What happened to the confident march of progressivism that inspired lefty politics for the past couple of decades? It seems to have died out, replaced by a budding rightward movement in American politics.
The explanation is simpler than most observers think: This is what always happens. Episodes of progressivism are rare in American history and usually produce a backlash after a decade or two because they overreach and finally get too far ahead of public opinion.
- New Deal progressivism was weakened by the war and finally collapsed afterward thanks to perceptions of destructive union activism; softness on communism; and hardline desegregation.
- The counterculture of the '60s eventually broke on the shoals of good intentions that went too far for most Americans: busing as a way of fighting racism; a continued obsession with "root causes" in the face of rising crime; and a humiliating retreat from Vietnam. Combined with a failing economy it killed progressivism for a generation.
- The same thing has happened this time but with different issues: the transformation of anti-racism into wokeness; trans activism taken to extreme levels; "defund the police"; and immigration softness that's become indistinguishable from open borders.
The American public welcomes the thrill of progressivism every few decades—but only just so much and only for a short while. Then they retrench. But the good news is that progressive gains are generally permanent. Our most recent surge of progressivism was modest by historical standards but still produced Obamacare, gay marriage, marijuana legalization, and, with an assist from the Supreme Court, growing support for abortion.
Now we're suffering through the usual backlash and politics is moving slightly rightward. Mainstream Democrats can either fight this or accept it. The former guarantees irrelevance while the latter delivers public acceptance at a modest price—modest because the growing lunacy of the Republican Party means Democrats don't have to move far to still seem like a better choice.
It seems like the choice should be easy, right? But it never is.
"Our most recent surge of progressivism was modest by historical standards but still produced . . . growing support for abortion."
Albeit coupled with significantly growing restrictions on abortion access.
That might be a backlash as the religious in this country have transformed into none's, even though the secular interpretation is one of lose of liberty.
Given support from those in power, the religious can beat the non-religious into submission.
Exactly. It's a holdover from yesteryear, where everyone in government was almost expected to be just shy of a preacher or priest. That's why sex scandals used to be so damaging...
We are witnessing god's hand slowly pulling away ...
That's true for now, but those in power don't reflect the will of the governed. 64% of Americans say abortion should be legal in most or all cases. Just 35% of Americans say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. It’s likely that state legislatures, or Congress, will eventually make abortion legal in nearly all states.
If the Supreme Court had not usurped authority regarding the legality of abortion in 1973, we may have sorted this out in the 1970s before the country became so polarized. In fact, part of what drove the polarization was abortion. Evangelicals latched on to this issue to help define themselves as being on the side of godly righteousness.
Oh dear god no. The evangelicals didn't care one wit about Abortion in the 1970s. It was a nothingburger to them, only Catholics cared. The GOP decided to weaponize abortion in the service of controlling uppity women and to form a coalition of religious nutters. They did this after realizing that campaigning on a return to school segregation did not poll as well as they hoped.
+1
Correct history is key.
I'm not exactly sure what you are arguing, but popular sentiment is only beneficial because it might lead to policy changes, not because it's useful in and of itself.
Put another way: I wouldn't care if 90% of the public hated abortion, as long as it was legal and available for the minority of ladies that needed/wanted it.
Put still another way: there are all kinds of things that are broadly popular in America but which we nonetheless never get. Higher taxes on the wealthy, or medicare for all, for example. And as long as we have a 6-3 conservative supermajority in SCOTUS, abortion rights is probably in that category, no matter how popular it is.
"Put another way: I wouldn't care if 90% of the public hated abortion, as long as it was legal and available for the minority of ladies that needed/wanted it."
So you are cool with autocracy on your terms. Standard shitlib.
"So you are cool with autocracy on your terms."
Absolutely fucking not, you idiot. For the same reason that I don't care if 90% of the public hated, say, pro-communist (or fascist) speech, or if 90% of the public hated satanism; I'd still want people to be free to engage in such things.
Why? Because basic rights--such as to speech, religion, and, yes, bodily autonomy--really should not be subject to the tyrany of the majority. Which has nothing to do with with autocracy, and everything to do with a rights-based democratic order.
+1
Good reply!
I apologize, that was too snarky.
But here is the question. Suppose 90% of the population opposed your position and you had sufficient power, would you:
A) Maintain your position -- as your position follows from your principles and thus the opposition of the other 90% of the population doesn't matter; or
B) Maintain your position (for the reasons above) AND use your power to undemocratically prevent the 90% from achieving their goals (as opposed to -- for example -- trying to convince them or shame them into accepting your position).
Because there is a big difference between these two approaches.
"Now we're suffering through the usual backlash.."
