UPDATE. hellslittlestangel asks in comments why Ross Douthat didn't make the cut. It was a near thing, but we were running long. I'll reproduce it here, though:
As it sadly must any time conservatives talk about their future, Ross Douthat stuck in his oar. While admitting "it's true that the G.O.P.'s identity as the party of the wealthy has been quite resilient," he nonetheless believed "a little exit poll data can shed light on why would-be conservative populists, libertarian and otherwise, aren't just dealing in an ahistorical fantasy."
What Douthat noticed was that in Presidential elections between 1988 and 2008, the Democrats gained votes from the rich, and the Republicans lost them. (Douthat discovers inflation only in 2008, which makes his figures especially dramatic.) So Douthat saw where the votes were, and even acknowledged the "substantial question of how a G.O.P. that embraced economic populism would raise enough money to compete with the new Democratic money machine," an insight we thought was beyond him.
But in a follow-up column Douthat brought up the "court party"/"country party" distinction in 18th Century Great Britain, and declared, "there really is a kind of 'court party' in American politics, whose shared interests and assumptions -- interventionist, corporatist, globalist -- have stamped the last two presidencies and shaped just about every major piece of Obama-era legislation... the ruling class -- in Washington, especially -- has grown fat at the expense of the nation it governs." (Douthat was referring here to his previous insight that D.C. was a poor country town until the money started spreading into the black neighborhoods, whereupon it became a nightmare out of Hunger Games.)
Douthat left libertarian populists with this encouragement: "The original 'country party' critique of Robert Walpole's government was powerful, resonant and intellectually influential. But it still wasn't politically successful. Instead, the era as a whole belonged to Walpole and his court -- as this one, to date, belongs to Barack Obama." The message is clear: Find another country to take over and try your new ideas there. We propose Somalia.
"...Calling Christie a RINO has no meaning because the term RINO has no meaning."
ReplyDeleteOoooh, so close to a point, and yet...
...but if you look at the structural policy problems of the moment,
ReplyDeletelibertarian populism is the most convincing philosophical tonic out
there.
tonic: A medicinal substance taken to give a feeling of vigor or well-being.
Please notice it won't cure you of any malaise. It'll just make you feel better. Perhaps the question our libertarians should be asking themselves is, If libertarianism is so great, how come everyone looks at me the same way they'd look at a dig turd on their shoe?
Sadly for them, libertarian self-awareness remains as elusive as that static-electricity engine.
Poor little Ross Douthat didn't make the cut? His argument that Republicanism can excite America's youth by repackaging itself as 18th century "Bolingbrokism" is pretty fucking hilarious. George Will must be rolling over in his grave.
ReplyDeleteLibPops, now available in FreedomFreezers everywhere.
ReplyDeleteTry also:
Pudding Pops (Vanilla only)
Pushdowns
Nutty Buddies
Creamsicles
I had something about that in an early draft... will update.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the over/under on when they claim Martin Luther King was really a 'libertarian populist"? And Jesus, too.
ReplyDeleteTonic goes great with Victory gin.
ReplyDeleteLucky Suckies
ReplyDeleteDouthat must live inside an electrified field where bits of genuine news about the political world -- not his own odd imaginings of it -- get zapped like so many unpleasant bugs before they can unduly influence his "thinking."
ReplyDelete...it’s [Bolingbroke's] civic republican ideas, repurposed for a new era, that you hear in the rhetoric of new-guard Republican politicians like Rand Paul and Mike Lee, in right-wing critiques of our incestuous “ruling class”...
I'll give Ross Douthat $100 cash money if Mike Lee -- Mike fucking Lee! -- even knows who Bolingbroke is, and double if he owns up to having "civic Republican ideas," or if he can even prove he has "ideas" at all -- unless you count calling for the elimination of all federal child labor laws an "idea."
If Douthat had spent another ten seconds with Google, he would have found this on Bolingbroke (Wikipedia):
ReplyDelete1715 he supported the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 which sought to overthrow the new king George I. Escaping to France he became foreign minister for the Pretender. He was attainted for treason, but reversed course and was allowed to return to England in 1723.
So, yeah, a typical Republibertarian--treason, trimming and Toryism, because they don't think anyone's paying attention.
