I noticed that he didn't get around to debunking concerns about gerrymandering. I'm not an expert, but from what I understand, the political manipulation of legislative districts in the U.S. (and the gerrymandering arms race between red and blue states) is indeed highly peculiar. This is not only undemocratic, but creates very bad incentives for house members. Last I checked, incumbents won more than 90% of house races, up from something like 60% decades ago. Many reps are more likely to be unseated in primaries than general elections. This pushes them to be more extreme and uncompromising.
He notes that presidential powers in the U.S. are in some ways more constrained than that of prime ministers in, say, the U.K. Point granted, but the U.S.'s clunky system of government combined with an increasingly polarized electorate has caused congress to become more and more gridlocked. Presidents are increasingly tempted to sidestep congress with executive orders of dubious legality. Trump's extension of pandemic unemployments and Obama's DACA order are two examples of this.
I don't think these problems presage the imminent breakdown of American democracy into civil war. But, as Matthew Yglesias noted, presidential democracy has a poor track record outside the U.S. The U.S. seems to be able to persist with this brittle type of government because of its deep democratic traditions and enormous geographic and economic advantages. Yet it remains to be seen how long it can be kept up in our era of polarization and rampant negative partisanship. We will all see, because sweeping constitutional change is highly unlikely
Most disturbing is WHO those calls come from. Academics. Librarians. "Intellectuals." A shameful commentary on the state of intellectual freedom in this country.
I was wondering about that. I know to get my real ID took a lot of time and money and I didn’t even attempt it until I retired. These laws are also attempting to solve a vanishingly tiny problem. All that said, if we can insure that anyone who is legally able to vote can obtain the necessary documentation I don’t have a problem with ID.
I'm late to comment on this, as I just found this substack.... but if the ID is not accessible, then the policy approach should be making it easier to get, or broadening the allowable types of ID, not pretending as though the mere requirement is unconscionable.
Also, I bet that even in European countries, you might still need to go somewhere, or submit an application, or expend some kind of baseline effort to get your ID, and wait some amount of time, meaning that even there it's not zero effort.
I am sick to the back teeth of faux or former liberals pretending that they aren't actively engaged in bashing trans people and turning them into a convenient political punching bag. I previously believed there were questions to be asked - about parental rights and the social pressure on adolescents to 'come out' - but these endless attempts to diminish the humanity or question the existence of trans people has sent me scurrying back to my live-and-let-live comfort zone. I don't care what people do with their bodies. It's none of my business.
I have the same concerns as you do around parental rights (albeit I think for a few bleeding edge progressive parents it is a mark of distinction to have a trans or nonbinary child). There is also the social pressure, not to mention how fashionable it currently is, at least as displayed in TV shows, movies, and fashion. It’s a trend, like many others, and it will run its course. Eventually there will be equilibrium and only people who truly need it, like my former roomie, will go forward. I just wish gender-affirming care was more akin to tattoos or piercing than permanently altering the human body in such a drastic way.
Here is what I didn’t see: Any dismissal of the humanity of anyone, trans included. We should be affirming the dignity and rights of any human being and letting them categorize themselves. I didn’t see anything that would make me think Yang didn’t.
Wesley Yang has attempted to whitewash the progressive/leftist/communitarian self-righteous yelping about right-wingers by the counterintuitive methodology of using the failed European Union as a straw man. The truth of the matter is that both the extreme left and the extreme right on both sides of the Atlantic spew what is best described as hyperactive hysteria. I cannot apologize for using the sexist term hysteria, for there is no nonsexist term available.
Democracy, in terms of majoritarianism, is just as tyrannical as any dictatorship. I find the description of democracy as two wolves and a sheep deciding on dinner as a true description. America was never intended to be a democracy. It was designed to be a republic to protect it from democracy. In the literature produced by the founding fathers of America there is a plethora of sound reasons to be wary of democracy.