Is voting for a wanna-be dictator that already tried to seize power by violence now counts as "the usual backlash"?
Seems we have had the unfortunate bad luck of Trump arriving at the exact wrong moment in history. A celebrity, populist, master demagogue – who happens to also have narcissistic personality disorder or is a sociopath (or both) – is a dangerous politician. They’ll burn everything to the ground to get what they want.
Kevin is overly optimistic that America could survive an era of Trump and plutocracy and christianist nationalism, and then somehow, some day, magically swing back toward another progressive era.
Some times societies, cultures, nations just decline and fall, never to really arise again. If America soon has Vance and Musk and others of that ilk at the helm (while Trump is out golfing), it's hard to imagine anything but a big decline and fall.
The question is “what do you think Trump will really do if elected?” Will he really raise tariffs on everything as a new tax? Will he actually take revenge on the people and news organizations he considers to be his enemies? Will he really deport 20 million people? Will he actually use the military to put down protests?
If you think he’s just a blowhard and making pandering promises and that he’ll just do the usual Republican stuff, like lower rich people’s taxes and maybe enact that border compromise he nixed to get elected, and maybe do some DeSantis Florida shit regarding “woke” and trans, then I suppose it’s just a pendulum swing as Kevin says.
if you think he has the people, the congress, and the court behind him he will actually do some or all of the draconian stuff he says he will, then for sure “decline and fall”. Personally, I think a second Trump presidency will be extremely ugly.
Here’s what worries me: TFG can’t terminate state prosecutions or pardon himself for state crimes. But if he is in office, state cases won’t proceed. Should he win, and survive until 2028, he has a strong incentive to attempt to become President for Life. Things would get extremely ugly.
He did last time.
Queue dril tweet: “turning a big dial that says "Racism" on it and constantly looking back at the audience for approval like a contestant on the price is right”
There was a shift towards progressivism recently? On what issues?
This is pretty standard reactionary centrist framing.
People like Chait and Drum like to pretend Bill was a progressive, even when third way politics relied on Republican votes to overhaul welfare, liberalize trade, and deregulate banking and telecommunications industries
Kevin did hide it in the text of his post, such that you had to actually read it to notice, but he did list ~3 examples: "Obamacare, gay marriage, marijuana legalization"
Gay rights/ marriage was a biggie.
There was a shift towards progressivism recently?
In our new, still quite young century, same sex marriage, community rating, and guaranteed issue have become the law of the land. And most Americans live in states where cannabis has either been decriminalized or is flat out legal.
If, at the end of the nineties, you had told me that queer people would soon be able to get married everywhere in the US and in much of the country you could openly walk into a shop and buy an ounce of Humboldt County's finest, I'd have asked you, um, what are you smoking?
And less noticed but quite significant in my view is: traditional, Grover Norquist-style movement conservatism has become less influential than it was twenty or thirty years ago. When was the last time a prominent Republican dared talk about privatizing Social Security or voucherizing Medicare? The MAGA movement is beyond horrible seven ways to Sunday, sure, but they know damned well that social insurance is popular, and they've dragged the rest of the GOP kicking and screaming toward this view.
Also, for many decades an important trope of Hollywood films depicting a future United States was to show a Black American occupying the White House. Wow, a Black president—I guess it really must be the future! Well, one of our two parties has nominated a Black person for POTUS three times now.
Also, as Kevin points out, the single biggest win for social conservatism in recent years—Dobbs—has actually made abortion rights more popular in America.
These things are hardly the be all end all of progressivism. But they're not nothing, either.
Is industrial policy a progressive initiative? Incentives for alternative-energy purchases and investments, the IRA and the Chips and Science Act — the Federal government is taking an activist role in the economy.
It's always about going too far, and that includes everything you mention in the last bullet point. Defunding the police and unlimited immigration have been the biggest examples of overreach in the last decade. I would also add anti-Semitism masquerading as support for Palestinians. Outside of elite colleges and social media, many Americans are turned off by that.
when your comment it based on Fox News framing, kind of hard to take seriously
Of course, you name two things which did not happen which calls into question your honesty.
Also you name anti-semitism, but you probably couldn't actually find any.
Probably couldn't find *any* anti-semitism? Seriously??
https://abcnews.go.com/US/antisemitism-rise-us-amid-ongoing-israel-hamas-war/story?id=104485604
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67281042
I'm deliberately skipping articles that use Jewish groups as sources, because I'm sure you wouldn't accept those as valid.
Noted, you didn't find it where you said it was.
No police were ever defunded anywhere. It was just a very leftist slogan. What did happen in many places is things like having social workers who had been trained in dealing with these situations go along with police on calls for someone acting dangerously crazy or insistence on police body cams and releasing the video to the public quickly.
