It’s the Culture, Stupid: Facing the Long Road Ahead
If we can turn away from the elections for a moment, and the future of the Republican Party, a more fundamental problem exists. It is nothing less than the nature of the American culture. By the term “culture,” I am not referring to the social issues that usually come up when one talks about culture wars; i.e., abortion, gay rights, religion, etc. Rather, I am talking about the perception and outlook that stand beneath the way our American public define the very nature of civic life in our democratic capitalist society.
That is why I regularly borrow from the Left, as some astute observers of my previous column noted in some comments, the works of the Italian Communist Antonio Gramsci, and particularly his theory of cultural hegemony. As I wrote in my concluding paragraph, we have to “wage a war of position on the cultural front and to do all possible to challenge the ascension of a failed intellectual liberal ideology, whether it is in the form of Progressivism, liberalism or socialism.” I’m referring to the kind of work Fred Siegel carries out in a new book he has just finished writing, and which I had the pleasure of reading in manuscript form, on the nature of American liberalism. When it is eventually published, I believe it can have the kind of impact that great works of history like Richard Hofstadter’s books had in the 1940s and ’50s.
Siegel shows that from its very inception, liberalism was a flawed ideology whose adherents substituted its would-be virtues as a way of distancing themselves from most Americans and their workaday lives; an ideology based on a view whose believers saw themselves as superior to most Americans, including those who were merchants, workers, or regular folk, who could not be counted on to comprehend the backwardness of their beliefs.
Continuing on through the post-war decades, Siegel deals with liberalism’s failure to accurately confront the issue of race; its love affair with the New Left and its moral collapse in the face of its anarchism and nihilism; the effects of McGovernism on the political collapse of the Democratic Party, and the resulting politics of “rights-based interest groups” and the new power of public sector unionism, a far different breed than that of the old labor movement of Walter Reuther and George Meany. If we want a different kind of social polity than the one we have now — based on catering to the power of competing interest groups that compose the core strength of the Democratic party — we have to address first the essential question of the kind of social order that liberalism has built.
I’m also referring to the work the intellectuals who edit National Affairs and those who edit The Claremont Review of Books — solid theoretical and analytical work on social policy, education, and law, all of which challenges the intellectual foundations of contemporary liberalism.
If you doubt that this intellectual work is necessary, you might ponder the question of why college-educated Americans are overwhelmingly liberal Democrats or among those even much further to the political Left. An answer appears in this article by Richard Vedder, which appears today in Minding the Campus. Vedder shows that the majority of professors who teach our young people in the humanities are primarily on the Left, as he writes, “62.7 percent of faculty said that they were either ‘far left’ or ‘liberal,’ while only 11.9 percent said they were ‘far right’or ‘conservative.’ The notion that universities are hot beds for left-wing politics has a solid basis in fact. Moreover, the left-right imbalance is growing — a lot. The proportion of those on the left is rising, on the right declining.” The latest research reveals that there are 5.7 professors on the left for each one on the right!
The irony is that this occurs only in the academy, since studies also show that more and more Americans define themselves as basically conservative rather than liberal. So it should come as no surprise that the suburban middle-class and university-educated Americans, having learned their liberalism and leftism at college, vote the way that they do. One study shows that 41 percent of Americans call themselves conservative while only 21 percent call themselves liberal. Thus, as Vedder says, the university faculties are truly “out of sync” with the country at large.
Why is it, he asks, that the faculty are so leftist? He answers:
Regarding politics, while some devise esoteric theories how the inquisitive mind leads to non-mainstream political views, historically intellectuals have sometimes been largely oriented to what today would be called “conservative” views. I think today’s leftish-faculty orientation is easily explained: the academy, even at so-called private schools, is heavily dependent on public funds, and liberals tend to be more disposed to larger government. Liberals like big government, and big government means a better, more secure life for more faculty.
Since the gateway to the professoriate is through professors themselves, right-leaning prospective faculty are sometimes turned off by the usually correctly perceived need to suppress their views in order to get an appointment and tenure. Those who do not share the affinity for big government are often shunned, leading conservative/libertarian groups such as the Charles Koch Foundation to fund little campus enclaves where right-minded professors can teach and do research without harassment. Attempts to form those enclaves are often bitterly fought by the faculty. Promoting “diversity” in higher education means supporting relatively trivial variations in physical attributes of humans (such as skin color or gender differences), not the far more important differences of the mind manifested in verbal and written expression.
Another realm of mis-education is that of the popular media. This week, I have written about this in an article published in The Weekly Standard, which fortunately the editors have not put behind their firewall. It is titled “A Story Told Before: Oliver Stone’s recycled leftist history of the United States.” Stone’s TV weekly series premiers Nov.12th on the CBS-owned network Showtime, and will eventually be used by leftist professors in their own history courses on our campuses. It is, I show, nothing less than a rehash of old Communist propaganda from the 1950s offered up as both something new and as the true hidden history of our country’s past.
I agree with the premise of the post, but there’s an additional factor that goes unmentioned too often about these big government proponents in their Ivory Towers.
They are completely removed from the penalties and the decline in culture, competency and character of the idiocy they teach. I’ve noted almost all live in their gated communities, free from the marketing of the multiculturalism and diversity they promote.
Two words: hypocrites and ingrates.
That is very, very true. The hotbeds of Progressivism are largely white and affluent (Madison WI, Oregon, San Fran. Ivy League schools, etc.).
The question is – how to explain it to people to get them to understand the people that advocate these changes have no intention of actually following them? Take Elizabeth Warren: a corporate lawyer who lied her way into a job and practiced law without a licence in Mass. – yet seen as a champion of the people. If she were a Republican the media would have jumped all over themselves to expose her, yet nothing.