Yang's cacophony of misrepresentations of democracy is just a lot of hyperventilating. Those who emote on the greatness of democracy never express caution against its corrosiveness. It always results in tyranny.
But there ARE right-wing fanatics out there in our society, every bit as alienated and theory-bound as the left-wing fanatics. I state over and over again, confidently: moderates, people who can leave theory and belief aside and SEE what facts and statistics MEAN and can see people as something greater and more important than abstract playthings or enemies can make the general quality of life and political discourse in ANY political system better. The question no academics seem to be interested in asking is this: how do we increase the number of moderates and decrease the number of fanatics? I don't mean violence, I mean what material circumstances and what ideological/education framework will pull people back from the edges of kook-ness? How do we make it "cool" not to be a loon? And how did lunacy achieve the patina of...erudition? awareness? that it has now?
It's pointless to engage arguments like the "malapportionment" of the Senate or supermajoritarian legislative requirements (or really, anything at all) on the supposed merits. The progressive left's arguments don't rest on merit: instead they rest on "who, whom."
Pointing out ostensible contradictions in their claims while pointing out that such measures are common in other democratic societies may bring lip service of some kind, but it's only lip service to their own useful fools, while they sneer up their sleeves at our bourgeois morality. The sooner one gets one's head right with the realization that the opposition is explicitly Leninist and/or Maoist, the sooner one can begin to plan realistically.
A reference to Social Democratic European countries pulling back on medicalizing youth with gender dysphoria in favor of psychological care = "trans bashing". Extraordinary.
Donald Trump's failures to act - to carry out or implement actual acts of governance - may be what allows his enemies to convict him of something - of whatever.
On he went about declassifying documents - and here we are.
I noticed that he didn't get around to debunking concerns about gerrymandering. I'm not an expert, but from what I understand, the political manipulation of legislative districts in the U.S. (and the gerrymandering arms race between red and blue states) is indeed highly peculiar. This is not only undemocratic, but creates very bad incentives for house members. Last I checked, incumbents won more than 90% of house races, up from something like 60% decades ago. Many reps are more likely to be unseated in primaries than general elections. This pushes them to be more extreme and uncompromising.
He notes that presidential powers in the U.S. are in some ways more constrained than that of prime ministers in, say, the U.K. Point granted, but the U.S.'s clunky system of government combined with an increasingly polarized electorate has caused congress to become more and more gridlocked. Presidents are increasingly tempted to sidestep congress with executive orders of dubious legality. Trump's extension of pandemic unemployments and Obama's DACA order are two examples of this.
I don't think these problems presage the imminent breakdown of American democracy into civil war. But, as Matthew Yglesias noted, presidential democracy has a poor track record outside the U.S. The U.S. seems to be able to persist with this brittle type of government because of its deep democratic traditions and enormous geographic and economic advantages. Yet it remains to be seen how long it can be kept up in our era of polarization and rampant negative partisanship. We will all see, because sweeping constitutional change is highly unlikely
I find the increasing calls for censorship, ostensibly "to protect free speech!", to be Straight Up 1984.
This and the increasingly heavy-handed reliance upon overt repression merely shows that the ruling PMC knows that its grip on power is slipping.
Most disturbing is WHO those calls come from. Academics. Librarians. "Intellectuals." A shameful commentary on the state of intellectual freedom in this country.
Requiring ID for voting is different when ID is easy to get, as I believe it is in Europe.
I was wondering about that. I know to get my real ID took a lot of time and money and I didn’t even attempt it until I retired. These laws are also attempting to solve a vanishingly tiny problem. All that said, if we can insure that anyone who is legally able to vote can obtain the necessary documentation I don’t have a problem with ID.
I'm late to comment on this, as I just found this substack.... but if the ID is not accessible, then the policy approach should be making it easier to get, or broadening the allowable types of ID, not pretending as though the mere requirement is unconscionable.
Also, I bet that even in European countries, you might still need to go somewhere, or submit an application, or expend some kind of baseline effort to get your ID, and wait some amount of time, meaning that even there it's not zero effort.