Immigration is not unlimited any more than it was in the Trump administration. One big basic problem is that the number of people making asylum claims has been way higher than the ability of courts to have hearings for them, one of many things addressed in the bill passed by the Senate and shelved in the House by Johnson because Trump wanted a campaign issue.
Asylum claimants should be held at the border for hearings within weeks, not let continue on because there is a two or three year backlog in the courts.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/portland-among-u-s-cities-adding-funds-to-police-departments
It is also the extreme waste of taxpayers dollars. Today Akron, OH gave $4.8 million to the family of a guy who shot at police. Of course he died in a hail of bullets. What else should be expected?
OH NO THE HORROR
Fuck all cops. And you too.
Noted, your citation isn't, in fact, factual.
No Police were defunded. Not even in Portland. Where the cops were caught violating the fucking law, slashing tires and escorting violent right-wing groups to assault others.
I might be reassured of America's swing back-and-forth between conservativism and progressivism if it weren't for a Supreme Court loaded with Republican hacks and a media obsessed with upping the rhetorical ante for more 'likes'.
Kevin, what extremes?
They're liars. They've always been liars. They're yelling about immigrants taking their jobs and eating their pets.
Why don't you also realize everything they yell about 'transing kids' is also a lie?
Right. Extremism is POV dependent.
"the transformation of anti-racism into wokeness" is meaningless without defining "wokeness" in a way that doesn't also mean "anti-racism."
"trans activism taken to extreme levels" refers to what? Drag Story Time? Or equal rights in the face of opposition -- an opposition that could rightly be called "extreme."
+1
Drag Story Time is almost always being performed by cis people.
Trans rights are only seen as extreme by people who don't want us to exist. My endocrinology, appearance, presentation, and primary and secondary sex characteristics all align with my gender. No one questions or even bats an eye at my presence in female spaces, including saunas and locker rooms. It's not special pleading to say that I should legally be allowed in these spaces, and be allowed to have legal documentation that reflects that.
It’s not Drag Story Time that’s killing us: it’s trans people in women’s sports. It’s the one time we can’t retort “Mind your own business”, and frankly conservatives are right about this narrow issue.
Trans people in women's sports is killing us?
I never realized it was that serious.
Well, now you know. It is that serious.
Trans people in sports involves maybe twenty or thirty individuals across the country. A number of states that specifically banned trans people in high school sports admitted that they weren't aware of a single person in the state that would be affected by the legislation. The largest number of students affected in any one state was two.
The correct answer to the conservatives on this one is "why are you wasting time on an issue that affects so few people"?
Because for once, they are right.
Those few dozen people should be allowed to play in men’s leagues, as should intersex individuals.
They are right about what?
Why do you want to inspect girl's genitalia and genetics? What advantage to that is there?
You make an excellent point -- and by coincidence I had an identical reaction on a slightly different topic earlier today. In a doctor's waiting room, a guy started ranting, while his family tried to shush him, that "we have a Presidential candidate who wants us to pay for transgender surgery for inmates!" My first thought -- which I did not say out loud, because I do not get into political arguments in doctors' waiting rooms -- was, "There's a war in the Middle East, there are significant issues around the economy, hurricanes are causing major damage in large parts of the country, and THAT's what you care about??? Something that has happened maybe 5 times???"
Score one for Fox News, I guess.
Please point me to the trans woman who is dominating her sport. Lia Thomas won one NCAA championship, with a time that was 9 seconds behind Kate Ledecky's record. She also didn't compete after college.
Fucking what?
Why do you need to harass kids to investigate their genes and genitals?
That is not a fucking conservative value, it's disgusting.
Kevin just doesn't get it. This is not his first (or last) reference to trans people wanting the same rights as everyone else being called "extreme" It's sad that every progressives don't seem to see our lives and rights as having the same value as their own. :-{
He also doesn't understand coalition politics. You maintain coalitions by showing that you're willing to defend the core interests of each of the coalition members. Other marginal groups would get concerned if the Democrats suddenly decided that trans people were expendable, thinking that they might be next. Plus many trans people are women, immigrants, racial minorities, LGB, and/or working class. Intersectionality is a thing.
+1
+1
As always it's two steps forward, one step back. Some people need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future.
I think social media and fascist governments like Russia helped conservatives produced a "backlash" against progressive policies like BLM and Me Too, I believe Biden's amnesty policy really upset many people in the middle. Voters may say it's the economy but expanding amnesty, which I favor, at a time of high inflation may be what loses the election for Harris. I guess we'll wait and see...
