Excellent essay, the only thing I'd add is: the actually existing working class, the ones who actually live here in America (and especially the men), are much more likely to support Trump than Bernie. The DSA fantasy that working class conservatives are simply suffering from false consciousness, and the scales will fall from their eyes once the hated liberals stop preventing the DSA from showing the working class the light, is at least as old as the late 19th-century "Going to the People" by the Russian communist intelligentsia.
It's an especially pathetic fallacy now, given how much leftists organize their cultural politics around an absolute loathing of the very same working class Americans in whose welfare they're supposedly acting.
Henry-Kissinger-if-he-was-a-valley-girl: perfect description of that horrendous guy's way of speaking. Also: how is vocal fry, even more annoying than upspeaking, still in existence in our degraded world, degrading it further every day?
Also, let's be real here: the progressive left, for all their bleating about how Trump, MAGA, Project 2025, and Elon Musk are all Existential Threats to Our Democracy, do not actually act like it.
Their consistent pattern is to nominate candidates and endorse policy positions that *alienate* the normie centrists who they need in order to win. Forex, if they were serious about defeating Trump and Trumpism, we would be talking right now about whether Andy Beshear, Josh Shapiro, or Gretchen Whitmer was going to be the Democratic nominee in 2028. Gavin Newsom, AOC, and Kamala Harris wouldn't even be on the table.
Instead, their primary concern is ideological purity tests, much as the MAGA right's primary concern is fealty to Trump. That John Fetterman, who votes with Democrats 80% of the time on the big stuff and is a senator from a state that voted for Trump in two of the last three elections is considered "a disappointment" is insane, especially considering the structural advantage the GOP has in the Senate.
Excellent essay, wise and necessary. And if only it came to pass that "sane, solution-oriented Democrats win this factional fight," then this used-to-be-Democrat voter who is now anything-but-D would be happy to vote D again. It seems unlikely at this point . . . but one can only hope essays like this will be helpful.
Also, it does not help, currently, to vote for what few sane Democrats might actually be electable . . . they just go to Washington and vote right along with the whackos.
You are right about the DSA. Now please address Progressives, the DSA Lite. Work like this is essential.
Here's something about MAGA that this piece brought to mind: MAGA can and does function well in the private sector. Small businesses and whatnot. They but their own BS which is a huge problem, but in daily life, they are functional.
Excellent essay, the only thing I'd add is: the actually existing working class, the ones who actually live here in America (and especially the men), are much more likely to support Trump than Bernie. The DSA fantasy that working class conservatives are simply suffering from false consciousness, and the scales will fall from their eyes once the hated liberals stop preventing the DSA from showing the working class the light, is at least as old as the late 19th-century "Going to the People" by the Russian communist intelligentsia.
It's an especially pathetic fallacy now, given how much leftists organize their cultural politics around an absolute loathing of the very same working class Americans in whose welfare they're supposedly acting.
Henry-Kissinger-if-he-was-a-valley-girl: perfect description of that horrendous guy's way of speaking. Also: how is vocal fry, even more annoying than upspeaking, still in existence in our degraded world, degrading it further every day?
Hortense: "Upspeaking," also known as Katie Herzog Syndrome.....
Also, let's be real here: the progressive left, for all their bleating about how Trump, MAGA, Project 2025, and Elon Musk are all Existential Threats to Our Democracy, do not actually act like it.
Their consistent pattern is to nominate candidates and endorse policy positions that *alienate* the normie centrists who they need in order to win. Forex, if they were serious about defeating Trump and Trumpism, we would be talking right now about whether Andy Beshear, Josh Shapiro, or Gretchen Whitmer was going to be the Democratic nominee in 2028. Gavin Newsom, AOC, and Kamala Harris wouldn't even be on the table.
Instead, their primary concern is ideological purity tests, much as the MAGA right's primary concern is fealty to Trump. That John Fetterman, who votes with Democrats 80% of the time on the big stuff and is a senator from a state that voted for Trump in two of the last three elections is considered "a disappointment" is insane, especially considering the structural advantage the GOP has in the Senate.
Jeff, the Los Angeles Mayoral vote was a joke. Chris Bray tracks some of the "thousand ways" it was a comedy, not an election.
https://chrisbray.substack.com/p/to-rule-over-the-ashes-714
Those DSA morons who found Platner are a parody of Idiocracy.
These people are mentally ill, they have no idea how the world works, nor how to improve anything.
I live in Maine, a guy like Platner stinks inauthenticity, he's a phony with a disordered mind, a Tim Waltz with too much testosterone.
Excellent essay, wise and necessary. And if only it came to pass that "sane, solution-oriented Democrats win this factional fight," then this used-to-be-Democrat voter who is now anything-but-D would be happy to vote D again. It seems unlikely at this point . . . but one can only hope essays like this will be helpful.
Also, it does not help, currently, to vote for what few sane Democrats might actually be electable . . . they just go to Washington and vote right along with the whackos.
You are right about the DSA. Now please address Progressives, the DSA Lite. Work like this is essential.
Here's something about MAGA that this piece brought to mind: MAGA can and does function well in the private sector. Small businesses and whatnot. They but their own BS which is a huge problem, but in daily life, they are functional.
Good read, Maurer.
As a conservative, I also would like to see the DSA and DSA-lite ideology get its proper due, which is the trash can.
Hey, you have to go where the new laughs are and where they will do the most good.....