George Will must be rolling over in his grave.
ReplyDeleteFrom your lips to FSM's ears...
I'd be amazed if they hadn't already claimed Jesus. As for MLK, well, it depends who's listening.
ReplyDeleteI suggest he smoke a bowl.
ReplyDeleteAt least he'll wake up feeling better.
The whole point of late Bolingbroke, by the by, is to build a new bipartisan consensus by mimicking the other side's rhetoric, while allowing the executive power to be nonpartisan and focused on the common good. When this becomes a vision held by the Republican Party, you'll be able to role-play it on your personal holodeck.
ReplyDeleteDavid Fucking Brooks was on NPR spouting this same "libertarian populism" horseshit just a couple of days ago. That must have been the talking point in the blast fax that went out from Ginni Thomas' new conservative messanging group earlier last week.
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, it was only after he and his party were firmly associated in the public's minds with terrorism and conspiracy that he decided politics really was all about transcending outmoded party labels. "Let's not argue about whose party conspired with a foreign power to overthrow the government. The important thing is that we get beyond partisanship!" Mark MacKinnon wishes he had balls that big. And in a breeches-wearing age, no less!
ReplyDeleteMakes sense. "Libertarianism" that has nearly nothing to do with liberty and "populism" that has nearly nothing to do with the populace is right up Brooks' alley.
ReplyDeleteAs long as Will keeps the soil of his native land in his coffin...
ReplyDeleteI got your "libertarian populism" right here- steal a public park and turn it into a sovereign "commonwealth" for Randian ubermenschen.
ReplyDeleteHow can he deny that Rand Fucking Paul, the son of long-time congress squatter and perennial presidential candidate Ron Fucking Paul, is a member of our incestuous "ruling class"?
ReplyDelete...and suddenly the pop culture phenomenon of vampire fiction died out, as though across America, monkey glands had been simultaneously doused in ice water.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I was just wondering where the grift was. Because with these clowns there's always a grift.
ReplyDeleteThey must been up late, drinking, and "All the King's Men" came on the telly.
ReplyDeleteOr that Mike "Mike fucking Lee" Lee hails from a family that has produced six congressman, a Secretary of the Interior, a Utah Supreme Court justice, and his dad was Reagan's solicitor general! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee-Hamblin_family
ReplyDeleteRepublican Washington outsiders! Woo hoo!
"The most important movement in American politics right now is the libertarian one...Government is never reduced," he said. "Never. Year to year it never
ReplyDeleteever gets smaller. Many people who have long called themselves
'conservative' are starting to ask why this is."
"Thus concludes our report from ground zero of the new 'Tea Party' phenomenon, this being March 2009 and all. After the break: some possible destinations for LeBron James, and our experts look at new teen internet fad "tumblr."
Political party out of power suddenly discovers principled anti-authority leanings: film at eleven.
ReplyDelete"Libertarian populist" makes me chuckle, given that I associate libertarians (self-described ones, anyway) with stick-up-the-ass engineering majors who quote Hayek in discussions about the monetary system. It would be an interesting study, actually, to see how a movement that claims to speak for average people (when it's not decrying them all as degenerate moochers and scared sheep, of course) so totally lacks the common touch.
"Libertarian populist" makes me chuckle, given that I associate libertarians (self-described ones, anyway) with stick-up-the-ass engineering majors who quote Hayek in discussions about the monetary system.
ReplyDeleteYup. The libertarian Nolan Chart is bullshit anyway, but it posits "libertarian" opposite "populist." Most libertarians side with management and power, and a few of them are honest enough to express their disdain for the masses and democracy itself. See also the many Crooked Timber posts on libertarianism, including some ones this month on Friedrich Hayek and his love of Pinochet (and Hayek's disdain for the masses), not to mention the general conservative (and sometimes libertarian) admiration for Pinochet. (Why, it's almost as if the Wall Street Journal and Reason magazine aren't that far apart. Hmm.) It's an old con game, but they give it a new name every so often, especially when someone (like Bush) ruins the brand. ("Reagan!" "Moral Majority!" "Contract with America!" "Tea Party!" "Libertarian Populism!")