This is simply not correct. The general counsel of the agency responsible for enforcing Massachusetts bar rules has already said that Warren’s activities were not a violation of those rules: http://masslawyersweekly.com/the-docket-blog/2012/09/24/warren-law-license-matter-called-non-issue/.
When you parrot blatant falsehoods like this, you just reiterate the notion that conservatives live in a bubble of misinformation.
That’s called scratching Warren’s back.
Why don’t you take that up with Prof. Jacobson at Cornell. He begs to differ.
Ok, forget the last one – the other two are not related at all to her status with the Mass. bar and more damning in my opinion. Claiming to be the voice of the 99% while basing her career as a corporate lawyer? Crickets. Abusing the system meant to help minorities? Crickets.
This is , by his own admission , the gentlemans personal opinion .
Way to tell only half the story, Wally! That’s not an official determination, but only the personal opinion of the clown.
But you don’t care; she’s a leftist, so she cannot be as corrupt and stupid as she clearly is.
Precisely. They perceive themselves in a sinecure where the folly of policies they promote cannot hurt them. They are wrong. When the country is impoverished, their slice of national income will shrink along with that of everybody else.
And there’s another angle. The intellectuals in the humanities want to see their ideas put into practice. Since the public is largely resistant to idiotic schemes, and they are impotent as academics, they have to turn to the government to force feed the policies to the people. Hence, we are going to “bankrupt the coal companies” and “the price of energy will necessarily skyrocket”, all to promote the rise of alternative energy. Most of us who work in the competitive sector realize that what would arise from those policies is unemployment, the prices of goods an services, and misery for working families.
Perhaps a lesson is possible. Utility companies could massively jack up the rates for lefty universities and the areas that the academics and administrators live. Throw in some blackouts on the hottest/coldest days of the year. Use the extra revenue to help any actual poor and elderly in the affected area. When the schools complain call them filthy rich 1-percenters who don’t want to pay their fair share to help others. Publicize the massive amounts of money they are sitting on in their endowments while charging students up the wazoo. Destroy any credibility they have on economics and “social justice”.
Tex, you are decidedly on the mark.
And the fact of the matter is the left, for several decades, has steadily tightened its grip, on all of America’s cultural/educational centers. And, for the most part, Conservatives have let them!
It is not for nothing, the media, mostly (mis)schooled in J Schools, are rife with profs who see their goals as political persuaders, as opposed to teachers of journalistic ethics/rules. In fact, their bastardization of journalism could not take place, without the takeover of academia from leftist controllers!
Chicken and egg…
Going after the kiddies has been their main goal, and they now have generations of foot soldiers.
The facts are on this blogger’s side – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/08/21/the-paradox-pitfalls-of-liberal-democracies-in-a-time-of-immoral-relativism-the-havoc-wrought-by-leftist-academia-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
It is impossible to quantify the damage wrought, by the left’s hegemony over the ENTIRE educational system, starting in kindergarten.
So, if Conservatives want to take back control, there is NO better place to start than with the (mis)education system. In effect, the gravest toxin on generations of students has been revisionist history – taught at all levels – and all its attendant implications.
NO time like the present.
Freidman, Rand,Shumpeter,Mises,Reagan. All went head to head with liberal America and all have faded in the mainstream. The progressive mind set is now a permanent fixture from kindergarten to Harvard and until that changes( Fat Chance) the system will go down “their” road.But all you “Smart People” keep talking and convincing yourselves you make a difference. I will just sit buy the monitor and laugh at your words and naivety.
Unless you “progressives” can show some RESULTS in terms of economic growth you will have nothing to laugh about.
Going to be hard for an intellectual like yourself to “sit buy” when there’s no money left to “by” anything.
Totalitarian SOB.
You’re still blaming ‘mechanics’ and messaging. While these are important in the political arena, far more important is the underlying philosophy and assumptions of your political ideology. If you do not examine these, honestly, and even brutally, you’ve already given up ‘the game.’ You’ve lost before you’ve started.
Also, just a wee bit of history comes in handy, especially for socons. The ‘long march’ of the liberals through our establishments began in…the church. Later, the Republicn party hosted the first members of The Progressive Era. All else follows, including many, if not most of our current problems.
One of the blind spots suffered by many on the right is their own education. They complain about left wing educators, not realizing that those same underlying assumptions and philosophies were passed to them during their own education by left wing educators. iow, you’re so immersed in the culture you hate that you don’t realize that you’re part of the problem. You promote that underlying philosophy while not realizing that you’re doing so. Meanwhile, you claim that you’re against everything they stand for. iow, you are the people in Plato’s Cave. You think that you’re already enlightened, when, in fact, you’ve never seen any light real light at all.
Another example: If FDR was actually a socialist, ruling America for well over a decade – and all that such entails and means, WWII was really about which brand of socialism ruled the world. (If a socialist media empire calls it ‘The Greatest Generation’ and celebrates their victory, you’ve got to ask yourselves some very ough questions.[They didn't steal the narrative or the glory. It was already their's to embrace.]) It was never about freedom and liberty.
There’s an internal dichotomy to your ideology and your underlying political philosophy that you are unable to see, let alone grasp. Many Americans have seen and understood that dichotomy…and have rejected it. You promote freedom and liberty while apparently doing everything in your power to limit the freedom and liberty of others, except for those you whole heartedly embrace for yourselves. Your griends on the left are certainly no different. They do lie about the details, but they aren’t lying about their philosophy, least of all, to themselves.
More blather from Bonesteel. Talk about blindspots!
You’re soaking in it, Bonesteel.
Don’t bogart that joint Mr. Crawford.
Republicans – Democrats. Two sides, same coin.
Bonesteel and Lucky, same side of the same cow flop.
The rank-and-file of the Fabianist/Progressive/Left, by their own admission, do not care about “liberty.” Ask one of them.
They care predominately about “fairness” and a sense of “equality,” one without equity, meaning one of outcome.
