This was a mostly excellent piece by Oren. I've forwarded the same critiques and come to the same conclusions coming from the nominal left. As an economically oriented progressive I'm very much in support of the aims and general thrust of Oren's agenda. It is unequivocally a progressive economic agenda in the original meaning of that term.
I view the narrow identity groups that have been assigned to "the left" as fundamentally negative. All the left groups have some level of legitimate concern. But those are not progressive concerns in that progressive issues are properly, the economic concerns of the working class. Further, I have a problem in general with narrow claims of injustice that fail to broadly support justice for all. Narrow identity groups support only their issue and rely on weaponization of victimhood rather than broad concepts of justice that should apply to everyone. This is true of both "left" and "right" groups.
The appeal of what Oren is trying to marshal is a broad application of justice: the material well being of the working class. It is the same goal and appeal as the real progressives. When most pundits talk about moving to "the Center" they are wrong about what the Center is or what it wants. I believe pundits and most politicians generally work to define the center in useless or inaccurate ways to confuse and obfuscate. Economic progressive policy IS the Center. It is what conservative Voters and liberal Voters all Have in Common. Everybody wants material security in work, healthcare and retirement and to live healthy lives and raise healthy children. Because of our nature as primates that, of necessity, means healthy families and communities.
"No enemies to the right" and "Democrats are evil" both are ideas that absolutely are the work of the financial elite. They are the mirror of Defund the Police or MeToo. I am asserting that because the result of those movements is to maintain the status quo politically. The status quo Is division. The status quo radically benefits the financial elite. Policy that favors corporate power generally moves forward while worker agency moves backward or sideways. The status quo divides the Center, the real center.
From that perspective I have to question the utility of Oren developing progressive economic policy as "conservative" policy. I understand my own assertion of that policy as "progressive" suffers the same problem. Which is it hews to the very social identities that divide the Center. Some kind of unification or perhaps even a new separate name for a party or movement that is focused on the Center, what unites the vast majority of voters, and considers other issues secondary and to be assessed using the broadest sense of justice would be an actual way forward.
On the other hand getting conservative voters a politically/socially palatable option for progressive economic policy could make that policy become more front and center as a policy agenda. When that is a main agenda for conservative voters, rather than owning libs, voters might be able to support politicians who actually want to help the working class. I think the folly of narrow self radicalizing identity politics is being apprehended by left leaning voters and politicians. I'm hopeful we'll see a lot more Marie GluesenKamp-Perez's in both parties or forming a new party. And a renewal of Sanders's movement before it was hijacked by BLM and the other Alphabet jumbles and acrimoniousnyms. When it was about actual workers and reducing corporate power.
The current administration is an incoherent fiasco and needs to end. My hope is the pendulum will swing to the Real Center and not to the Democrat establishment status quo. If conservative independents articulating an economic progressive agenda ran along with progressive independents articulating the same agenda we could see a genuine realignment of voter power; actual agency for the working class. That is the goal, yes?
Yeah, the financial elite must be extremist Republicans — the voting for democrats and promoting progressive policy ideas, e.g. target, are secretly a 5d chess game to warm people up to fascism. Economics as a means for class distinction is a child of the Protestant value of identifying yourself with your work — we no longer do that. The idea has been muddled so much that fast food workers and hr executives are now the underprivileged instead of blue collar workers. Now, you may be thinking that's exactly what the problem is, but it's actually the turning of liberal capitalism into a service economy which did this. It's hard to hold two different positions on this. Class distinctions by labor simply aren't relevant anymore and haven't been for decades.
Never underestimate the damage a Tucker Carlson can do to our fragile coalition, by a near miracle cobbled together with people as different as Trump, Vance, Kennedy, Gabbard, and Musk. Things could have gone differently and they just might in the future.
When elections are decided by only a percent or two, intemperate talk can sideline enough voters to change the outcomes. I think an incestuous tribe of podcasters who won’t stand up for decency “because they’re my friends” are, in the words of George Carlin, are part of a big club… we aren’t in it.
It's not your fragile coalition. The people you want to sideline are the base. Your fragile coalition is a part of what the larger coalition is. It's always been that way.
Such an unserious effort by Oren. It's convenient to slough extremism on the right off on Fuentes. But any serious observer has to admit that Don is the root of this evil. He's unleashed the worst among us, with JD following in lockstep.
I could fill the page with Don's vile utterances. Racist, sexist, mean spirited slop. It's all on tape. Any honest, civil human would acknowledge it. And, he isn't just another internet troll or media hack, he's the freakin POTUS.
Here are Oren's words, the words he refuses to live up to: "At its root, the problem is a leadership vacuum. Conservative leaders, especially, should take seriously their obligations as role models. Playing these games, refusing to confront radicals, represents an abdication."
Oren, as an establishment elite, a supposed leader, we await your leadership.