Inflation is down to 2 point something, very close to what economists consider ideal. One thing you don't want to do is slip into is deflation.
But many people think the prices of everything should go back to three or four years ago when a record period of little inflation was about over. They won't. It's not how it works. Wages, particularly middle to lower wages, have gone up above inflation.
The real problem is that pay has diverged from following productivity growth (that's where pay increases mainly come from) for middle to lower incomes starting with the Reagan trickle down economy days, with only higher incomes tracking or growing above productivity growth. IOW productivity constantly goes up and everything gained by that has been siphoned off by the already well off starting then and continuing to today.
I agree with your points on inflation and wage growth but the real issue is perception vs reality. Social media is definitely telling folks that they want what they had 4 years ago despite wages increasing.
Much of the fear of deflation involves confusing cause and effect. The last time the US saw substantial deflation was the Great Depression, and the deflation was the result of the Great Depression, not the cause of it. Too many economists think that deflation inevitably causes depression, which is backwards. There is no reason in principle why an economy cannot see slowly falling prices and prosperity at the same time.
"There is no reason in principle why an economy cannot see slowly falling prices and prosperity at the same time.."
Offs. In a deflationary world, hoarding cash becomes economically rational, which means people are incentivized to do all sorts of economically pointless things like put cash under the mattress instead of spending or investing it, thereby putting a drag on economic growth.
This is why central banks do not target zero inflation--the consequences of deflation are asymetrically worse than the consequences of inflation, and at zero inflation some portion of the economy will perceive some deflation and will act on it, leading to suboptimal growth.
So yeah, deflation is a bad thing. It's not just superstitious economists not understanding the Great Depression, like you seem to think.
Well explained. One could say, in deflation, cash becomes a zero-coupon bond, increasing in value the longer it is held.
Thank you for pointing this out!
Lowering the price of specific items - like healthy foods or housing - is also different than deflation. And we usually do it be being more productive or efficient via machines or processes.
I don’t think the Biden administration changed amnesty policy; that would require Congressional action, and would be constrained by our obligations under international agreements. I believe the only changes were intended to treat asylum claimants more humanely. Democrats have not done very well in countering the ‘open borders’ nonsense; There was some messaging about the constraints of US and international law at the time of the Lankford-Murphy bill; it ought to be emphasized more.
This would be a more convincing take if anything suggested Trump was going to win a popular mandate. As opposed to lose one. Again. For the third time in a row. You can point to that as a technical defeat, since we value voters differently depending on their geography, but considering Republicans have only ever won a popular mandate /once/ since I've been out of diapers that doesn't strike me as a budding rightwing shift in the electorate. Just structural forces becoming higher and higher barriers
"The same thing has happened this time but with different issues: the transformation of anti-racism into wokeness; trans activism taken to extreme levels; "defund the police"; and immigration softness that's become indistinguishable from open borders."
FFS, where to begin? This is bizarre.
Kevin's looking at backlashes to things that actually happened in the past, and comparing it to "defund the police" (which NEVER HAPPENED) and something "indistinguishable open borders" (which, again, NEVER HAPPENED.) How do you have an anti-progressive backlash to things that never happened? You could fund the heck out of police and maintain our current immigration policy forever and progressives would hardly blink. That's quite literally Harris's campaign.
The only current "backlashes" threatened or happening are: (1) against abortion, which has been legal for 50 years and has nothing to do with current progressive action; (2) LGTQ rights, which are ENORMOUSLY POPULAR and only face any drama because we have an anti-democratic national polity; and (3) increased racism, which always exists, no matter how pale progressive anti-racism is.
There's no backlash. Unlike say busing, where most people wanted to get rid of an actual system that they didn't like, anti-trans legislation is limited to extremely conservative states, often attacks myths like mandatory sex-change surgery in schools, and rarely popular in anything like a purple area. The pro-racism argument is basically brown people are getting uppity, there's no real policy there other than people want to use racist language. We have solid majorities in favor of progressive policies right now, and conservatives have to lie about what they're doing to make their minority look stronger.
Where's the majority support for anti-progressive positions? I don't see it anywhere.
Donald has repeatedly claimed that your kid goes to school as one sex and comes home another. MAGA cultists listen and think "that's terrible, how do they get away with that?" or at most "well that's what they definitely would do if a Democrat is President and so they could".
Are you using some absolute definition of defund the police? (elsewhere here I have a command where indeed, there were places where police funding was cut in response to the demands)
Grrr.... comment.
Literally did not happen. Not in Portland, not anywhere.
What do you mean defund the police never happened? It did, in fact, happen in many cities.
