Whither political leanings?

[Sheilbh]

Quite Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot shortly afterwards, but only now have they captured a major party.

Yeah, in many ways, it's like the industrial revolution uprooting landed gentry. Only now it is happening on a global scale, with classes being replaced, broadly speaking, by nations.

So the Western nations are the equivalent of aristocracy - that is now being forced to compete on a global market.

The industrial revolution didn't uproot the landed gentry. But it did uproot, de-skill, de-value and ultimately wipe out the middle class of artisans. It pauperised them and I think that is a useful comparison. You have roles in the West that had social value. It's not unlike the weaver of old who was a Luddite who smashed looms that made his skilled, respectable work be done by women and children while his skill and social value was erased until he was a farm labourer.

The landed gentry were fine they survived for another hundred years or more - it was the skilled artisans and 'middle class' workers who were wiped out.

Incidentally, and to go back a bit to Hami's original post, I don't think "classic liberalism" was ever truly popular as a political or social ideology. Just look at the incest thread - many people from both "left" and "right" are perfectly happy to deprive others of their freedom in the name of some nebulous "collective good", even when they admit the aforementioned "collective good" has no rational basis.

That's because liberalism is the worst

Maybe you are right. At least people in postwar societies were sufficiently content to let broadly liberal elites run the show. That seems to be on the wane, and the choices are now authoritarian left and authoritarian right.

I think that depends on your definition of post-war. In the UK post-war society was very conservative and managed until the late sixties. It was, I think, similar in other countries like France, Germany and Italy - it was even more controlled in your Catholic authoritarian states like Spain and Portugal. The post-war era was managed economically and socially.

Rosseau wasn't a collectivist though, he was utopian.  The modern Left has drifted from both Millsianian liberalism and Bernsteinist collectivism (trade unionism, the universalist welfare state) under the influence of utopian ideals of perfectionism. That is where the oft-derided "identity politics" comes from - a drive to achieve a kind of perfected justice and meaning to every individual.

I don't think there's any drift though. Bernsteinist social democracy was always in competition with Kautskyist perfectionism. The argument has always been the relationship between the ideal revolutionary moment and the attainable reforms within the current system. I'm not sure the left has drifted so much as where we are in that argument has moved - from where we were in, say, 1960 to where we were in the 1910s. The argument strikes me as still very similar though there are always exceptions - historically the UK Labour Party was the only left-wing party in Europe founded on an explicitly reformist basis and now finds itself fighting off revolutionaries, the SPD were the theorists of a revolutionary and reformist ideal but now, perhaps, find themselves compromised. In the US the perfectionism has changed, elsewhere it hasn't, but it's been a fight on the left as long as there has been a left worth talking about.

The thing that worries me is it seems to provide excuses to attack people you disagree with as being outside enemies, if they are outside your identity, or traitors if they are inside it. Another reason to close ranks and hate outsiders and define people as 'others'. But I could be wrong about that. In any case that factor doesn't really matter in the context of whether or not concerns or causes are legitimate.

Yeah. I've always viewed identity politics as the norm. What is the politics of class if not about identity? Or for that matter Conservative appeals to 'strivers' if not founded in identity? Or Maggie Thatcher's 'our people'? We've used different phrases for these sorts of politics but they're ultimately all based on how people identify and aspire - the only difference with current 'identity politics' from those is that it's being done by minorities - plus women.

Their "aggression" is relatively harmless and may be the only way they are allowed to react to a society which created such immense inequality in the first place.

Their aggression may be relatively harmless in itself. But isn't in itself because it's happening in a context of women wearing skirts getting cat-called, women in work getting sexually harassed etc - and if you speak to women you know  this stuff is so constant it's incredible. As a gay man I had no idea until recently because I don't experience it and I don't have a girlfriend so I see it as happening occasionally. But speaking with women it isn't it's several times a day at the low level - at what point does it cease to be relatively harmless?

I don't accept that the only way to react to society is through homophobia, sexism or racism. But obviously that act shouldn't somehow immunise him from compassion or anger at the structure of society - nor should it immunise him from social mores against sexism, homophobia or racism.

And I wonder, frankly, how you'd feel if he was Muslim? Would you have such sympathy for his social position in our unequal society if it was a Shah not a Shaun doing the cat-calling?

The problem with it is that it is a reaction to the reactionary "majority is always right", by claiming that "minority is always right".