Also a good point. No one ever expects or dares the ACTUAL leader of the party to act like it. Easier to lambast the head of a think tank then demand more from POTUS.
I merely thought Oren meant what he said about the obligation of conservative leaders to confront radicals. He's right in his rhetoric, if only he'd act on it. Occasional policy disagreements don't qualify. I tire of the excuses and the enabling. Oren's "new" right is identical to the old right in this regard. Read Mitch McConnell's floor speech following January 6th, then ponder his vote to aquit. Ponder old right JD's original truth telling regarding Don (America's Hitler, cultural heroin), then his acquiescence and self-gelding as he joined the "new" right.
History shows that the appearance of demagogues is inevitable. It's the response of societal elites that matters.
Business leaders, think tank leaders, and party leaders have mostly, as we say in the country, pulled up lame at the gate. Don't we all know that they know better?
Yeah, Oren, listen to the voters — take over maga from all the unseemly figures in the maga movement. There will always be a republican party because there always has been, in this form, since the 70s.
I have a hard time defining a Harris voter (Fuentes) as The Right. He seems to be more than a little unhinged and I choose to ignore him. The Heritage board needs to consider whether Roberts made a judgment error. Carlson is a journalist and does his thing. Non-fringe MAGA types like The Federalist and Kimble think the whole thing is battlefield prep for 2028 when the Neocons are gunning for JD and trying to take the Republican Party back.
As to how many Democrats want us dead, millions in Virginia just voted for a guy who is on record to that effect. One of them just killed Charlie Kirk and millions celebrated. Another tried to kill Trump and millions were disappointed that he failed. I consider these to be clues.
Fuentes neither supported nor voted for Harris. He warned against supporting Trump, who, thus far, has been a disaster. Friends tell me, "OK, but Harris was worse." But if the next three years go like this last one....
As an update, the Left has apparently moved on from wishing death on Republicans. Over on Bluesky they are posting guillotine memes about Chuck Schumer.
Internet memes such as you describe are indeed bad and should be condemned. I'm sure you likewise condemn the gallows Don's MAGA cult constructed on the capitol grounds while chanting "hang Mike Pence" during the insurrection. Followed of course by Don's pardon of the felons convicted of beating cops with confederate flagpoles and seditious conspiracy... I tend to believe JD's first analysis of Don (America's Hitler, cultural heroin, etc). Do you think he was lying then, or lying now in pursuit of political power?
Internet trolls like you and me are one thing, the POTUS quite another.
I’m a libertarian, constitutional conservative. I remember when Heritage was definitely the latter and even flirted with the former. What it is now is an embarrassment. I’m so tired of being embarrassed by morons.
Heritage needs to up it's game a little. Fuentes, Carlson, etc are forgettable for most people. There will always be extremists to the right, gosh knows the left has them too, they mostly never hold elected office, or are at best without influence. For the next three years at a minimum the Republican Party holds power and there are things need doing.
What I'd really like to see is sensible legislation with some support from Democratic politicians too, we don't lack for pressing issues.
I've been thinking, watching the politics of both the Left and the Right over the last decade or so and with the rise of Trump and all of the sycophancy he insists on, of a phrase I first heard in my youth. I probably heard it from my Dad:
"The themes we should be focusing on, the conversations we should be having, are about understanding and addressing the real problems important to ordinary American families."
Yes. There's enough to discuss regarding the failure of free market ideology to keep everyone busy and huge numbers of Americans will be interested in that conversation.
I find it odd that the right is acting like its side’s antisemitism is new or justified in any way. It’s not new and it’s just as ugly as the antisemitism it decries on the left.
I distinctly remember a certain tiki torch-carrying Virginia crowd chanting “Jews will not replace us” about eight years ago, and the Republican President waving it off with a “Very fine people” assessment.
I remember a mass murderer inflamed by the right’s 2018 caravan fever shooting up a Pittsburgh synagogue because he got the idea that Jewish organizations were importing illegal immigrants.
Oh, and in case you thought this was just an online fever swamp problem, I remember the GOP candidate running for president in the last three elections saying Jews would be to blame if he lost.
Give me a break with your partisan myopia. The left’s antisemitism wears symbolic keffiyahs in sick alliance with Mideast green head-banded terrorists. The right wears khakis in sick alliance with white-hooded Southern terrorists.
The difference between social ostracism, economic ruin, and physical attack of your enemies is simply a matter of degree, and all polls indicate a double digit percentage of Democrats supports these tactics. Why shouldn't they? All of their major media and political leaders breathlessly inform them we're Nazis and their country is a hair's breadth from dictatorship.
Yes, there are lots of good, working-class, Democrats who don't believe this, but those people aren't the driving force of the Party. The liberal, activist drivers of the Party are only becoming more anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-reality. (Mondani?) Oren underestimates how much this class hates us.