Noted, you cite no statistics showing it happened anywhere.
Which is spot on for the guy who supports letting pregnant people bleed to death, drivers planning and then murdering pedestrians for having the gall of not wanting to be run over, and inspecting minors' genitalia and blood to exclude them from sports.
The most fundamental explanation I have heard is not that we live in a time of expected swings between progressivism and conservativism, it more broad and more fundamental.
The last great change (really using the word great) was the maturity of the industrial revolution, which, in the early 1900s, turned the US from an agrarian nation to an industrial one.
The simplest way of putting it was, you may not have liked it, but if it was obvious the farm life was not going to cut it, and your parents were going to have to sell out, you could always hop on a train, to say, any industrial city and get a job. You might not like the job, but it probably paid as well as farmhand and with the rest of the 20th Century ahead, you might not have known it but good times in America were ahead economically.
Now, the great change of the last 20 to 30 years is a combination of (1) manufacturing jobs (as in "the easy ones any doofus can get") move over seas to rotating cheaper countries, and (2) the revolution which is taking place in the US is more and better information and tech jobs.
With the obvious difference, you ancestor might not have liked to move off the farm in 1910 but at least it was an option. If your factory closes down in 2010 that's game over, becoming a software engineer at age 40 is unrealistic.
What is expected? Blame immigrants, blame other countries, blame people smart enough to get all those new jobs you can't get.
I think that is a more direct cause than backlash against progressive causes. Health care is unexplainable, other than in a two-party system one party is for it and so the other party has to be against it.
If we lose, we have to take the issue on which we are most underwater in the polls and fundamentally shift our position. No lipstick on a pig, no mere shifts in messaging, but rather real, substantive changes in policy, repeatedly made clear by party leadership and accept throughout the party.
That issue is immigration.
Before you scream, remember that in politics it doesn’t matter if you are right if you lose. Either we enforce the border in a manner that the political middle is comfortable with, or voters will hire Republicans to do the job you won’t.
Or at least pretend like they are going to do the job. Are you sure that the business wing of the Republican wants to change the status quo?
Election Day is 15 days away. I realize taking potshots on pet issues can be fun, but can you just stop it? Especially since what you seem to believe is GOP framing and not the reality of Dem politics at the moment. At least, save the post-mortem for after the election.
This seems to be hard for a lot of people, but try to imagine this: We win!
The jury is out on this for a while, I think. The counterargument would emphasize how much Trump seems to be trying to steal "progressive" ideas for himself. Such as saying he'll be great for women and he saved Obamacare.
Or JD Vance suddenly becoming super pro-choice (apparently) during the VP debates. How this obvious lie/flip-flop didn't get bigger traction is beyond me.
My thought is that the Right is better at punching up their message.
My gut reaction is that this is because of, first and foremost, fossil fuel money. It's easy to see which party the "oil power" backs. Let's remember that Putin and the Arab world are oil powers.
This sounds like a conspiracy theory. I'm not saying, "It's all about oil!" There are lots of actors on the Right, with lots of agendas. But you have to ask yourself where all the money comes from.
Pushing your message can work in other ways, but it's a lot easier with lots of money, and the primary source of that money is sales of oil.
So, I am unimpressed with cries of "progressive overreach". There are everyday occurrences of right-wing overreach. Which has hurt them some in elections. There's hyperbole and overreach in every direction. The question is how does one get's one own story told? It's hard, and spending a lot of money makes it easier.
The right has succeeded because they tap into basic tribal instincts. These are aroused not only by racism, but by religion. Trump is not some kind of hypnotist - he tells people what they want to hear about these things. The same is true of Fox News. Nobody forces people to watch Fox - they tune in because their prejudices are catered to.
Money can be a factor at times, but it is not what has made current politics. Trump had basically no major backing for his original run in 2016. He got free coverage from the media which basically treated his candidacy as a joke (I thought it was just an ego trip myself). Millions of people just wanted to hear his messages of racism, misogyny, etc.
+1. Trump isn't the problem, he's the symptom.
I don't get this post at all.
Joe Biden in the most progressive president in half a century. Why should anyone be talking about the end of the progressive era? My alternative take: After forty years of conservative-dominated politics (tax cuts, dereg, dumb wars, and corruption), the pendulum is now swinging in the direction of a more assertive and progressive role for government once again.
"defund the police"
That was never a thing. Can we please stop talking about it? (The only people talking about it are Republicans attacking Dems, but Dems who matter -- i.e., elected Dems -- never pushed it at all.)
"a humiliating retreat from Vietnam"
How the hell this gets blamed on progressivism that "went too far" is beyond me.
"Now we're suffering through the usual backlash and politics is moving slightly rightward."