The majority is always right and there ain't nothing reactionary about it

And to elaborate on something Minsky said about gay marriage etc., popular attention in addressing social ills is subject to finite resources - both material ones and the number of fucks the public has to give. So while the ability to be able to get legal recognition for your marriage is indeed important, forcing some poor mom and pop to bake your rainbow wedding cake isn't - and I'd much rather have these resources being spent elsewhere - such as addressing growing functional illiteracy and reduced advancement opportunities among working class white males.

If only there were some middle way between forcing poor moms and pops to bake rainbow cakes and caring about illiteracy!

[CountDeMoney]

Rosseau wasn't a collectivist though, he was utopian.

I would give you a substantial ration of shit about this, but you make people type too much in response, and I hate that about you.

[Sheilbh]

From what I've read, the core Trumpist constituency is not actually the losers themselves - in spite of the media narrative - but people who could perhaps be described as loser adjacent.

IIRC, the typical Trump supporter works in construction or owns a small construction company, makes above average income, has medical insurance, but knows someone who has been financially ruined by medical bills... something like that.

I claim nothing to understanding the Trump vote. The extent of my description would be white working class men.

I think there is useful cross-over with the analysis of which people are most likely to support Brexit and UKIP and they're not losers. They're the left behind: whiter than average, older than average, less well-educated than other generations. They're not necessarily poorer than average or the precariat. They're people who resemble the society they're from not the society they're increasingly living in and, I think crucially, they're the sort of figures who thirty years ago had quite high status but now maybe don't.

Edit: I suppose that while I think there may be a materialist element to this wing of politics, I think the immediate cause is a redistribution of status -'identity politics'. It's the loss of status that is more difficult to resolve unless we want to return to more sexist, racist or homophobic times ('fire up the Cuatro') and is more the animating factor in politics. I think there is something to Marti's industrial revolution idea even if I would focus on the artisan class and the victims of pauperisation rather than the gentry.

[Hamilcar]

From what I've read, the core Trumpist constituency is not actually the losers themselves - in spite of the media narrative - but people who could perhaps be described as loser adjacent.

That seems to go against the conventional narrative. Do you have some good sources? I'm genuinely curious.

[CountDeMoney]

From what I've read, the core Trumpist constituency is not actually the losers themselves - in spite of the media narrative - but people who could perhaps be described as loser adjacent.

IIRC, the typical Trump supporter works in construction or owns a small construction company, makes above average income, has medical insurance, but knows someone who has been financially ruined by medical bills... something like that.

I claim nothing to understanding the Trump vote. The extent of my description would be white working class men.

I think there is useful cross-over with the analysis of which people are most likely to support Brexit and UKIP and they're not losers. They're the left behind: whiter than average, older than average, less well-educated than other generations. They're not necessarily poorer than average or the precariat. They're people who resemble the society they're from not the society they're increasingly living in and, I think crucially, they're the sort of figures who thirty years ago had quite high status but now maybe don't.

Meh...it's really the same group of tone-deaf morons that has been convinced that welfare is destroying the economy by buying into the Welfare Queen myth, or how Affirmative Action has somehow up-ending the Order of Things, and sent the societal pendulum swinging the other way...the kind of guy that would say, "If blacks get a Black History Month, how come there's no 'White History Month'?"  How Hillary is a Cunt, because...well, because. And so on.

These are not rubes or losers or redneck white trash.  They're educated, professional, middle of the middle class.   And a substantial number of them are not left behind; they just think they are--because they have found out that suddenly, after all this time, they are actually have to make room at the table for other chairs.   

[Monoriu]

Trump consistently gets around 40% support in national polls.  That has to cover a large spectrum of voters, not just the losers. 

[Hamilcar]

Trump consistently gets around 40% support in national polls.  That has to cover a large spectrum of voters, not just the losers.

My point is that the loser class (whether real or perceived) has swelled to a constituency large enough to fuel the Trump candidacy, even if he's well short of a real plurality.

[Sheilbh]

But he only ever won a plurality of Republican primary voters. I think we overemphasise his success in a way. So in his current coalition is just the die hard Republican vote.

In my view he's adding to that in uncompetitive states and losing it elsewhere

[Hamilcar]

But he only ever won a plurality of Republican primary voters. I think we overemphasise his success in a way. So in his current coalition is just the die hard Republican vote.