I agree the Republican tent needs to have limits, and Fuentes is outside of it in my book as there's no evidence he wants to "conserve" anything good. But practically no one knows who Fuentes is even now. Most Republicans don't watch Tucker Carlson. Even when he was on Fox (where it appears the producers kept him sane) that was true. A has-been media personality wants to interview a cosplaying Nazi on Twitter... who cares?
Fuentes and his ilk aren't going anywhere. They're not voting Democrat. So ignore him and keep fire mostly trained on the Left who really does hate us.
Isn't JD the most prominent politician to actually muse about Don being a Nazi? He and Little Marco have a raft of interesting criticisms of Don on the record-cultural heroin, reprehensible, needle in America's collective vein, con artist, third world strongman, etc. Then both self-gelded, publicly. Ouch. Nothing like a craven politician I guess. Amazingly, some people actually believed JD's absurd rationale when he flip flopped. I just love that. Then again, JD has had multiple names and religions, and Don constantly scams his tribe with golden sneakers, bibles, NFT's, etc. I'm detecting a pattern here... Makes me chuckle:)
As for Fuentes, following Don's dinner with him at Mar-a-Lago, Don now claims he thought he was just dining with Kanye West. I suppose there are people gullible enough to believe that. But, oops, Kanye has publicly praised Hitler, denied the Holocaust, and so much more. Again, I'm detecting a pattern... I suspect that explains the MAGA defensiveness and zeal to blame the left.
Here's hoping MAGA listens to Oren's counsel on these topics. We can also hope that Oren musters the courage to follow his own advice, and manages to speak the truth that JD and Little Marco once did.
Brian I just gotta ask. I readily cop to tds, I think Don is a danger. I'm a lifelong conservative who believes in the now discredited notions of liberty and the suspicion of concentration of power in the state. What explains MAGA's cult like devotion to this politician who is consumed with corrupt self enrichment and absolute concentration of power in the executive? I agree the left is crazy in many ways, but is this all based on owning the libs? To me it looks like horseshoe theory where far left meets far right.
If you actually want answers to these questions, read Rod Dreher or Patrick Deneen or Rysard Legutko. Any of these men can give you lots of both theoretical reasons and use cases. You may disagree with them, but pretending there's no logical, conservative reason to support MAGA or Trump or Vance is disingenuous.
For that matter, the "Open Letter to Conservatives" from disgruntled former board members of ISI published a few days ago provides lots of evidence of the disconnection of the establishment GOP:
How did the old-Right leaders discredit themselves so utterly that many conservatives would embrace someone as obviously flawed as Donald Trump? By completely failing to conserve anything for the last 60 years. When the liberals decided to torch Western Civilization, the old-Right didn't "stand athwart History yelling STOP!" It could barely muster a whisper of "pretty please, don't light too many fires too quickly." Now they're trying to rally conservatives to zombie-Reaganism, and they can't figure out why no one's listening.
The answers to your questions are easily found if you're willing to see them.
I can understand this anger coming from the laid off factory worker in Hamtramck. His job went away, and immigration dramatically changed his town's composition away from the original Polish immigrants to new immigrants of a different color and religion. We are in a period of dramatic global economic and social transformation as the Information Age unfolds. History shows many become scared and uncomfortable in such times. It also shows that these periods (Industrial Revolution, etc) often give rise to demagogues who cast blame on minority groups and offer simple solutions. Don fits the mold and the time. We are not unique, the same trends continue to sweep the developed world. Brexit was an early canary, but demagogues and far right parties have continued to surge as voters globally struggle with the rapid change.
But I can't understand the anger from the MAGA elites that have controlled the party for a decade. I could see taking a flyer on Don once-Hillary was unpopular, and Don had the patina of a successful businessman even given his serial failed businesses and his money having come from inheritance and being a game show host. But after the disastrous end to his first term, the elites backed him for the nomination two more times, and voted to re-elect him knowing that a second term would be infinitely more dangerous than the first. After Don committed the worst act ever committed by a US president. After we witnessed the incessant lying, and his rank incompetence and incoherence. After Don was explicit in his intent to focus on retribution. Knowing he would appoint none of the adults that constrained him in the first term, leading to the incompetent loyalists we now have in the power ministries. Loons like RFK Jr, and a drunkard, womanizing weekend Fox talk show co-host as SecDef, among many others.
It's sad, yet humorous, that MAGA elites still cling to blaming the long gone "establishment", apparently not understanding that MAGA IS the establishment, and has been for years. They also seem unaware of America's economic standing globally. Yes, we have challenges, but name the country that has it all figured out, the one that's in a better position. Sometimes I think these are a bunch of guys who were picked last for the grade school dodgeball team and never got over it, have never traveled internationally, and still can't get a date. They need to get outta their basement and travel the world a little.