That one has a greater willingness to risk his assets, time, and effort towards an end, relative to others, is exemplary of the naturally unfair, unreasonably universally expected, inbred social inequality to be corrected, .
Mr. Radosh, what we are up against is not something that is nuanced or intellectual. It pretends to be but it is in fact a “cult of cool.” If I could blithely sum it up, I guess I’d say watch “Glee” and say “end of story.” This PC cult of cool cannot be done away with using logical arguments or paradigms of success. Cool is cool. In liberalism, even failure, i.e., “the rebel,” is cool. Think Palestinian Arabs, Third World, blah, blah.
The cult of cool is centered around a myth of racism and oppression. It has functioned in a direct line since Ginsberg and Kerouac. This cult is gay marriage and climate change and racism and you know the rest.
Think.
It was recently reported that Princeton U gave 99% of it’s donations to Obama. Extrapolate that out to the rest of America and how do you fight it?
Rap and rock and roll music not only conveys liberalism by liberals to the tune of probably 90%, it often actively excoriates conservatism.
John Scalzi, author of an article taking down whites about “white privilege,” is the head of the SF Writers of America. China Mieville, one of the darlings of the SF community the last 10 years, has won almost every prestigious literary SF award there is, more than once. Mieville is a member of the International Socialist Organization (US) and the Socialist Workers Party (UK). Science fiction is hugely influential in America and closely tied in with movies and the famous Comic Con on the West Coast. Many SF authors and editors not only actively want liberal messaging in their work but lock out those who don’t toe the line.
TV and film is overwhelmingly liberal with a constant drumbeat about racism, diversity, homosexuality, America’s sad history and the whole nine yards.
Our press is overwhelmingly liberal and some of the outlets, like the HuffPo, little more than propaganda outlets for liberalism of the most politically correct nature.
As I said, this is not a nuanced argument but one based on the stupidest stereotypes that imagines half the country evil racists, homophobes, women-haters and Islamophobes. Did Joe Williams at Politico and that moron at Yahoo (subsequently hired by Politicao) who got fired seem intellectual when they got fired when they blithely assumed Romney was a racist based on zero evidence? They bought into stereotypes that are little more than childish lies and it’s pretty easy to see where they get this garbage from; themselves.
Simply put, it is cool to be liberal because you are on the right side of justice and history and blah, blah, blah. Arcade Fire says so and Rage Against the Machine says so and your favorite actor and author and on and on.
Besides all this, liberalism pays, and big time. Do you really think all the sports figures and young actors and writers and artists and musicians out there Tweeting up a storm about dolphins and frickin’ climate change and racism and gay marriage really give a squat or know in real terms anything about it?
You can’t fight this by applying reason. Liberalism is not an ideology but an accidental culture which mimics the tenets of an ideology. In fact liberalism is a faith-based pack of lies based on decontextualized garbage that never happened that makes Scientology look reasonable. And this movement is old and experienced and dug into the American culture like a tick.
Every one in the three influential areas of education, the arts/pop culture and the media, has a vested interest in toeing this liberal line and seeing it carries on into the future, for professional survival if no other reason, though it is clear many actually believe in what they spout. Even failure can’t dent liberalism because they either celebrate its underdog status of blame conservatives.
The fact is you can’t survive or even enter those 3 areas for the most part unless you are a good little liberal, because liberals are intolerant of rebellion, actual rebellion, while they emphatically state otherwise.
On top of all this, our own governmental bureaucracy is overwhelmingly liberal, and carries on independently of who’s President, Governor, Senator or congressmen. Exactly what elected official controls our legal immigration policies?
To sum it up, conservatism is up against a massive propaganda campaign that is fundamentally embedded in our culture and it never shuts up, not for one day. They’re like frickin’ Crusaders. There is no cure for stupidity and liberals are the stupidest people I have ever met. They are also almost completely ignorant of the subjects they most like to talk about which to me is odd and strange. It’s like a really bad author who really has nothing to say but insists on writing up a storm and gets published.
My G-d, how right you are. The only person who was able to make any headway against it – who was able to present himself, and us, as the cool ones, and the Left as the establishment reactionaries they are – was Andrew Breitbart, and now he is gone.
The timing was convenient IMO.
I still think he was murdered.
“Heart attack”. I don’t like it either.
This is why, in the short run, only the “South Park Republicans” are going to be culturally competitive. The Todd Akins of the world just need to shut up and fly under the radar. The only way the GOP is going to be competitive for the next generation or two is to play the same game. Libertarians can be “cool”. Socons can’t. The public face of the GOP needs to be libertarian. The socons are completely welcome into the tent. They just need to understand that their role is similar to the role of communists in the democrat party in the ’50s and ’60. They just can’t be allowed to be the public face of the party.
Sorry, it’s just the way it is.
amen, snork. it has been during my lifetime that republicans have gone from being perceived as the party of business to the party of religious wingnuts. if there is one concept that is deeply ingrained in our ‘changing demographic’, it’s that of the separation of church and state. enough voters to have made romney the winner who were being attracted to his common sense fiscal approach were still scared away by the fear that his party seeks to impose their religious beliefs on others (abortion, contraception, gay rights, etc.)
if we conservatives really believe in individual liberty, then we must drop the preaching from our politics. the scopes monkey trials are over and we’re never going back there again. i can appreciate that some folks don’t like the sound of that but that’s the reality. we either learn how to swim in our modern culture or we drown.
Do you realize that the book that Scopes was theoretically tried for teaching from taught that whites were genetically superior to other races? And that the whole matter was a show trial to attract tourism to the town where Scopes taught?
Those are progressive ideals, Clayton, and Republicans have to adopt them if they are ever to be competitive politically.
The problem does not lie in the listing of our sins, which, since we are human, are manifold; but in the absurd pretense that the rest of humanity are noble savages, whose only sin is that they have been tainted by capitalist Western Civilization.
