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Martin Gurri and the ungovernable public

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Re: Martin Gurri and the ungovernable public

#41

Post by raincom »

js2 wrote: post #12
pdonis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> from the left's perspective all the agreed upon societal ills--e.g. loss of blue collar jobs to free trade, lack of income growth combined with increasing income disparity, corporate oligopolies, etc--are a consequence of conservative, Republican, policies But even if this is accepted for the sake of argument (I'm not sure it's entirely true, but let's assume it is), the left has not done what a sane political part…

Once the New Deal coalition fell apart after the Civil Rights Act passed and the GOP implemented the Southern Strategy and right-to-work laws destroyed unions, the Democrats lost unions as their base of financial support. They still held on in Congress for a while, but couldn't win the Presidency until the Third Way/neoliberal Democrats and groups like the Blue Dogs took charge of the party. At that point, the Democr…

Interesting to see how Democratic party has been captured in order to win elections.

Re: Martin Gurri and the ungovernable public

#42

Post by p1necone »

scottlocklin wrote: post #27
wahern wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the interview Martin Gurri characterizes the left thusly: > Today the big issue is… what? Wearing MAGA hats? Racism certainly isn’t a divisive issue. Everybody’s against it. Capitalism isn’t much of an issue. Nobody even talks about class or poverty any more. Identity’s too diffuse and dispersed – if identitarians started fighting, it would look more like a scrum than a civil war. That's not honest. It would be li…

It's widely recognized by the actual American left that neoliberals have taken over the Democratic party, but it's less often said that the Republican party is mutating into a worker's party, differentiated largely on social class. Political correctness: it's just a social class differentiator; keeping the filthy workmen off of our proverbial lawns. Democrats are now the party of the managerial/professional/muh colli…

Republicans might be the party of pandering to the working class via rhetoric, but their actual policies and actions certainly aren't helping the working class. Trying to claim that the Democrats are in bed with big business any more than the Republicans strikes me as dishonest.

Re: Martin Gurri and the ungovernable public

#43

Post by RobAtticus »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #37
js2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even Donald Trump could not turn them toward fiscal stimulus nor infrastructure. He can't pass an infrastructure plan because anything of that scope requires persuasion and compromise across many competing interests, things I believe he's constitutionally incapable of. It's the same reason he never had a healthcare bill. If he can't strong arm a deal, he can't get it done at all. I think he actually used the bully…

I disagree. I think that Trump, freed of McConnell would have been for using a ton of debt to build things. Would he have insisted that a ton of that spending take place in states that votes for him? Absolutely. But he is not a deficit hawk.

Does this actually disagree with what he said? OP said Trump doesn't put in the effort to persuade (aka, get McConnell to focus on his agenda) and used his bully pulpit ineffectively (aka, putting enough pressure on McConnell to act). That seems to square with your thoughts.

Re: Martin Gurri and the ungovernable public

#44

Post by DubiousPusher »

RobAtticus wrote: post #43
DubiousPusher wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I think that Trump, freed of McConnell would have been for using a ton of debt to build things. Would he have insisted that a ton of that spending take place in states that votes for him? Absolutely. But he is not a deficit hawk.

Does this actually disagree with what he said? OP said Trump doesn't put in the effort to persuade (aka, get McConnell to focus on his agenda) and used his bully pulpit ineffectively (aka, putting enough pressure on McConnell to act). That seems to square with your thoughts.

No. This is heralding to a different era of Sorkinesque politics. There are just things the Republican caucus is not going to do because of their philosophical and public commitment to austerity.

My point is that Trump is almost the perfect president to get this done because he has purchase with the base even when he contradicts orthodoxy. A conservative nervous about being primaried for voting for a big government program like this has all the necessary cover to vote for it under Trump. That they could not get it done under Trump I see as incredible evidence of the party's commitment to austerity government.

Look at the fight over food stamps we have every time the farm bill comes around. SNAP costs about 1/3 of 1 percent of GDP. It helps ag and basically extends food security to the entire country. But Republicans fight over it like it's Medicare. I'm not condemning them for this. I happen to disagree but they fundamentally believe, no matter the cost benefit analysis that the government should not do these things and cannot conduct them effectively. It is hard for people to understand because we are so used to the post war order in which both sides believe in government up to a certain point at least.

Re: Martin Gurri and the ungovernable public

#45

Post by ianai »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #34
ianai wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Republicans have been getting death threats towards themselves and their families for even looking likely to disagree with the president for years now. They also had no problem passing huge tax cuts without funding and thus exploding the deficit. I think it’s imperative that the next president start by trying to stem the online propaganda and anything else contributing to those death threats. The US simply cannot tol…

Re high speed rail: The problem is, there aren't enough people in the rural area. You wouldn't have a high-speed rail stop in every other town in rural Kansas - if you did, it wouldn't be high speed rail. You're not going to connect all the farmer's kids to Kansas City that way, still less to Chicago.

