the margins) the "techno-monarchy" orientations of Curtis Yarvin/Mencius Moldbug (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin ). For analysts, I think it is also important to watch how these varied groups and persuasions move forward, unite, or contest one another, also bearing in mind that at least some of them have foreign "twins" or else are likely to influence foreign developments.
Bingo!