That the Left buys into this absurdity is evident in the fact that they intend to entrust a government of men with the vast power they have planned. What could possibly go wrong? Religious precepts aside, mankind’s salvation lies in the self-destructive nature of Leviathan.
We reap what we sow! The watering down of being an American is the cause of our fall as a nation. It should not matter what your race, religion,and where you are from. It should matter that we all Americans first. Liberals teach the opposite, this is why IMHO we are a divided country.
The most effective tool that is used today against this Republic is the educational system. Schools and colleges LITERALLY teach students to hate the traditional American values and the country itself. We can talk endlessly about culture, economy, social problems, but the major problem – the American education system and its ideology of hate toward everything that does not fit into the narrow dogma of leftist ideologues poses the biggest threat.
Everything happens first in the human brain, and then it materializes in real life.
I don’t see how we can change the way young Americans are taught in schools supported by our tax dollars.
A friend of mine the movie “The Soviet Story” to his students, and they were shocked by it. He was chocked by their ignorance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5qQsXUZh0I
Someone mentioned above, the word “church”. That is a great valuable that is never discussed in reference to a failing society, but I heartily agree that the “fall” begins with the church, especially after WWII. The “church” embraced the mispercieved tenets of diversity, inclusivity, compassion,feminism, and general all around feel-goodism, at the expense of Truth. It left its first love, and we are reaping the rewards today. Our society has been living on the moral “equity” accumulated by our fathers and mothers two,three, or more generations back. It is now exhausted. I think it is likely that we are seeing the beginning of the end of what we used to understand as the American dream.
Once the WWII generation is dead and gone, there is no comparison left.
We are slouching towards Gommorra.
Yes, one of the first places the Communists infiltrated, were churches. Bella Dodd of course claimed to have recruited 1100 men into going into seminaries in the 1930s and 1940s (someone who attended one of her lectures says the men were mostly homosexual since straight men didn’t want to become priests); they would risen to places of power by 1968 or so when we first started having problems and began letting other problem priests into seminaries, who now constitute the remaining problem bishops and cardinals. I think the Catholic Church has rid Herself of most of the bad bishops and seminary rectors by now (I hear it’s lovely in Kazakhstan this time of year). It looks like the other denominations have either held the line, or are dying out.
for centuries, the catholic church has been the respectable refuge for gay men from a society who looked disapprovingly on an un-married gentleman. the idea that this is something that suddenly happened in 1968 and that the predominately gay clergy is reponsible for all of our problems is ahistorical nonsense.
despite any argument, conflict, or evolutionary process within any particular denomination, the fact remains that some 90% of americans self-identify as christian and regularly attend their churches. i hardly think that these folks consider themselves to be clinging to crumbs of faith left over by previous generations. you take too dark a view of your fellow man. the issue here, however, is not how faithful to christian doctrine our citizens are but whether or not preaching belongs in politics. nobody likes to be told by some government official how they can or cannot live their lives, even if they happen to share the same religion.
Actually, you are working off old data. The percentage identifying themselves as having no religion at all is in the 10-20% range, depending on the survey, with Muslims now easily passing Jews. Protestants are now a minority, and it isn’t because Catholics are replacing them.
As a white man and an ex Republican, I want to show all Republicans with this link below why this brand is dying and dying fast. With the addition of the radical far right Tea Party, may the Republican brand rests in peace.
http://bossip.com/676317/a-gallery-of-racist-tweets-about-obama3920/
I looked at a few of these (not all because the web site is really slow, and I got the drift after a while). I’m a little puzzled as to why you say this means the Republican party is doomed. The vast majority of them did not mention any party affiliation. And even if they did, does that mean that all, a majority or even a significant number of Republicans agree with them? Or do Republicans see these “tweets” as repulsive as most people would? (Hint: it’s the latter)
Maybe you can do a Google search for “Michael Steele blackface” and see some Democrat racial love.
Radical far right tea party? What a squish you are. Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party people are into fiscal responsibility and smaller government. They don’t even CARE about social issues.
Sounds like the republican party is a great fit for you! I’ll be staying home from now on!
Yawn.
Can trump with a greater number of racist and violent twits about Romney.
Where is the proof that those twits were sent by Republicans? You say that just because you want to believe that Tea Party people are racists? That is a lie, and it was exposed many times.
Waly, experience ALWAYS overcomes training when the training is theory. I have seen it countless times in the field with fresh caught engineers. When the light goes on that what they sudied so hard to learn has a limited application to the real world. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
We need to get Generation ‘X’ up to speed on the difference between reality and theory.
The best way to do that in this case is to give them what they want. They will soon enough figure out that what they want isn’t what they need.
Republicans should vote ‘present’ for at least the next year. More taxes? Present. More butter, less guns? Present.
Kids want to drive into a ditch? Fine, check your seat belt and hold tight to your cell phone. Somebody will have to call the tow truck afterwards.
Make sure that voters understand they are getting what they voted for. That (R)’s won’t stand in their way. That when they are moving back into their parents basement or into a box under the local overpass, THAT is what they voted for, (R)’s will NOT stand in the way of their getting it.
The Republic will survive. Not sure about the UN and other ‘new world order’ establishments. With no US Navy patrolling the seas it will not take long for many kinetic conflicts to break out.
Bronco Bama got the kids to come out and vote. Since it is their future das is goot.
They just need to learn that they need to eat their veggies, that life is more then cake and ice cream.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34OLauU3HWc
Celer, Silens, Mortalis.
It’s time to face facts.
“Republican” is a brand-damaged enterprise. It has been intentionally slandered by the radical leftist culture of corruption in academia, the radical leftist culture of corruption in Hollywood and entertainment and by the Propaganda and Lies Ministry posing as our media…poisoning our information stream.