Don's BFF Elon is a great example. An immigrant himself, like two of Don's three wives (I love irony). A recipient of massive government subsidy leading to his massive wealth. And yet, he feels compelled to give nothing back to the system that so enriched him? In fact he has set out to destroy the system as he continues to rake in subsidies and contracts. How about a few charitable acts to help the downtrodden, it would be the Christian thing to do:)
I hope y'all enjoy the kleptocracy as Don and his cronies continue to pocket the loot. The corruption is on a scale we've never remotely seen. The crypto corruption alone boggles the mind. And of course, like historical demagogues, he's done nothing for the workin stiffs he gaslights and exploits. He rambles incoherently a lot, whips the rubes up, but never really delivers. Witness the revealed preference of the "new" right, the BBB, his signature economic policy "achievement". It hammers his own working class voters to the benefit of his fellow plutocrats. As we speak, he fights to keep the poor from receiving food assistance while bragging about his ballroom that's being secretly funded by rich cronies in search of favors. Maybe he was confused yet again when he claimed it was the military that were the "suckers and losers"?
Meanwhile, MAGA elites need to get over their strange fear of the weenie, pinheaded, granola munchin libs that seem to drive their paranoia. Don't we have bigger problems than random troubled trans kids in faraway places getting a third place ribbon in the junior high track meet? Or university professors obsessed with pronouns? Somehow I don't see these weaklings "torching Western Civilization":)
So, I'll continue to believe the first, honest analysis of Don offered by JD and Little Marco. And we can always hope... Maybe his lucidity will improve when he's 82? Meanwhile, the current establishment-MAGA, can continue dutifully lapping up his absurdity.
Is it any wonder that education level is the new fault line between the party's, as educated voters flee Don's cult in droves? The good news for Don is there are more of "his" voters, so it's a good trade. Who can forget his proud, public pronouncement that he "loves the poorly educated".
There is a real leadership vacuum when it comes to criticism of Israel. Why do I need to sit through Nick Fuentes' racialist or antisemitic views or some Leftists anti-imperialist, internationalist views to hear genuine criticisms of Israel? The wars started by Israel and the US's ties to this country with no coherent explanation make me internally uncomfortable and it forces me to find answers from somewhere
From my independent view on the 'godless' Left, the coherent explanation is that the Christian Zionists are an extremely influential and numerous part of the American Right's coalition. Those folks REQUIRE Israel to exist so it can be sacrificed in the End of Days (and the tribes raptured I guess). A limit to support for Israel, particularly defense support and alliance, will alienate this group. If they stay home, Republicans might not win elections even in the reddest states.
I think subconsciously white men are somewhat tired of the racket – the sacred victim/entitled parasite culture. Think Kneeling Nancy. But they are unable to critique it or frame it from a cultural/spiritual standpoint and the resentment devolves into saying "we don't give a shit anymore about the endless name calling." In fact, the decades long drum beat of slander (male chauvinist pig, racist, hater, now white supremacist and ultimately, you can do anything to a Nazi, they have no rights) aimed at white men may be the cause of the Fuentes phenomenon in the first place. And the scapegoating of white men has now moved up the food chain (H1B, blatant anti-white male quotas, feminization of sectors, etc) and their reaction/resentment is becoming more noticeable and vocal.
Loved Oren’s essay. Glad to it generated so many interesting comments.
I believe this provides an example of where a parliamentary democracy works much better than one with a two party system.
If Roberts contingent and all the rest of the ideological extremists could all congregate in their own party, that would make it much easier for the rest of us to actually solve problems.
But our two party system makes it necessary to construct winning majorities by cobbling together ridiculously fractured coalitions in the public square as opposed to after elections in the halls of Congress.
This is a political space that public intellectuals need to work on, as Oren demonstrates.
Fuentes, Roberts, Carlson, et al, are, looked upon with scorn by the large number of conservatives here in Manitowoc County, WI. We consider that Carlson has, inexplicably, gone off the deep end. Fuentes is scorned and looked upon as a hideous young punk;
an unbalanced ass; a reincarnation of David Duke (yes, Duke isn't dead yet but nevertheless). Moreover, we, here, in Manitowoc County, reject Roberts and will show our disfavor with ever decreasing support for the Heritage Foundation.
Stop assuming that conservatives are so gullible that we are willing to destroy our great. Trump supporting conservative movement in favor of anomalies like Fuentes. Carlson and Roberts.
Who’s left after you depose the fringe figures? A better idea might be to identify those who do not traffic in bad faith and demonization. All three of them.
This was a mostly excellent piece by Oren. I've forwarded the same critiques and come to the same conclusions coming from the nominal left. As an economically oriented progressive I'm very much in support of the aims and general thrust of Oren's agenda. It is unequivocally a progressive economic agenda in the original meaning of that term.
