09-13-2021, 10:34 AM
(09-12-2021, 09:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(09-12-2021, 01:15 PM)sbarrera Wrote: I'm more in agreement with David's perspective (neoliberalism is economically libertarian and socially liberal) than with Eric's (neoliberalism is the platform of Trump/GOP).
I see neoliberalism as supporting globalization, freedom of capital and labor movement, and multiculturalism - which Trump supporters oppose.
I will acknowledge that maybe the Patriot Party isn't "Real America," as described by George Packer in his article, but perhaps "Free America." Actually, I see both factions visible in the Trump voting bloc:
Free America: you can't tell me what to do! (Anti-maskers/anti-vaxxers/anti-lockdowners.)
Real America: we need to go back to when America was great! (White Christian nationalists.)
Surely the energy from both of these factions was present at the Jan 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Again, far too much is made of Trump's views that are not neo-liberal on that one issue of trade. Trump is a nationalist, which is socially conservative. Neo-liberalism does not support multi-culturalism. Freedom of capital and labor movement, yes. Neo-liberals are aligned with social conservatives. There's just no way they can be called liberal on social issues. Maybe the Libertarian Party can be called that. But not neo-liberals, who are mostly Republicans. The Libertarian Party does not quite equal neo-liberalism. I can go with the idea that a relatively few neo-liberals are not passionately prejudiced or socially conservative. No political box can contain absolutely everyone. But the best we can say about them is that they are neutral, or don't care; not liberal. Given their strong agreement on welfare spending, neo-liberals and social conservatives are natural allies, and they vote the same way. I don't see how anyone can ignore that.
On my part, I believe in free trade. Not believing in anything other than his ego and in class privilege, Trump is delighted to sacrifice free trade to give himself a potential edge with voters who think that we can turn back the calendar to the time in which the factory was the most reliable exit from poverty and a way of making a middle income. This said, protectionism is horribly inefficient because it makes inputs other than labor inordinately costly and because the inputs are inordinately costly such makes American products uncompetitive in the world economy. Tariffs are hidden taxes and as such hidden and often very high costs.
Neoliberalism believes in restoring, to the extent possible, the conditions of early capitalism of the sort that paradoxically made Marxist revolutions possible. Neoliberals believe in loan-sharks but not welfare. If you don't believe me about loan-sharks, then just look at all the payday Loan places rarer as late as the 1970's.
Quote:Calling the anti-vaxxers etc. "free America" is to buy into their tragically-false narrative. It is liberals and social liberals who uphold freedom, civil rights, voting rights, democracy, free speech and press. Trump anti-maskers do not support any of those things, and certainly their leader does not. And "real America" is far too complimentary a term for social conservatives. There is nothing real about superstition and prejudice.
It's in the same league with believing that seatbelts, DUI laws, and motorcycle helmets are menaces to freedom. Trump is closer to being a fascist than to being a Reagan-era neoliberal... although Reagan-era neoliberals and their financial backers have hitched their stars t o the "Trump Train".
Quote:There's just no way to cut through the polarization and divide by trying to assign some ideas that real liberals might sympathize with to the other side. No, one side is right, and the other side is wrong. One side needs to win, and the other side needs to lose. We are 4T and we can't go back. We have to fight it out the best way we can.
That is the problem. One side is extremely wrong on much. The Right of course assumes that the Left is terribly wrong on abortion, LGBT rights, gender equity, the environment, multiculturalism (really the acceptance of cultures that are equally valid and from which people are unlikely to budge), secularism, science over superstition, reason over faith, and the necessary dignity of working people. To the Right, life for those not born to wealth and privilege are to suffer for those who are born to wealth and privilege, smile nonetheless, and be satisfied with vague promises of Pie in the Sky When You Die and damnation for anyone who fails to comply.
Quote:If people want to say "be civil," I understand. A few people from the wrong side can be peeled off, and not by me calling them wrong. I understand. But that does not mean we can weasel our way out of the divide and the real problems by glossing over them.
I have peeled some people toward LGBT rights by explaining why I stand for them: law and order, without which any chance of personal safety and every civil liberty is cant. I have been gay-bashed, and if I could not prove to the satisfaction of some angry creep that I am straight I could see another and more important core issue: that that fellow could not recognize the shared humanity of LGBT people. Anyone can be gay-bashed, so if people start to recognize that homosexuality is in the mainstream we are all safer. That may not be the noblest reason for supporting LGBT rights, but it can fit conservative values.
Now let me make my case against AGW. If you thought Stalin dispossessing free-hold farmers was bad, at least people could stay on those farms as serfs of the State. King Neptune will not let one stay on an inundated farm as a serf. AGW will do much of what starts war and genocide, neither of which is good for more than a very short term for business.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.