Esall's opening assertion that "The Republican Party as it stands to day" equals "the center-right political coalition in America" is so gob-stoppingly wrong that I could barely read the rest of the piece.The Democratic Party is the closest thing to a "center-right political coalition party" in the USA--surely even they are so far to the right by world standards that the word "center" is barely justified.
The Republican Party is a far right-wing party and has been one ever since the days of Barry Goldwater if not before. It has only gotten worse, and the racism more overt, during the Trump years. Most of the rather meandering article revolves around quotations from a number of "social scientists" of whom I for one have never heard, though no doubt others have, as I have a long way to go in that regard. We hear ominous rumblings about mysterious entities such as a neural structure that guides our perception of salient threats and understanding of social group hierarchy [and] also underlies political preferences and behaviors to keep society as it is. What the hell that is supposed to prove is never stated. If basic human nature is to blame for the final sin of the Democrats, what could anyone do about it, and why complain? The final conclusion, though IMO never clearly stated, seems to be that the Democrats are bringing about the end of democracy by failing to rise somehow above "tribalism," whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. Trump started it, Edsall seems to be saying, but we expect the Democrats to rise above such pettiness. Unfortunately, The emergence of a right-populist, authoritarian-inclined Republican Party coincides with the advent of a bifurcated Democratic Party led, in large part, by a well-educated, urban, globally engaged multicultural elite allied with a growing minority electorate. Structurally, the Democratic Party has become the ideal adversary for a Republican Party attempting to define political competition as a contest between “us the people” against “them, the others” — the enemy. The short- and medium-term prognosis for productive political competition is not good. I have to admit that I place little stock in "social science" as practiced in the American university, as I find it in general unsocial and antiscientific, so I am unlikely to trust these second-rate oracles, especially the "Harvard psychologist" whose summary of the situation Edsall presents, sort of, as his own: I think that Biden will probably win and will probably be the next president. But the fact that I can’t say more than ‘probably’ is terrifying to me. I fear that we are witnessing the end of American democracy.” This piece reminds me of Chris Hedges at his doomiest, minus the homiletic verve. Yes, the potential end of American "democracy"--but because the Democrats are "too tribal" or have given in to the inexorable pressure of some mysterious "neural structure"? What am I missing? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#891): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/891 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/76432979/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES<br />#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.<br />#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.<br />#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