Lest we leave it unsaid, the Republicans themselves have been utterly buffoonish in creating ANY coherent strategy or developing a messaging acumen of their own. Time after time after time, some Republiclown has stuck his big floppy shoe in a leg snare, further damaging the brand.
The Trinity of Treason jerking us leftward each and every waking moment of our lives are worth 15-20 pts in a national election. The occasional Republiclowns add an additional push leftward.
But, it is the utter failure to confront, face on, the Trinity of Treason… that will keep the Republican brand …damaged.
In a “center-right” country, that should be naturally a reversed situation. But, I don’t know if we are truly “center-right”.
The black community generally speaking, doesn’t like gays, gay marriage, mildly tolerates hippies…(as long as they are championing black grievances), so SOCIALLY…they may APPEAR to be further right. But, they are not inclined to vote for smaller government, stronger military, law and order, rules and regulations, pro Constitution, free market defenders. There is a long love affair with communism deep in the African-American community. Especially among community organizers.
The Hispanic community is pretty diverse. Cubans should be excluded as a voting bloc, they are very traditional and make great Republicans. All other Hispanics trend toward the same antipathy toward gays, gay marriage, a myriad of social issues. There is a long history of Hispanics playing footsie with Marxists, brutal dictators and murderous corruption.
Jewish affinity for communism and brutal tyranny baffles me. Jewish enmity toward Israel really, really baffles me. Jewish influence in the Trinity of Treason cannot be denied. Yet, the strongest and most effective voices in opposition to that Treason…are also Jewish voices. However, for too many …Republican…is simply a brand damaged idea that evokes a visceral negative response.
Unless and until the Trinity of Treason is confronted properly, openly, vigorously…then everything else is simply window dressing. The Democratic Party and the Trinity of Treason are inseparable. Blacks, Jews and Hispanics will be a completely lost cause.
I see NO recognition that this needs to be addressed….much less a plan to address it.
The first step is recognizing that this is, first and foremost, a marketing problem. You can’t do a rebranding until you see the problem with the brand.
The Romney campaign took a baby step in the right direction by getting Clint Eastwood on board. Unfortunately, way too little, way too late.
Clint Eastwood, sadly, was NOT a step in the right direction. The approach of getting a celebrity on board wasn’t bad, in theory, but it was the execution.
The people you’re trying to reach with celebrity influence have been fed a steady diet of hatred for “Old White Men” their entire lives, and so when you finally get a celebrity to reach out to them, it’s one of the “Old White Men” that the moderate-to-left that you’re trying to convert hate so very much?
Oops.
If “old white men” have really become that Goldsteinized, it’s all over. The next turn will be young white males marching around in brown shirts. What have they got to lose?
That is exactly where we are headed.
Overt White European Nationalism as a mainstream phenomenon. Whites will organize like minorities and join the Identity Politics zeitgeist.
Cant happen fast enough, IMO.
But you are wrong about one thing, and illustrative of the demonization of old white men or white Europeans, and it’s coming from your lips to reinforce it. That White European Christians are evil if they promote their interests…they are to be likened to Brown Shirt Nazis.
Whereas the women’s organizations, the African American organizations, the Jewish organizations etc are all just peachy. If they are peachy then White European organizations should not be excluded. In so doing, you are merely oppressing White Europeans, and you certainly arent promoting multiculturalism by excluding White Europeans. We all know that multiculturalism and “diversity” is a sham and code word for Anti-White Europeanism.
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
We need some Pan European Solidarity, else we continue to be treated like dirt.
If the problem is that they’re “trained” to hate “old white men”, then who cares about the bunch of racists?
Rob, take a gun, go into a closet, turn the light off and consider your options. If you walk out of that closet with your circulatory system still intact, let Rachel give you a peek into your future.
If you have a job, chances are you’ll lose it in the next 12 months. The financial cliff the newsliars talk about is likely to cut your income down to zero. You and your Democratic miscreant Obama lovers will experience what it’s like to live off government table scraps like dogs.
As for the Republicans, Alpo Breath, we’ll just do fine, thank you. We have the money. Our homes are paid for. Our money’s out of the stock market.
If the Republican party is smart, an oxymoron, they’ll just wait out the cosmic disdain for Obama who can’t blame Bush anymore as Obama drives us over the financial cliff. Rob, can you say, bankruptcy?
By 2016, the beaten down, poor as church mice, jobless, feckless Obama voters will come back to the Republican party in droves whining, “please fix this country; Obama was wrong and I was wrong about Obama. He’s really screwed things up.”
I’ve got to laugh when I listen to the post election TV cartoon people asking what the Republican party must do to attract hispanic voters and the like.
The answer is nothing.
Obama has set this nation on a collision course with pain and suffering. There will be no doubt who to vote for in 2016. The Republican party won’t have to go to anybody; the nobodies will be coming to the Republican party.
The cries will include: rebuild our military; the pleas will be to the rich to re-invest in America, which we won’t do when the capital gains tax is high as the drivers on the roads in the states where pot has been legalized. Gasoline, of course, will be topping off at eight dollars a gallon because Democrats followed Obama’s love of green energy and hatred of energy independence; no drilling off our shores, no drilling on government land, no Keystone pipeline. Obama’s energy plans remind me of the Keystone Cops. Obama’s refusal to drill for oil and the concomitant high prices will turn into a desire to shove a gas hose up Obama’s you know what.
Rob, you say the Republican brand is dying. First off, Republican isn’t a brand. Pennzoil is a brand. Second of all, because the Democrats are trying to kill off the country, it is the Democratic Party that better enjoy the celebration. Because by 2016, the only true Democrats will be sitting in dark closets with a bottle of booze in one hand and a 38 special to keep them warm in the other.
You don’t think you might want to leave off the predictions for a while? It hasn’t really worked out well for you lately.