We're in the last weeks of an election campaign. What direction the country is moving will be told when the votes are counted. Maybe politics is moving right (though if Trump wins, there'll be nothing "slight" about it). Or maybe the conservative movement is about to get its long overdue comeuppance because it's run out of ideas and has put all its chips on the gibberish of a demented fascist who needs to change his diapers.
+1
The McCarthy era was aided and abetted by the FBI as a method to end this progressive era producing moderate economic equality. Socialists became outcasts and never regained any significant political power. The 'counterculture' of the 1960's was broken using law enforcement to incarcerate advocates for consciousness expansion through psychedelics. The War on Drugs began in 1971 and the DEA was established in 1973. The peace and civil rights movements were similarly persecuted by the FBI. The prison population quintupled from 1975 to 2010. The response to the election of Obama and Black Lives Matter was increased police harassment and murder of African Americans. Opposition to 'progressive eras' was, and has always been, an effort of the power elites, including mass media, which became even more consolidated after the Telecommunications Act of 1996 became law. Dismissing affirmative action, equal pay for women, reproductive rights, and expression of sexual identity as 'woke' was a deliberate manufacturing of subjectivity to the authority of capital and patriarchy. DEI has become a universally accepted epithet to deride policies increasing equality and civil rights. Reds, commies, and hippies suffered from this same type of framed bias by the same public and private institutions.
I appreciate this nod towards reality, even if incomplete:
“The same thing has happened this time but with different issues: the transformation of anti-racism into wokeness; trans activism taken to extreme levels; ‘defund the police’; and immigration softness that's become indistinguishable from open borders.”
I get it, this is a short blog post, not a thesis. Fine. But the entirely appropriate word “wokeness” is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there. And it should be fleshed out a bit more.
Because, in my own opinion, the biggest overreach of modern Leftists (or call them progressives if you want) has come in the form of censorship (a major aspect of wokeness). Greg Lukianoff has done the best job I’m aware of documenting this trend, both in book form and at his substack: the Eternally Radical Idea. And the situation is gut-wrenching.
The Leftist approach to censorship, so far as I’m aware, has differed from the reactionary Right’s approach. Leftists have not depended so much on the levers of government as on other sources of power. So, for example, we get cancel culture: stripping people of their jobs or other positions for straying from the Leftist dogma.
And no matter how much you think you’ve heard of cancel culture, it’s not enough. It remains an underreported story. Lukianoff provides one of many possible definitions (the "we" includes one of his co-authors):
"We define ‘cancel culture’ as the uptick around 2014 of campaigns to get people fired, expelled, deplatformed, or otherwise punished for speech that is (or would be) protected by the First Amendment and the climate of conformity that results.”
And our present era compares unfavorably even to Senator McCarthy’s red scare:
“In the last nine and a half years, we know of more than 1,000 campaigns to get professors punished for their free speechor academic freedom. Of those, about two-thirds succeeded in getting the professor punished, and almost 200 of them, nearly twice the number estimated for the Red Scare, ended up with the professor getting fired.”
The damage Leftist Progressives have done to higher education and other vital institutions (all in the name of “social justice”) is impossible to quantify. And the problem is increasingly obvious to anyone not in an empirical echo chamber of epic proportions.
And the inevitable backlash that Kevin references obviously includes the rocket fuel that Leftist censorship has provided for the ascendancy of Trump.
I admit that it’s a close competition with the reactionary right, but on the whole I would say that it’s the progressives who, over the last ten years, have proven to be the single most corrosive influence on our once-Liberal society. I personally remain a liberal Democrat. But that doesn’t just set me up in opposition to Trump. It also positions me against the dangerously illiberal Left. And as far as I’m concerned, they cannot lose influence fast enough.
"Leftists have not depended so much on the levers of government as on other sources of power."
You have the right to say whatever you want. You don't have a right to be heard.
What you are referring to (wrongly) as "censorship" is absolutely not censorship in any sense of the word. If someone uses their first amendment rights and says something racist or transphobic or misogynist, they have to deal with the consequences of that. If others use their first amendment rights to publicize the racist/transphobic/misogynist behavior and try to convince others that the person is piece of **** (potentially affecting that person's popularity and/or career), that's not censorship. That's people shining a light on a racist/transphobe/misogynist.
In a nutshell, no one on "the Left" is telling you that you do not have the right to say any ridiculous or disgusting thing. They're just calling you out for being an ***hole. Your post is not arguing for "free speech", what you are arguing for is "consequence-free speech" and, unfortunately for you, that is just not a constitutionally protected right.