I am sick to the back teeth of faux or former liberals pretending that they aren't actively engaged in bashing trans people and turning them into a convenient political punching bag. I previously believed there were questions to be asked - about parental rights and the social pressure on adolescents to 'come out' - but these endless attempts to diminish the humanity or question the existence of trans people has sent me scurrying back to my live-and-let-live comfort zone. I don't care what people do with their bodies. It's none of my business.
I have the same concerns as you do around parental rights (albeit I think for a few bleeding edge progressive parents it is a mark of distinction to have a trans or nonbinary child). There is also the social pressure, not to mention how fashionable it currently is, at least as displayed in TV shows, movies, and fashion. It’s a trend, like many others, and it will run its course. Eventually there will be equilibrium and only people who truly need it, like my former roomie, will go forward. I just wish gender-affirming care was more akin to tattoos or piercing than permanently altering the human body in such a drastic way.
Here is what I didn’t see: Any dismissal of the humanity of anyone, trans included. We should be affirming the dignity and rights of any human being and letting them categorize themselves. I didn’t see anything that would make me think Yang didn’t.
Wesley Yang has attempted to whitewash the progressive/leftist/communitarian self-righteous yelping about right-wingers by the counterintuitive methodology of using the failed European Union as a straw man. The truth of the matter is that both the extreme left and the extreme right on both sides of the Atlantic spew what is best described as hyperactive hysteria. I cannot apologize for using the sexist term hysteria, for there is no nonsexist term available.
Democracy, in terms of majoritarianism, is just as tyrannical as any dictatorship. I find the description of democracy as two wolves and a sheep deciding on dinner as a true description. America was never intended to be a democracy. It was designed to be a republic to protect it from democracy. In the literature produced by the founding fathers of America there is a plethora of sound reasons to be wary of democracy.
Yang's cacophony of misrepresentations of democracy is just a lot of hyperventilating. Those who emote on the greatness of democracy never express caution against its corrosiveness. It always results in tyranny.
But there ARE right-wing fanatics out there in our society, every bit as alienated and theory-bound as the left-wing fanatics. I state over and over again, confidently: moderates, people who can leave theory and belief aside and SEE what facts and statistics MEAN and can see people as something greater and more important than abstract playthings or enemies can make the general quality of life and political discourse in ANY political system better. The question no academics seem to be interested in asking is this: how do we increase the number of moderates and decrease the number of fanatics? I don't mean violence, I mean what material circumstances and what ideological/education framework will pull people back from the edges of kook-ness? How do we make it "cool" not to be a loon? And how did lunacy achieve the patina of...erudition? awareness? that it has now?
Good question. I have no answer. On the eighth day God created kooks. And the morning and the evening was the eighth day.
It's pointless to engage arguments like the "malapportionment" of the Senate or supermajoritarian legislative requirements (or really, anything at all) on the supposed merits. The progressive left's arguments don't rest on merit: instead they rest on "who, whom."
Pointing out ostensible contradictions in their claims while pointing out that such measures are common in other democratic societies may bring lip service of some kind, but it's only lip service to their own useful fools, while they sneer up their sleeves at our bourgeois morality. The sooner one gets one's head right with the realization that the opposition is explicitly Leninist and/or Maoist, the sooner one can begin to plan realistically.
A genuinely fantastic essay. Thanks for posting this, Wesley, and I think it speaks volumes that this professor feels the need to use a nom de guerre.
I knew this column would come down to trans-bashing. Congrats on fulfilling my expectations.
A reference to Social Democratic European countries pulling back on medicalizing youth with gender dysphoria in favor of psychological care = "trans bashing". Extraordinary.
I genuinely have no idea how you could even remotely construe anything here as "trans-bashing."
Donald Trump's failures to act - to carry out or implement actual acts of governance - may be what allows his enemies to convict him of something - of whatever.
On he went about declassifying documents - and here we are.