She’s not normally my cup of tea, but Megan McArdle wrote a great piece that dovetails with what you said.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/11/07/is-demography-destiny.html
They own it now, and the sludge is going to hit the ventilator rather soon, and it’s all downside for the donks. The fact that it’s also downside for the USA makes this cold comfort, but the situation will self-correct. There’s going to be a lot of unnecessary pain, but it won’t be the first time in American history that we did this to ourselves.
That is why I say to vote ‘present’. Make sure that EVERYBODY understands it’s Bronco’s baby.
Who are you talking to?
If you want to change education and academia… Then you have to do the work. Some of you selfish little right-wing people will have to give up your eternal me-me-me-ing and actually work in education and academia. Teaching other people, not for your advancement, but for theirs.
And you will not do that. Not in large enough numbers to make a difference.
Instead you will be standing on the sidelines and wailing about how the people who actually do the work get to reap the benefits of doing the work. So *unfair*.
The irony is probably lost on you.
It is NOT irony, it is idiocy. Those that cannot do, teach.
What they teach is theory, What works is learned through practice.
Reality has a way of changing plans. The Left will learn that the hard way, of course.
Here in day 3 of the post American period, it hasn’t gotten too bad yet;
http://money.cnn.com/data/markets/dow/
The Dow has lost almost 2% since the End of America. It is just getting started. Gold will start to climb again.
People can be rich anywhere. All the rich fear is governments taking their wealth. You hire lawyers to keep the real crooks at bay and rent-a-cops to keep the riff raff away from your loot but the only solution to a rapacious government is relocation. Find a government that will settle for a smaller bite.
Look at France. Tax rate raised to 75% and the rich aren’t staying to get soaked, they are leaving and taking their money with them. Thousands of jobs vanish with them.
You voted for destruction. Now conservatives need to make sure you get what you voted for.
What on earth are you babbling about?
You may want to re-read and attend to what I said, not what you made up in your head. It’s a skill you will need.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
Oh no! Can’t do that. A) Won’t be hired. Conservatives no wanted and need not apply. B) All conservatives that were in the profession were either fired, have retired or were cowed (shut down and shut up) by the administrators that set the curriculum.
This is a done deal. There are a couple of avenues that are left to parents. One is some private schools. But a lot of those are being regulated out of existance. The last recourse is homeschooling. And they are going after those, too.
Depends on the state. PA is particularly hostile to homeschooling, but most are less so. It’s up to almost 4% of students (partly because there are fewer children now). 10% private school.
It depends where you live. I managed to get hired to teach history at a community college. Obviously, this could never happen at a prestige university; the left has ways of keeping the wrong sorts out. A friend of a friend (so take this for what hearsay is usually worth) tells me that the Psychology Department at one of our state universities would, when considering hiring of a tenure track, would take the person out drinking, to make sure that they drank. If they did not drank, no hire. This was actually a very clever way to exclude some of the more fundamentalist Protestants, Mormons, and Muslims, without actually asking about their religious beliefs. Of course, that assumes that they didn’t figure this out from reading published work by the applicant. They did hire a crazy person, however, who killed one of the grad students he was dating, then himself. But at least they didn’t hire one of those darn fundamentalists!
Mlaum, “The irony is probably lost on you.” You didn’t need to take that last shot. Otherwise I somewhat agree with you.
As a conservative I again cringe as we witness another round of complaining, wailing and gnashing of teeth over the liberal domination of education and media.
We seem to think that inside most people are “people just like you and me” and will see the superiority of capitalism when shown the numbers. In this regard we are little different than the dimwits on the left who honestly think that Muslims, when given the opportunity to vote will choose something resembling a western style liberal democracy.
Just as the Muslims have been indoctrinated so thoroughly in Islam that they are incapable of seeing the benefits of freedom so have America’s liberals been so thoroughly indoctrinated by the education system and the media that they really are unable to comprehend the value of a free capitalistic society.
Commenter after commenter, columnist after columnist makes note of this quite obvious problem. We have become “Masters Of The Obvious.” But no one offers a plan. Mjaum, despite his/her irritating manner actually has a plan: “If you want to change education and academia… Then you have to do the work. Some of you selfish little right-wing people will have to give up your eternal me-me-me-ing and actually work in education and academia. Teaching other people, not for your advancement, but for theirs”
I too,will offer a plan. It is not a perfect plan but we have to start somewhere. As Mjaum says we need overt conservatives to be active in education. That means more than just being teachers. It means developing curricula that advocates from a conservative point of view and pushing to have it taught in schools. A couple of years ago I tried to find conservative oriented American History curricula for Middle and High School and was unable to find any. We need to do much more than complain to each other.
Another idea I have had which has not been well received is “Americamp” where kids could go for a week or two in the summer and learn about a the founding of The United States and their founding documents and the Founding Fathers. This doesn’t have to be boring, a lot of fun things could be incorporated into such a camp. There camps for every sport and activity imaginable why not just one about our country. The Scouts have become far to politically correct to be useful.
An action that I think is crucial is to match the Democrats permanent campaign. They have all the media on their side, we have talk radio and the internet, but they are clearly winning the (mis)information war. We need to have a permanent ad campaign in the MSM that exposes their lies and promotes the conservative message.
As I said this plan can probably be improved upon but at least better than talking only amongst ourselves and crying in our beer.
You know the bit where I point out you have to actually do the work, not merely stand on the sideline and whine?
You’ve got a *great* plan. For the whining. Good luck with that.
Some of us do teach at the college level. You might want to get past your prejudices and assumptions.
Most excellent responses. Rob is either a deluded fool or a liar and should be filtered.
If granting amnesty were the measure of obtaining the Latino vote, they would vote overwhelmingly Republican since 1986. Didn’t work, did it?
Why would a Latino mother work in a thankless, mundane job(s) when she can stay home with her children and receive far more than she can make in entitlements? If you were uneducated and without offer, wouldn’t you do the same?