So you are fine with mobs getting people fired from career jobs for voicing incorrect opinions? That's rather a curb on 'free speech," isn't it?
If you want to be an ayatollah, move to Iran, where they will surely welcome you and your unconventional ways. The KKK also had ways to police "free speech" in the ways you suggest are "a constitutionally protected right." But defamation and swatting and property destruction and harassment and physical violence are all illegal.
I'm NOT fine with mobs getting BIPOC University presidents fired, not fine with the notion that I cannot tell racist bigots that they are racist bigots.
I’m fine with it. It should be done more.
Ppl paying the price for the bad things they say and do is still not actually the reality we live in. Mostly shitty ppl are rich and get away with whatever.
If this scares you, it’s either irrational or you’re one of those ppl who is used to get away with being a bad person.
+1
@Pipecock:
I don't know how to break this to you, but you are the problem.
You state:
"I’m fine with it. It should be done more. Ppl paying the price for the bad things they say and do is still not actually the reality we live in."
So I ask you to scan through the earlier posts in this thread and ask yourself: who said anything about people who say "bad things"?
My initial post references "speech that is (or would be) protected by the First Amendment."
Toofbew references "mobs getting people fired from career jobs for voicing incorrect opinions"
But no one mentioned people who say "bad things." Rather, we reference speech that Leftists don't like.
So you seem to be asserting that:
All Leftist opinions are unquestionable.
Anyone who does question those opinions is wrong, their speech is inherently bad, and ...
The first amendment should be abandoned in order to silence them.
You are the reason why I make this statement above:
"On the whole I would say that it’s the progressives who, over the last ten years, have proven to be the single most corrosive influence on our once-Liberal society."
Congratulations on positioning yourself as an enemy of our constitutional system, I am actually quite sure that a lot of your fellow Leftists are quite proud of you.
Did you notice you're doing exactly what you're saying 'the left' does?
Is it unquestionable that using slurs upsets the target? That participating in discrimination isn't okay?
That you aren't guaranteed employment by your employer while you harass trans and ethnicities?
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"So you are fine with mobs getting people fired from career jobs for voicing incorrect opinions? That's rather a curb on 'free speech," isn't it?" No, it's not. Opinions are neither correct nor incorrect by the way. But your right to express an opinion does not supercede someone else's right to not have to hear it or have a negative reaction to it.
"Cancel culture does not mean you can't speak. It means you get sent down to the minor leagues. You make movies with Ben Shapiro instead of Disney; your book gets published by Regenery instead of Macmillan; you are a talking head on OAN instead of CNN." - John Scalzi
Cancel culture has always existed, and is entirely appropriate. You have the right to speak. You do not have a right to an audience.
@Five Parrots in a Shoe:
I suspect that you would feel differently if Conservatives, rather than progressives, were the predominant force at our schools and used their power to fire anyone who didn't strictly adhere to Conservative dogma.
We've had, for example, instances of tenured professors fired for questioning if colleges and universities should be openly promoting anti-racism rather than promoting open inquiry.
Can you imagine if, instead, our Ivy League administrators were firing tenured faculty for questioning American exceptionalism or for asking if supply-side economics is really such a hot idea?
Once a college or university goes down this route of censorship, either to suppress the Left or the Center or the Right, it begins to self-destruct.
So we should all be very wary of any school (or media organization, publishing house, or production studio) that adopts your perspective and decides that some ideas should just be deemed unacceptable.
Once that precedent is established, it will inevitably be used against us and our own preferred ideas. So be careful what you wish for.
The university is forced to err on the side of reality.
Unfortunately as has been noted for many years, reality has a major left wing bias.
@ pipecock:
You are promoting rationales for censorship; and,
even if you don't realize it,
you are thereby aligning yourself with the enemies of our open society.
We need less tribalism and more free inquiry.
Free inquiry, says the guy who shows up to promote harassment of trans people?
Weirdly I have lived my life with conservatives owning almost all the media and making those choices.
That's why an artist who draws nudes can't get paid by PayPal. And VISA can refuse to let a dildo store sell their wares online. That's why almost every paper and TV station bends over backwards not to insult their owners, no matter how ridiculous their positions are.
You're here saying employers shouldn't fire people for free speech - but then the speech you're defending is harassment of women, queer people, and ethnicities.
Seems like harassing people is not, in fact, free speech. Neither is lying about a product. Or whatever the conservative bugaboo is.
You are fighting the good fight, dude. To a first approximation, a participation in public life should never be conditioned on holding specific personal beliefs. To hold otherwise is to invite endless, destructive culture war.
Why is it your citation doesn't exist?
Harassing, discriminating, disrespecting students isn't freedom of speech.