I view the narrow identity groups that have been assigned to "the left" as fundamentally negative. All the left groups have some level of legitimate concern. But those are not progressive concerns in that progressive issues are properly, the economic concerns of the working class. Further, I have a problem in general with narrow claims of injustice that fail to broadly support justice for all. Narrow identity groups support only their issue and rely on weaponization of victimhood rather than broad concepts of justice that should apply to everyone. This is true of both "left" and "right" groups.
The appeal of what Oren is trying to marshal is a broad application of justice: the material well being of the working class. It is the same goal and appeal as the real progressives. When most pundits talk about moving to "the Center" they are wrong about what the Center is or what it wants. I believe pundits and most politicians generally work to define the center in useless or inaccurate ways to confuse and obfuscate. Economic progressive policy IS the Center. It is what conservative Voters and liberal Voters all Have in Common. Everybody wants material security in work, healthcare and retirement and to live healthy lives and raise healthy children. Because of our nature as primates that, of necessity, means healthy families and communities.
"No enemies to the right" and "Democrats are evil" both are ideas that absolutely are the work of the financial elite. They are the mirror of Defund the Police or MeToo. I am asserting that because the result of those movements is to maintain the status quo politically. The status quo Is division. The status quo radically benefits the financial elite. Policy that favors corporate power generally moves forward while worker agency moves backward or sideways. The status quo divides the Center, the real center.
From that perspective I have to question the utility of Oren developing progressive economic policy as "conservative" policy. I understand my own assertion of that policy as "progressive" suffers the same problem. Which is it hews to the very social identities that divide the Center. Some kind of unification or perhaps even a new separate name for a party or movement that is focused on the Center, what unites the vast majority of voters, and considers other issues secondary and to be assessed using the broadest sense of justice would be an actual way forward.
On the other hand getting conservative voters a politically/socially palatable option for progressive economic policy could make that policy become more front and center as a policy agenda. When that is a main agenda for conservative voters, rather than owning libs, voters might be able to support politicians who actually want to help the working class. I think the folly of narrow self radicalizing identity politics is being apprehended by left leaning voters and politicians. I'm hopeful we'll see a lot more Marie GluesenKamp-Perez's in both parties or forming a new party. And a renewal of Sanders's movement before it was hijacked by BLM and the other Alphabet jumbles and acrimoniousnyms. When it was about actual workers and reducing corporate power.
The current administration is an incoherent fiasco and needs to end. My hope is the pendulum will swing to the Real Center and not to the Democrat establishment status quo. If conservative independents articulating an economic progressive agenda ran along with progressive independents articulating the same agenda we could see a genuine realignment of voter power; actual agency for the working class. That is the goal, yes?
Yeah, the financial elite must be extremist Republicans — the voting for democrats and promoting progressive policy ideas, e.g. target, are secretly a 5d chess game to warm people up to fascism. Economics as a means for class distinction is a child of the Protestant value of identifying yourself with your work — we no longer do that. The idea has been muddled so much that fast food workers and hr executives are now the underprivileged instead of blue collar workers. Now, you may be thinking that's exactly what the problem is, but it's actually the turning of liberal capitalism into a service economy which did this. It's hard to hold two different positions on this. Class distinctions by labor simply aren't relevant anymore and haven't been for decades.
Never underestimate the damage a Tucker Carlson can do to our fragile coalition, by a near miracle cobbled together with people as different as Trump, Vance, Kennedy, Gabbard, and Musk. Things could have gone differently and they just might in the future.
When elections are decided by only a percent or two, intemperate talk can sideline enough voters to change the outcomes. I think an incestuous tribe of podcasters who won’t stand up for decency “because they’re my friends” are, in the words of George Carlin, are part of a big club… we aren’t in it.
It's not your fragile coalition. The people you want to sideline are the base. Your fragile coalition is a part of what the larger coalition is. It's always been that way.
Such an unserious effort by Oren. It's convenient to slough extremism on the right off on Fuentes. But any serious observer has to admit that Don is the root of this evil. He's unleashed the worst among us, with JD following in lockstep.
I could fill the page with Don's vile utterances. Racist, sexist, mean spirited slop. It's all on tape. Any honest, civil human would acknowledge it. And, he isn't just another internet troll or media hack, he's the freakin POTUS.
Here are Oren's words, the words he refuses to live up to: "At its root, the problem is a leadership vacuum. Conservative leaders, especially, should take seriously their obligations as role models. Playing these games, refusing to confront radicals, represents an abdication."
Oren, as an establishment elite, a supposed leader, we await your leadership.
Also a good point. No one ever expects or dares the ACTUAL leader of the party to act like it. Easier to lambast the head of a think tank then demand more from POTUS.