I’m sure there’s a way around it. Got any ideas?

Re: Martin Gurri and the ungovernable public

#46

Post by pdonis »

ianai wrote: post #45
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re high speed rail: The problem is, there aren't enough people in the rural area. You wouldn't have a high-speed rail stop in every other town in rural Kansas - if you did, it wouldn't be high speed rail. You're not going to connect all the farmer's kids to Kansas City that way, still less to Chicago.

I’m sure there’s a way around it. Got any ideas?

Of course there's a way around it. It's this great technology called "cars".

Sure, push to make cars more fuel efficient, push for ways to make fuel for cars that's more closed cycle (like biofuel), push to spread more infrastructure to make things like electric cars or plug-in hybrids feasible. But when you have a population that is very, very spread out, there is no such thing as "mass transit", and we just have to deal with that fact.

Re: Martin Gurri and the ungovernable public

#47

Post by scottlocklin »

p1necone wrote: post #42
scottlocklin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's widely recognized by the actual American left that neoliberals have taken over the Democratic party, but it's less often said that the Republican party is mutating into a worker's party, differentiated largely on social class. Political correctness: it's just a social class differentiator; keeping the filthy workmen off of our proverbial lawns. Democrats are now the party of the managerial/professional/muh colli…

Republicans might be the party of pandering to the working class via rhetoric, but their actual policies and actions certainly aren't helping the working class. Trying to claim that the Democrats are in bed with big business any more than the Republicans strikes me as dishonest.

The Democrats policies don't help the working class very much either these days. That's why the republicans have an opening, even on social issues. The 'whassamadda kansas' guy has made an entire career of noticing this, but nobody listens to him. Particularly hilarious in his last book, "Listen Liberal" was his skewering of the "microfinance" fetish of the "left" -aka, let's get the third world in hawk to American userers.

It's a titanic shift; I'm old enough to remember guys like Walter Mondale and Tip O'Neill who made Bernie look like an Ayn Rand fan; they were mainstream democrats who actually did help the working man. Now, even the far left are screeching ninnies who are obsessed with things which would actually destroy the working man's life more than the last 40 years already have.

Re: Martin Gurri and the ungovernable public

#48

Post by thunderbong »

As others have mentioned, this is a fantastic long read. And some wonderful lines worth quoting. My favourites -

>> The highest calling of true elites is to translate the flux of reality into a coherent story.

>> Perspectives on reality of course vary according to the ideals and institutions involved.

>> We are fractured creatures, trapped in a subjective perspective, but we are also symbolic animals, viscerally craving a meaning for our individual lives that is universally acknowledged and so transcends individuality.

>> Belief is the default. What needs to be explained is systematic cynicism or unbelief: it’s a pathological state that makes individuals miserable and society untenable.

>> The public is disenchanted in the elites and their institutions, much in the way science disenchanted the world of fairies and goblins.

>> All you need is a smart phone and a sufficient measure of anger against.

>> The lust for destruction, rather than fascism or some “successor ideology,” looms as the great threat to democracy today.

>> For all the anger, we live pretty comfortably within this evil old system.

>> Websites must compete for attention and so practice the art of the rant.

>> Newspapers are trying to survive by selling polarization.

>> I have learned that the best way to be wrong in public is to make a prediction.

>> On the web, you can vote on anything, at any time. I’m pretty sure that’s not a good thing, but it’s the purest form of democracy, and explanations about why it’s not a good thing always start with the assumption that the elites are smarter than the voters.

>> Like I said, I’m really old, and one of the few things one learns with age, young Antonio, is that there are many more important things than personal vanity.

Re: Martin Gurri and the ungovernable public

#49

Post by ianai »

pdonis wrote: post #46
ianai wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m sure there’s a way around it. Got any ideas?

Of course there's a way around it. It's this great technology called "cars". Sure, push to make cars more fuel efficient, push for ways to make fuel for cars that's more closed cycle (like biofuel), push to spread more infrastructure to make things like electric cars or plug-in hybrids feasible. But when you have a population that is very, very spread out, there is no such thing as "mass transit", and we just have to…

Bullet trains with a way to drive your car into them. Boom, individualized mass transit. Yes they’d have to stop every thirty minutes.

Another option is to actually have underground tunnels for vehicles to drive through in tightly controlled settings. That way you take the driver out of it - and maybe can install ways to power vehicles internally. You could take that system any time of day without regard for weather, it could be centrally ran and administered ie little room for accidents, and thus depend on it for quick access to daily duties like work.

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