Also, I think Kevin's framing is completely wrong. Its not as if the modern Dem/Repub spectrum of voters consists of people who go down an agreed "menu" of policies and choose one party, which would logically mean that all the other party has to do is modify their position and maybe pick off a voter.
That's like 1990's politics, if even then. The current repub party is a party of minority single issue voter positions. Life begins at conception crowd, to take just one, is voting Repub, if they vote, there is no overreach or underreach or modification which could get them to vote Dem. None.
Its the same on every Repub issue. Trump understands that, and more. Dems, scarily, seem not to get it. We always start with, say refining our issue endlessly to find the best policy. Along the way, somehow, we lose enthusiasm of our own voters, and that loss of votes means that the Repubs, who consist of people how always vote, have a chance.
I mean, take the situation if you think Palastinians need more support. Come on, the choice is between one party who might actually help, and a guy who will nuke the Gaza strip if he gets indigestion from a Quarter Pounder. The easiest vote in the history of voting if that is your issue.
Yet, story after story about Harris potentially losing support because of too much aid to Israel. It would be comical if it were not so serious.
A majority of liberal, progressives value democracy and compromise.
A majority of conservatives do not value democracy and compromise.
It's a simple formula.
This post is indistinguishable from something written by a "respectable" Republican at the NYTimes or Washington Post, and Mr. Drum should be embarrassed at repeating their talking points.
There was a huge shift to the right when Democrats abandoned the defense of racism and Republicans took it up. The great difference between the policies and laws of the LBJ administration and those of the Reagan adminisration are only explained by the racist shift - all those whites in the South and elsewhere who switched did not suddenly embrace Voodoo Economics. Nixon was a strange transition figure - more liberal in many ways than recent Democrats, but his Southern Strategy was a major part of the party switch.
But a recurring pattern is for the finance- and business-friendly policies of Republicans, assisted at times by Democrats, to lead to financial overexpansion and crash. Democrats then get back in and can pass not only liberal social legislation, but economic regulation which can hold capitalism in check. The crash of 2008 is why Obama was elected, certainly not because of any great movement towards racial equality.
Republicans and right-wing media have succeeded in so exacerbating partisanship that it seems most people are oblivious to real economic data. Nevertheless the next major change in the political balance will probably not come until the next big recession. Unfortunately if it happens when a Democrat is President the result may be a shift to the right. If Trump is elected and does not actually destroy democracy himself, his insane economics could pretty quickly cause a crash.
There are zero ways in which Nixon was 'more liberal' than Democrats. Not even Manchin or Lieberman.
I don't think we're tracking rightward, I think the right are tracking right out of the country and everyone else is having a close look at their gaping crater.
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I'm surprised to see you take that claim at face value, instead of checking to see if the polling indicates people actually are drifting in a right-ward direction. As far as I can tell, the polling doesn't indicate people are heading right-wing on any issue except immigration.
Where is this coming from? The election is a coin flip.
The end of a progressive era looks like the 1980 or 1984 elections.
And this really isn't the important election. The important election is the 2028 election. If the Democrats win that election then they are almost certain to have the chance to appoint multiple Supreme Court justices.
Conservatives as is seem unlikely to give us a chance at a fair election in 2028.
What, specifically, should we do? Whom, specifically, should we throw under the bus? And what, specifically, will it get us?
Illegal immigrants and the asylum system.
Duh.
It’s the issue in which we are furthered underwater in the polls, and until you are comfortable with reducing the asylum system to the rounding error it was twenty years ago and swiftly deporting anyone here illegally without a fuss, this issue will continue to plague us at the polls.
Sure, sure, throw immigrants under the bus. Is it just first gen or are we sending second and third, too?
And so we're going to support authoritarian regimes killing their people?
No, they're not. These gains are made by interpretation of the Constitution, not by revisions to it.
This is just the first of three posts parroting right-wing talking points this afternoon, but already disgusting enough. It's also far from reality. So Democrats lost the center by radical commie agenda like asking for a humiliating withdrawal in Vietnam, as if anyone favored humiliating the US, as if Nixon himself hadn't been in charge of the withdrawal after stretching out the way so many years, and as if anyone regrets we're gone.
I'd go on, but the rest is just as out of touch with reality.
Describing Nixon's withdrawal of troops from Vietnam as "good intentions that went too far for most Americans" is plain daft.
The fact that 30% of the population, and 49% of the people who vote, are in full support of bat-shit crazy fascism, is pulling us to the right. Overreach has nothing to do with it.
The bad economic times after '69 was basically the cost of oil going up. There was no longer enough easy cheap oil to pump to maintain growth as before.