I merely thought Oren meant what he said about the obligation of conservative leaders to confront radicals. He's right in his rhetoric, if only he'd act on it. Occasional policy disagreements don't qualify. I tire of the excuses and the enabling. Oren's "new" right is identical to the old right in this regard. Read Mitch McConnell's floor speech following January 6th, then ponder his vote to aquit. Ponder old right JD's original truth telling regarding Don (America's Hitler, cultural heroin), then his acquiescence and self-gelding as he joined the "new" right.
History shows that the appearance of demagogues is inevitable. It's the response of societal elites that matters.
Business leaders, think tank leaders, and party leaders have mostly, as we say in the country, pulled up lame at the gate. Don't we all know that they know better?
Yeah, Oren, listen to the voters — take over maga from all the unseemly figures in the maga movement. There will always be a republican party because there always has been, in this form, since the 70s.
I have a hard time defining a Harris voter (Fuentes) as The Right. He seems to be more than a little unhinged and I choose to ignore him. The Heritage board needs to consider whether Roberts made a judgment error. Carlson is a journalist and does his thing. Non-fringe MAGA types like The Federalist and Kimble think the whole thing is battlefield prep for 2028 when the Neocons are gunning for JD and trying to take the Republican Party back.
As to how many Democrats want us dead, millions in Virginia just voted for a guy who is on record to that effect. One of them just killed Charlie Kirk and millions celebrated. Another tried to kill Trump and millions were disappointed that he failed. I consider these to be clues.
Fuentes neither supported nor voted for Harris. He warned against supporting Trump, who, thus far, has been a disaster. Friends tell me, "OK, but Harris was worse." But if the next three years go like this last one....
He said he did. Could have been a lie
Hmm. Don had Fuentes over for dinner. At Mar-a-Lago. Kinda mind blowing huh?
As an update, the Left has apparently moved on from wishing death on Republicans. Over on Bluesky they are posting guillotine memes about Chuck Schumer.
Internet memes such as you describe are indeed bad and should be condemned. I'm sure you likewise condemn the gallows Don's MAGA cult constructed on the capitol grounds while chanting "hang Mike Pence" during the insurrection. Followed of course by Don's pardon of the felons convicted of beating cops with confederate flagpoles and seditious conspiracy... I tend to believe JD's first analysis of Don (America's Hitler, cultural heroin, etc). Do you think he was lying then, or lying now in pursuit of political power?
Internet trolls like you and me are one thing, the POTUS quite another.
How about Tucker?
I’m a libertarian, constitutional conservative. I remember when Heritage was definitely the latter and even flirted with the former. What it is now is an embarrassment. I’m so tired of being embarrassed by morons.
Heritage needs to up it's game a little. Fuentes, Carlson, etc are forgettable for most people. There will always be extremists to the right, gosh knows the left has them too, they mostly never hold elected office, or are at best without influence. For the next three years at a minimum the Republican Party holds power and there are things need doing.
What I'd really like to see is sensible legislation with some support from Democratic politicians too, we don't lack for pressing issues.
I've been thinking, watching the politics of both the Left and the Right over the last decade or so and with the rise of Trump and all of the sycophancy he insists on, of a phrase I first heard in my youth. I probably heard it from my Dad:
You are the company you keep.
"The themes we should be focusing on, the conversations we should be having, are about understanding and addressing the real problems important to ordinary American families."
Yes. There's enough to discuss regarding the failure of free market ideology to keep everyone busy and huge numbers of Americans will be interested in that conversation.
I find it odd that the right is acting like its side’s antisemitism is new or justified in any way. It’s not new and it’s just as ugly as the antisemitism it decries on the left.
I distinctly remember a certain tiki torch-carrying Virginia crowd chanting “Jews will not replace us” about eight years ago, and the Republican President waving it off with a “Very fine people” assessment.
I remember a mass murderer inflamed by the right’s 2018 caravan fever shooting up a Pittsburgh synagogue because he got the idea that Jewish organizations were importing illegal immigrants.
Oh, and in case you thought this was just an online fever swamp problem, I remember the GOP candidate running for president in the last three elections saying Jews would be to blame if he lost.
Give me a break with your partisan myopia. The left’s antisemitism wears symbolic keffiyahs in sick alliance with Mideast green head-banded terrorists. The right wears khakis in sick alliance with white-hooded Southern terrorists.
The difference between social ostracism, economic ruin, and physical attack of your enemies is simply a matter of degree, and all polls indicate a double digit percentage of Democrats supports these tactics. Why shouldn't they? All of their major media and political leaders breathlessly inform them we're Nazis and their country is a hair's breadth from dictatorship.
Yes, there are lots of good, working-class, Democrats who don't believe this, but those people aren't the driving force of the Party. The liberal, activist drivers of the Party are only becoming more anti-American, anti-Christian, and anti-reality. (Mondani?) Oren underestimates how much this class hates us.