The most likely direction for "libertarian populism" to go with today's GOP is to find some filth-rich Jew from Goldman-Sachs who has donated to Democrats (ideally, one who has had his picture taken shaking Obama's hand), haul him before Congress, and lambaste him hour after hour for his borderline-illegal financial schemes. No legislation will come of this, just enough opportunities for Republicans to look like they are the real enemies of the wealthy elites. At the end of the day, polls will still show Democrats leading Republicans about 60-40 on the question of "who is more on the side of the poor and middle class as opposed to the rich," but the Republicans can live with that. As long as it doesn't get to 80-20 they'll still win the seats they need in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, etc.
ReplyDeleteIt's a sleazy plan, but it just might work.
Meanwhile, the NSA spying was allowed to continue, largely because of GOP support for the "War on Terra".
ReplyDeleteWhere's your "libertarian populism" now?
See also: Ben Quayle, who, if he has a single brain cell in his head, obviously didn't get it from his dad.
ReplyDeleteUhhh... any relation?
ReplyDelete**DUCKS**
It'll be interesting to see the Trans-Pacific Partnership vote, if it comes to one (and I'm afraid it will).
ReplyDeleteRecall NAFTA:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=103&session=1&vote=00395#position
~
Libertarians are constantly trying to appropriate King. See here and here.
ReplyDeleteHere's a hint: when you acclimatize people to receiving certain government services, and then suddenly take them away, those people are likely to express their displeasure at the voting booth.
ReplyDeleteHowever, his recent fame comes from his proposal to buy Belle Isle from the city of Detroit for $1 billion and turn it into a commonwealth.
ReplyDeleteThat's, uh, that's not how that works. Just because you own a bit of land doesn't mean you can declare it sovereign territory. It's been tried before.
Indeed, the only voices coming out against the TPP are the few remaining radical Democrats. The Republicans sure aren't lifting a finger in protest.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, one could note that prior to the revolution of batshit nihilists, it was impossible to be a RINO because the Republican Party accommodated a sufficient range of views. Meanwhile, in the modern era of purity purges of those insufficiently in the grip of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, it's almost impossible to be a RINO because individual Republican politicians no longer tend to break ranks on anything that matters. That transition is potentially interesting, and definitely tragic.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, gluttonous misogynist fuck Chris Christie is only a RINO if you ignore his hardline conservative positions on almost everything in favor of his unwillingness to demonize all American Muslims as murderous traitors, or his willingness to do what's necessary to get those federal disaster aid dollars, even to the point of sweet-talking someone whose policies he openly denigrates. The fact that he gets called a RINO for being politically calculating and only bigoted against most Republican outgroups instead of all of them is interesting as well, and again demonstrates the incoherence of the label.
But no, it's because Christie is savvy enough to realize that "libertarian populism" is a clumsily-delivered load of horseshit popular only with fringy dumbshits and blatant grifters. Whereupon he gets denounced for upholding the national-security state, and the entire party is thereby declared anathema by an outraged right-schmibertarian who has apparently never read a newspaper, let alone voted, in his life.
"there really is a kind of 'court party' in American politics, whose shared interests and assumptions -- interventionist, corporatist, globalist -- have stamped the last two presidencies and shaped just about every major piece of Obama-era legislation... the ruling class -- in Washington, especially -- has grown fat at the expense of the nation it governs."
ReplyDeleteAnd what would Libertarian Populism offer as solutions? Do away with taxes and labor protections? That'll teach those richies!
Well, given their stances on bodily autonomy, pricing externalities, the mere existence of science, etc, etc, etc, the "libertarian" part has to come in somehow, and maximizing the exploitive global flow of capital is what traditional right-libertarianism is all about, especially if it's brutally imposed on the stinking masses in a way that destroys the right of governments to help their own citizens.
ReplyDeleteYeah, but has it been tried before using an originalist interpretation of the... [Puts on fake-nose-and-mustache glasses] ... Tenth Amendment?
ReplyDelete[Cue "Won't Get Fooled Again" with irony turned up to eleven.]
Do away with taxes and labor protections?