In my view he's adding to that in uncompetitive states and losing it elsewhere

Yes, I don't mean to exaggerate Trump's success. I still find it remarkable that he got this far with an "appeal to the losers" platform. This should ring alarm bells.

[CountDeMoney]

But he only ever won a plurality of Republican primary voters. I think we overemphasise his success in a way. So in his current coalition is just the die hard Republican vote.

In my view he's adding to that in uncompetitive states and losing it elsewhere

Hillary Clinton is closer to winning red states than she is to losing swing states

As an aside, Clinton is pulling her TV ads from Colorado and Virginia...some of the talking head shows were like, "huh?", as that is a questionable strategic this far out from the election...and even though it looks like it, I wouldn't take these leads for granted in a race that can still be tight, but I wouldn't want to overdose voters on her, either.  Particularly hedged voters that are barely favoring her as it is, and are going to have a tough enough time being motivated to go to the polls in the first place. 

[LaCroix]

Yes, I don't mean to exaggerate Trump's success. I still find it remarkable that he got this far with an "appeal to the losers" platform. This should ring alarm bells.

assuming your posts here aren't trolls, I don't think it means much. his success in the primary is pretty easily explained if you think about the factors that resulted in his nomination. plus, he's a charismatic guy. you don't crash and burn an empire and bring it back as many times as him without being likeable to some degree

[Jacob]

From what I've read, the core Trumpist constituency is not actually the losers themselves - in spite of the media narrative - but people who could perhaps be described as loser adjacent.

That seems to go against the conventional narrative. Do you have some good sources? I'm genuinely curious.

This is the main article I read on the matter: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/12/a-massive-new-study-debunks-a-widespread-theory-for-donald-trumps-success/

[Martinus]

From what I've read, the core Trumpist constituency is not actually the losers themselves - in spite of the media narrative - but people who could perhaps be described as loser adjacent.

That seems to go against the conventional narrative. Do you have some good sources? I'm genuinely curious.

I think he is right. Trump supporters are not losers, they are people with something that can be described as "respect deficit".

Or as someone else has quipped, Trump put the final touch on the indentity politics but turning the white straight males into a victim group.

[Martinus]

From what I've read, the core Trumpist constituency is not actually the losers themselves - in spite of the media narrative - but people who could perhaps be described as loser adjacent.

IIRC, the typical Trump supporter works in construction or owns a small construction company, makes above average income, has medical insurance, but knows someone who has been financially ruined by medical bills... something like that.

I claim nothing to understanding the Trump vote. The extent of my description would be white working class men.

I think there is useful cross-over with the analysis of which people are most likely to support Brexit and UKIP and they're not losers. They're the left behind: whiter than average, older than average, less well-educated than other generations. They're not necessarily poorer than average or the precariat. They're people who resemble the society they're from not the society they're increasingly living in and, I think crucially, they're the sort of figures who thirty years ago had quite high status but now maybe don't.

Edit: I suppose that while I think there may be a materialist element to this wing of politics, I think the immediate cause is a redistribution of status -'identity politics'. It's the loss of status that is more difficult to resolve unless we want to return to more sexist, racist or homophobic times ('fire up the Cuatro') and is more the animating factor in politics. I think there is something to Marti's industrial revolution idea even if I would focus on the artisan class and the victims of pauperisation rather than the gentry.

Yup. That's it.

[Martinus]

It used to be that the ideal to strive for was a society where a person's race, gender, religion etc didn't matter, and what mattered was a person's ability and similar. With identity politics race etc are the things that matter, which seems to me to be a very unhealthy state of affairs and in fact the exact opposite of what would be desirable.

I think this ultimately comes from Marxism, which in some way and form has been dominating the left for over a hundred years. In a Marxist worldview, an individual has no autonomous agency, but rather belongs to a class or a group that defines his predominant interests, and a clash of such classes or groups is inevitable. This is really what identity politics is about, only classes based on wealth and education are replaced with classes based on sexuality, gender or race (in a sense, this shift in Marxism is not too different than the shift that occurred in Christianity in the first centuries AD - in both cases the ideologues realised that they won't get far by pandering only to the poor and need to coopt the rich somehow).

Another common thread between Marxists and identity politics "neo-Marxists" is their love for redistribution. They simply cannot fathom a situation where someone's material or symbolic status can improve without at the same time taking away from another person or group. Hence illiberal and inequitable monstrosities such as affirmative action or gender quotas.