I agree the Republican tent needs to have limits, and Fuentes is outside of it in my book as there's no evidence he wants to "conserve" anything good. But practically no one knows who Fuentes is even now. Most Republicans don't watch Tucker Carlson. Even when he was on Fox (where it appears the producers kept him sane) that was true. A has-been media personality wants to interview a cosplaying Nazi on Twitter... who cares?
Fuentes and his ilk aren't going anywhere. They're not voting Democrat. So ignore him and keep fire mostly trained on the Left who really does hate us.
Isn't JD the most prominent politician to actually muse about Don being a Nazi? He and Little Marco have a raft of interesting criticisms of Don on the record-cultural heroin, reprehensible, needle in America's collective vein, con artist, third world strongman, etc. Then both self-gelded, publicly. Ouch. Nothing like a craven politician I guess. Amazingly, some people actually believed JD's absurd rationale when he flip flopped. I just love that. Then again, JD has had multiple names and religions, and Don constantly scams his tribe with golden sneakers, bibles, NFT's, etc. I'm detecting a pattern here... Makes me chuckle:)
As for Fuentes, following Don's dinner with him at Mar-a-Lago, Don now claims he thought he was just dining with Kanye West. I suppose there are people gullible enough to believe that. But, oops, Kanye has publicly praised Hitler, denied the Holocaust, and so much more. Again, I'm detecting a pattern... I suspect that explains the MAGA defensiveness and zeal to blame the left.
Here's hoping MAGA listens to Oren's counsel on these topics. We can also hope that Oren musters the courage to follow his own advice, and manages to speak the truth that JD and Little Marco once did.
Karl, everyone here is well aware of your advanced case of TDS.
Brian I just gotta ask. I readily cop to tds, I think Don is a danger. I'm a lifelong conservative who believes in the now discredited notions of liberty and the suspicion of concentration of power in the state. What explains MAGA's cult like devotion to this politician who is consumed with corrupt self enrichment and absolute concentration of power in the executive? I agree the left is crazy in many ways, but is this all based on owning the libs? To me it looks like horseshoe theory where far left meets far right.
If you actually want answers to these questions, read Rod Dreher or Patrick Deneen or Rysard Legutko. Any of these men can give you lots of both theoretical reasons and use cases. You may disagree with them, but pretending there's no logical, conservative reason to support MAGA or Trump or Vance is disingenuous.
For that matter, the "Open Letter to Conservatives" from disgruntled former board members of ISI published a few days ago provides lots of evidence of the disconnection of the establishment GOP:
https://x.com/FrankChodorov/status/1988015805238317263
How did the old-Right leaders discredit themselves so utterly that many conservatives would embrace someone as obviously flawed as Donald Trump? By completely failing to conserve anything for the last 60 years. When the liberals decided to torch Western Civilization, the old-Right didn't "stand athwart History yelling STOP!" It could barely muster a whisper of "pretty please, don't light too many fires too quickly." Now they're trying to rally conservatives to zombie-Reaganism, and they can't figure out why no one's listening.
The answers to your questions are easily found if you're willing to see them.
I can understand this anger coming from the laid off factory worker in Hamtramck. His job went away, and immigration dramatically changed his town's composition away from the original Polish immigrants to new immigrants of a different color and religion. We are in a period of dramatic global economic and social transformation as the Information Age unfolds. History shows many become scared and uncomfortable in such times. It also shows that these periods (Industrial Revolution, etc) often give rise to demagogues who cast blame on minority groups and offer simple solutions. Don fits the mold and the time. We are not unique, the same trends continue to sweep the developed world. Brexit was an early canary, but demagogues and far right parties have continued to surge as voters globally struggle with the rapid change.
But I can't understand the anger from the MAGA elites that have controlled the party for a decade. I could see taking a flyer on Don once-Hillary was unpopular, and Don had the patina of a successful businessman even given his serial failed businesses and his money having come from inheritance and being a game show host. But after the disastrous end to his first term, the elites backed him for the nomination two more times, and voted to re-elect him knowing that a second term would be infinitely more dangerous than the first. After Don committed the worst act ever committed by a US president. After we witnessed the incessant lying, and his rank incompetence and incoherence. After Don was explicit in his intent to focus on retribution. Knowing he would appoint none of the adults that constrained him in the first term, leading to the incompetent loyalists we now have in the power ministries. Loons like RFK Jr, and a drunkard, womanizing weekend Fox talk show co-host as SecDef, among many others.
It's sad, yet humorous, that MAGA elites still cling to blaming the long gone "establishment", apparently not understanding that MAGA IS the establishment, and has been for years. They also seem unaware of America's economic standing globally. Yes, we have challenges, but name the country that has it all figured out, the one that's in a better position. Sometimes I think these are a bunch of guys who were picked last for the grade school dodgeball team and never got over it, have never traveled internationally, and still can't get a date. They need to get outta their basement and travel the world a little.