ReplyDeleteHeavens, no. Regressive taxes on wages are okay, as long as they're capped. And executive compensation will still be sacrosanct, so the real laborers will be protected just fine. Besides, just get regulatin', redistributin' government out of the way, and entrepreneurship will mean we'll all be wearing gold-plated diapers.
True fact: this agenda is basically indistinguishable from combining Pierre-Joseph Proudhon with William Jennings Bryan. True fact!
Personally, I think they should take the deal and insist on the broadcast rights. Watching a libertarian commonwealth* descend into Lord of the Flies chaos ought to be worth another billion, easy.
ReplyDelete*Now that's and oxymoron.
I was thinking more along the lines of combining Jay Gould and Juan Perón.
ReplyDeleteSwap in Augusto Pinochet, and you've got a deal. Perón actually had a few policies which helped the poor.
ReplyDeleteAs long as we're getting Latin American, wait a year and substitute Roberto "Blowtorch Bob" D'Aubuisson.
ReplyDeleteI prefer to take my tonics with Plasmids.
ReplyDeletegovernment never gets smaller because the population it serves never gets smaller. What is so hard about that? What a bunch of maroons.
ReplyDeleteWith the added benefit that the current US Catholic leadership would be on his side.
ReplyDeleteYes, speaking of libertarianism...
ReplyDeleteSounds highly effective at circumscribing the ruling class, and what could be more populist than the majority of people paying the majority of taxes?!!
ReplyDelete**DUCKS**
ReplyDeleteWhere?
Libertarian big brains?
ReplyDeleteThat's a joke, right?
Right?
Okay, I've got the monkey (hold still, damnit!) and I've got the ice-water, now, which gland do I douse? Or does it require dissection of the monkey? Cause I'm getting pretty fond of the little fellow, and I couldn't hurt him.
ReplyDeletePeople who have smoked medicinal marihauna report they have been cured, cured completely.
ReplyDeleteJesus, do you have any idea of how overdeveloped the self-justification lobe and the moral blindness cortex have to be in an adult libertarian? It's a wonder they don't have grey matter pushing out their noses.
ReplyDeleteOh, I think because the rest of their brains has shriveled down to something that Homer Simpson would be proud of kinda leaves plenty of room for the ego-driven parts....
ReplyDeleteNot close I hope.Those beaky bastards are almost as bad as geese; or even *shudder* swans...
ReplyDeleteThere actually are static-electricity engines. (Trust me, here. I did years of electrostatic research. But they don't violate the laws of conservation of energy.)
ReplyDeleteZero-point energy engines? Yet to find one that isn't a hoax. It's like trying to find an empathetic libertarian. They don't exist.
Zero-point energy engines? Yet to find one that isn't a hoax.
ReplyDeleteWell, duh. They keep getting drained by the Antarctic planetary defense system, or by opening stargates to the Pegasus Galaxy.
Paulists. (Don't take the wrapper off. Just let melt in your hand and wonder what it would have been like.)
ReplyDeleteJoe Pynes (Guess what the handle is made of)
Joe Walshes (Nothing in it, like his child support)
PalinPops (It sounded great until you found out it cost $19.98 and you had to wait in line for eight hours in the rain to get one)
Sounds highly effective at circumscribing the ruling class
ReplyDeleteWait, we're supposed to be doing that while we're down there, too?
Yes, I'd say that covers it nicely.
ReplyDeleteIs that like covering William Howard Taft with Paul Prudhomme?
ReplyDeleteMost "tonics" are snake-oil concoctions that do more harm than good. Usually they were stuffed with opium and alcohol. And snake oil, of course.
ReplyDeleteOh, I've peered at the photos of electrostatic motors in Edmund Scientific's catalog for years. But Rearden Metal was the other obvious Ayn Rand joke, and I didn't think that line flowed as well. I dunno how Roy manages it.
ReplyDeleteAh, well, an Ayn Rand allusion. I knew I shouldn't have taken the bait....
ReplyDeletePopulist libertarians might start by legalizing marijuana, so that arguments like "the Tea Party and the Occupy movement are both very much interested in
ReplyDeletesome of the exact same issues, but are coming to the same place from
different directions" start to make sense.
Yeah, well, YOU take unregulated headache medicine and see what happens.
ReplyDeleteWhy not? Dad wasn't using it.