Really this simple. We are minority, because the majority are imbeciles who prefer candy and cash instead of character and competence.
Without divine intervention, and I don’t know what we’ve done to deserve that, the system will collapse. It’s imminent and predictable.
Lets face it – the Stupid Party once again shot themselves in their collective foot – running a RINO and calling him conservative isn’t a smart idea. It fooled nobody. GET IT?
If it walks like a duck… Romney is/was/always will be a duck.
Well – here we are again – missed the mark again – thank you RNC/Rove and company. Can’t seem to figure out how to get our own base out to vote against a guy that has trashed the economy and country and is set to cause even more havoc in the next 4 years IF he can keep from getting his ass impeached.
How the hell else do you explain how Romney got fewer votes than McCain in 08? I refused to vote for McCain in 08 – I had no such reservations this time about voting for a RINO since the choice was so much more obvious this time – at least to me. Trouble is it seems there were more conservatives confused as to good vs evil this time. How’d that happen?
The ‘cure’ is simple yet all I hear is “we gotta figure out how to capture the Hispanic vote” – or the black vote – etc etc. No we don’t – what we need is a REAL conservative running in contrast to liberals and their boneheaded ideas. It is contrast that give voters real choice – democrat light will never win the day. The only reason why G.W. Bush won in 2000 is nobody liked Al Gore – and they still don’t.
People who identify with Conservatives and Tea Party principles need to ether kick the Republican establishment upside the head and take over – or start a new party. The eroding of our rights and culture will never stop under the leadership of the left or RNC leaders. The are nearly one and the same.
Its time for a change – it will take time and hard work but it can be done – must be done. If you think sticking with the current RNC leadership and principles is going to be a stop-gap to the commie bastards in charge now you are smoking some seriously strong stuff! The current Republican leadership isn’t even much of a speed bump to these ass-hats.
YES! Beatings will continue until morale improves.
Since the anti-women and anti-gay and anti-immigrant rhetoric that was spewed by the far right’s culture warrior set didn’t have the desired effect, obviously the real problem is that the dial needed to be turned to 11 via a more “conservative” candidate. That will fix everything. Yours is a brilliant analysis; it’s everything I’ve come to expect from social conservatives.
You’re doing a very good job of promoting the ideas the Communists wanted to be spread around, in order to weaken the American Culture, thereby paving the way to the Glorious Communist Revolution. Are you one of the True Believer Communists, doing this on purpose, or are you one of the duped?
Jeannette
I know this is a bit much for you to grasp but there’s a number of reasons to vote for republiacn tickets (as I have done 8 presidential cycles) that have precisely dick to do with your culture war nonsense. Try to wrap your head around the notion that republicans are not limited to the god squad.
Insult (of course) without actually answering.
Are you against Communism? One of the many ways that Communists in the US, back in the 1950s or so, worked to WEAKEN America was by assaults on traditional culture. So what you are promoting, is what the Communists wanted to promote. Now the US is weak. Huh.
This isn’t “just” a God thing, though that God fellow does end up having some pretty good ideas-unexpectedly! There are reasons to oppose gay marriage, for example, other than “God says so” but your undearned arrogance won’t let you see that.
Indeed Jeanette.
Turning the Republican Party into Democrat Lite on social issues isnt a winning strategy. It’s a strategy of joining the enemy.
There are reasons to oppose gay marriage, for example, other than “God says so” but your undearned arrogance won’t let you see that.
And you enumerated these reasons brilliantly. There are no reasons to oppose gay marriage other than invented suppostions. We went through this back in the day when the “moral majority” reckoned you could ID pot smokers by the stains in their jeans from the constant masturbation that occured between rape victims. Pure garbage, completely untrue (google “reefer madness” as an example of the type of thing the “moral majority” actually believed if you must.)
The way your type operates, I’m sure that your objections will be presented as “scientifically valid” or have some other appeal-to-authority sheen that masks pure hatred and simple homophobia and pretends to be valid mainstream thought.
With that thought in mind, I’m calling you out. Here’s the deal: you find a scientifically peer reviewed set of papers with actual data underscoring your objections and/or proving your contention. Let’s hear what science has to say about being gay and how terrible it would be if these people were to marry. Let’s see just how arrogant I really am. Put your cards on the table. The real ones. Not articles from Rev Phelps or pastors or idiots who think they know something. No. Peer reviewed science. Bring it.
If you can’t find something valid, I’ll simply mark you down as just another clueless, pig-ignorant, homophobic culture warrior with a big mouth.
Nor is the Republican Party limited to the godless squad.
The only “anti-women” stuff that I heard came from the rappers that contributed to Obama’s campaign.
Anti-immigrant? I don’t think that I have heard any Republican express opposition to legal immigration to the U.S. Have you? By your reasoning, opposition to murderers is “anti-person” hatred.
All right, Mr. Radosh… you have our attention.
And I agree, to fight your enemy you must first know him. But even though many among our large number of moderates in America may indeed be distracted – they are not our enemy. And many of our moderates may be mis-informed and sometimes even un-informed – but they are not stupid.
In other words, because of their own self-interst…they are reachable.
So my challenge to you and any other columnist who may be reading this – let the next few weeks be an outright barrage and an assault of workable and effective actions that both we the people and our leaders should take. Actions that are easy to understand and make sense, but most of all… that touch them emotionally in a deep and meaningful way.
Otherwise, with due respect, we are just sitting here and preaching to the choir.
Rather amazing how so many intellectuals attempt to make humanity so complex through investigative analysis of countless era’s of time and circumstance. Since the recording of time not much has changed within the framework of humanity. The framework is simple. There has always been a class system within an economic, social and political framework.
Forgoing a long dissertation, the central issue of debate always remains the same in the realm of an economic and social class system vs. some fantasy of human equality essentially void of a class system. There is no society that can be sustained without a class system. It simply defies human nature in that not all humans are created equal nor can they be ‘declared’ equal.