Don's BFF Elon is a great example. An immigrant himself, like two of Don's three wives (I love irony). A recipient of massive government subsidy leading to his massive wealth. And yet, he feels compelled to give nothing back to the system that so enriched him? In fact he has set out to destroy the system as he continues to rake in subsidies and contracts. How about a few charitable acts to help the downtrodden, it would be the Christian thing to do:)
I hope y'all enjoy the kleptocracy as Don and his cronies continue to pocket the loot. The corruption is on a scale we've never remotely seen. The crypto corruption alone boggles the mind. And of course, like historical demagogues, he's done nothing for the workin stiffs he gaslights and exploits. He rambles incoherently a lot, whips the rubes up, but never really delivers. Witness the revealed preference of the "new" right, the BBB, his signature economic policy "achievement". It hammers his own working class voters to the benefit of his fellow plutocrats. As we speak, he fights to keep the poor from receiving food assistance while bragging about his ballroom that's being secretly funded by rich cronies in search of favors. Maybe he was confused yet again when he claimed it was the military that were the "suckers and losers"?
Meanwhile, MAGA elites need to get over their strange fear of the weenie, pinheaded, granola munchin libs that seem to drive their paranoia. Don't we have bigger problems than random troubled trans kids in faraway places getting a third place ribbon in the junior high track meet? Or university professors obsessed with pronouns? Somehow I don't see these weaklings "torching Western Civilization":)
So, I'll continue to believe the first, honest analysis of Don offered by JD and Little Marco. And we can always hope... Maybe his lucidity will improve when he's 82? Meanwhile, the current establishment-MAGA, can continue dutifully lapping up his absurdity.
Is it any wonder that education level is the new fault line between the party's, as educated voters flee Don's cult in droves? The good news for Don is there are more of "his" voters, so it's a good trade. Who can forget his proud, public pronouncement that he "loves the poorly educated".
Good luck America.
Hmm, that's not really a response:) I understand, there isn't really one, otherwise you'd refute it. Be well my friend!
There is a real leadership vacuum when it comes to criticism of Israel. Why do I need to sit through Nick Fuentes' racialist or antisemitic views or some Leftists anti-imperialist, internationalist views to hear genuine criticisms of Israel? The wars started by Israel and the US's ties to this country with no coherent explanation make me internally uncomfortable and it forces me to find answers from somewhere
From my independent view on the 'godless' Left, the coherent explanation is that the Christian Zionists are an extremely influential and numerous part of the American Right's coalition. Those folks REQUIRE Israel to exist so it can be sacrificed in the End of Days (and the tribes raptured I guess). A limit to support for Israel, particularly defense support and alliance, will alienate this group. If they stay home, Republicans might not win elections even in the reddest states.
I think subconsciously white men are somewhat tired of the racket – the sacred victim/entitled parasite culture. Think Kneeling Nancy. But they are unable to critique it or frame it from a cultural/spiritual standpoint and the resentment devolves into saying "we don't give a shit anymore about the endless name calling." In fact, the decades long drum beat of slander (male chauvinist pig, racist, hater, now white supremacist and ultimately, you can do anything to a Nazi, they have no rights) aimed at white men may be the cause of the Fuentes phenomenon in the first place. And the scapegoating of white men has now moved up the food chain (H1B, blatant anti-white male quotas, feminization of sectors, etc) and their reaction/resentment is becoming more noticeable and vocal.
Loved Oren’s essay. Glad to it generated so many interesting comments.
I believe this provides an example of where a parliamentary democracy works much better than one with a two party system.
If Roberts contingent and all the rest of the ideological extremists could all congregate in their own party, that would make it much easier for the rest of us to actually solve problems.
But our two party system makes it necessary to construct winning majorities by cobbling together ridiculously fractured coalitions in the public square as opposed to after elections in the halls of Congress.
This is a political space that public intellectuals need to work on, as Oren demonstrates.
Fuentes, Roberts, Carlson, et al, are, looked upon with scorn by the large number of conservatives here in Manitowoc County, WI. We consider that Carlson has, inexplicably, gone off the deep end. Fuentes is scorned and looked upon as a hideous young punk;
an unbalanced ass; a reincarnation of David Duke (yes, Duke isn't dead yet but nevertheless). Moreover, we, here, in Manitowoc County, reject Roberts and will show our disfavor with ever decreasing support for the Heritage Foundation.
Stop assuming that conservatives are so gullible that we are willing to destroy our great. Trump supporting conservative movement in favor of anomalies like Fuentes. Carlson and Roberts.
👏👏👏👏
Who’s left after you depose the fringe figures? A better idea might be to identify those who do not traffic in bad faith and demonization. All three of them.