ReplyDelete(It sounded great until you found out it cost $19.98 and you had to wait in line for eight hours in the rain to get one)
ReplyDeleteAnd when it was half finished the rest just VANISHED.
Hahahahahaaa ... FOOLS!
ReplyDeleteLessee, the Libertarian Party consistently gets about 1% or less of the Presidential vote each election. Ed Clark and David Koch got 1.06% of the vote in 1980. Ron Paul and Andre Marrou got 0.47% of the vote in 1988. Bob Barr got 0.40% of the vote in 2008. Gary Johnson got 0.99% in 2012.
ReplyDeleteRegular powerhouse of a movement, I'd say. Not many political parties can say they got their asses kicked by Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke.
So, all this populism banter is just that. The Republicans own most of the people who think they're libertarians, and the libertarians are walking around dazed and confused.
Not exactly a prescription for success.
You see "libertarian populism" in action any time a ship goes down and someone finally yells "Every Man for Himself!"
ReplyDeleteThe "fucking" is an honorific, like "Von" in Germany.
ReplyDeleteFunny you should mention, I was at a friend's house for dinner last night and he brought up the Belle Isle pipe dream as part of the salvation plan for the city of Detroit, then groused that the city council would never let it happen.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find so interesting is how much white male suburbanites suddenly care so much for the welfare of a city they hate, a city they never visit and wouldn't if the streets were paved with gold. It's almost as if the bankruptcy of Detroit is an opportunity for them to say over and over without really saying it, "See, I told you blacks were no good!"
Well, I shouldn't say "without saying" because often enough they do just say it. But a tax-free island for the ultra-rich and mostly white in which no poors or undesirables can mooch off of their earnings? Now THAT'S the Detroit they've been waiting FOR.
"the Union represented the same forces in large part responsible for the disenfranchisement of post-industrial towns -- capitalism, modernity, and the farcical impersonation of self-government we call democracy. American history, and all of modern history, represents the triumph of these things."
ReplyDeletePost-industrial towns have been stripped of their constitutional right to vote? And capitalism is to blame? Really? I think this guy thinks "disenfranchisement" is when the Arby's in town has to shut down after all the steel mills close.
"I’ve always thought it odd, given the consensus that the Southern states were led to secession by slave-owning aristocrats, that the stars and bars are most often flown today by the sort of economically disenfranchised Appalachians whose ancestors tended not to own slaves."
Yeah, it's incredibly odd that poor people were tricked by authoritarian assholes, under the guise of freedom and individualism, to act against their own self-interests. It's bizarre that such a thing never has happened before or since.
It's good we keep the battle flag around just to remember that one time that people didn't act rationally in the way libertarianism both predicts and demands.
Po-TAY-toe, po-TAH-toe.
ReplyDeleteDreamsicles.
ReplyDeleteIt's a wonder they don't have grey matter pushing out their noses.
ReplyDeleteWell, they do have a surplus of brown stuff emanating from their faces.
It's quite funny, in a rather perverse way, to backhandedly suggest that the movers and shakers behind the secession were the antithesis of capitalism, when they were actually the proto-predatory capitalists of their time, getting labor for bare subsistence costs only and having the right under the law to buy and sell people (at a time when manual labor was the economic equivalent of oil today), and to amass considerable fortunes thereby.
ReplyDeleteThis "let's turn history upside-down for political points" routine is getting a bit long in the tooth, I'd say.
Douthat must live inside an electrified field where bits of genuine news
ReplyDeleteabout the political world -- not his own odd imaginings of it -- get
zapped like so many unpleasant bugs before they can unduly influence his
"thinking."
Eh, Douthat's just figured out a way to capitalize on new applications for his Catholic Reality Denial Shield. Your CRDS is supposed to only accept programming from the Vatican, but Ross seems to have hacked his, so he can ignore anything he finds disagreeable...including his hacking, grift, and mendacity.
BioShock: The Reality Show. I like it!
ReplyDeleteThey're feeding energy to keep the Nazi flying saucers in the hollow earth going.
ReplyDeleteOT, but relevant to several recent Zimmerman-acquittal posts: keep your children safe from Whitey.
ReplyDelete