The modern world and humanity exists according to varying degrees of what we term as socialism. If this were not possible the majority of mankind would simply die off. The world exists out of necessity from either private sector forms trickle-down socialism or a government form of trickle-down socialism – or a combination of both.
To sustain life, all that is needed is a food source, water, air and shelter. There were times when all able individuals were happily able to sustain the basic needs of life for themselves, their families and the infirmed and bartering was commonplace. Through the evolution of time, land ownership in some cases, industrial development and business, things began to change in the world. Money became common and employment for monetary wages in industry and business became an easier route for many. From this point, everybody surely understands the history. The long story made short, more greed and more greed; more corruption and more corruption for the benefit money and worldly possessions within all the classes – human nature.
The elements of governments and politics are again rather simple. They struggle and fight over the control of the economy/money and regulate the degrees of socialism/equality.
An interesting proposition to entertain — If commonplace individual financial credit was removed from society what kind of world would it be? I suspect a much better place.
Gosh, speaking of the culture divided between so-called liberals and conservatives, why no mention on the REAL world so many CONservatives like Rawmoney live in, the world of exploitation of their fellow Americans, the environment, the economy of the world, you name it? It’s called “vulture” or “parasitic” capitalism. Look up Rawmoney’s friend, Mark Singer, and start reading for you clueless dweebs that live in the reich-wing bubble.
And, speaking of Rawmoney, I’m wondering if his post-election vacation is going to include a tour in his Cayman Island-flagged yacht all the countries where he’s parked his money or shipped our factories and jobs. That’s going to be a freaking looong cruise!!
Yeah, tell us about your culture, Mr Radosh, the one that just got bitch-slapped around the block in this election.
Oh go away! While your hysterical bleating about the ills of the world your dear leader sat with popcorn and watched – for entertainment – out people in Bengazi being brutalized and blown to bits as they begged for help he refused to give.
Democrats are the worst of the worst. What you want for people is to be equal in misery – while at the same time thinking you get to miss out on the misery.
When this collapse happens (and it WILL happen) people are going to get desperate fast.
Good luck with that. I plan to go Galt.
Your hysterical ramblings are only exceeded by your impenetrable rationale.
You’re not the most self-reflective person, are you?
And you evidently don’t bother to read a post before you jump into the conversation, do you?
As I said above, “Look up Rawmoney’s friend, Mark Singer, and start reading for you clueless dweebs that live in the reich-wing bubble”. Get back to me after you’ve done that and we’ll talk.
“Reich-wing” — instant tell that you’re about as worth paying attention to as a piece of dog crap in the middle of the street.
I think the technical term is maroon, or at least according to Bugs Bunny. I figured Bugs was a good source for a short chat between cartoons.
19. Obi-jonKenobi, here is the URL for the list of 10 richest people in America;
http://www.infoplease.com/toptens/richestpeople.html
8 liberals, 2 conservatives on this list.
WHAT’S UP, DOC!
So what? What does that list – if true – have to do with vulture capitalism?
I have nothing against people making money and I think capitalism is probably the best system but I do have a LOT against the kind of mindless greed, exploitation and destruction that is allowed in this country under the banner of “capitalism”. People like Rawmoney use our system like a cheap crack whore and then offshore their money to safe havens and pay little or no taxes.
As some wag asked during the Enron and WorldCom scandals, “who’s going to save capitalism from the capitalists?”. Certainly not people like Rawmoney or his friend Mark Singer or anyone in the current ReTHUG LIE CON “leadership”. But, you’re no maroon, you must know that, right?
Vulture Capitalism? Seriously? Is this the new term? I’ve seen it like four times already today. Plan on crushing (or NATIONALIZING) that last little bit of capitalism we have left?
Go ahead and point fingers all day long at those who have done wrong. Chances are they were HEAVY democrat doners and played into the politics of crony-capitalism themselves.
Go bleat about Solyndra or the other failed green companies that got BILLIONS of tax payer funds and flushed them right down the drain.
lolly, if you actually had a clue then you wouldn’t be clueless, would you, but you don’t and so you are. What you have instead is the propensity to parade your ignorance for all to see.
I actually prefer the term “paracitic” capitalism myself but “vulture” is more in vogue. I guess you don’t recall how it was popularized by Gov. Rick Perry in the endless Republican primary debates? You must not get out much. And to understand what it is and how it works, just look up Bain Capital or, better yet, Goggle Mark Singer, one of Rawmoney’s private equity buddies. Maybe the stories about what he’s done will manage to penetrate your dense fog.
Here’s a hint: when you’re calling someone “clueless” or otherwise indicating that a person isn’t very smart, it’s a good idea to carefully check your spelling, especially the words you set off in quotes. Now, you’re the one who looks clueless. Peracetic capitalism, maybe? It’s a disinfectant. Parasitic? That’s probably what you meant I guess, but maybe you’re just typing syllables at random.
Thank you Jeannette, come for the spell check and somehow miss the entire point.
Typical narrow-minded conservative, can’t see the forest for the trees? But, hey, you’re good at seeing trees, for what that’s worth.
Do you have a point beyond recycling century-old Marxist hate?
As I said above, “Look up Rawmoney’s friend, Mark Singer, and start reading for you clueless dweebs that live in the reich-wing bubble”. Get back to me after you’ve done that and we’ll talk. We can talk when you understand how extortion was used to shake the tax-payers down during the auto bail out and how 25,000 union jobs – good, family-wage jobs – were destroyed when 29 auto parts factories where shut down by Singer and shipped to China. Check out how much Rawmoney and his wife made in the deal.
You really don’t have a clue, do you?
Again, “reich-wing”.
If you’ve ever had an original thought, it probably ended with feces on the wall.
The latest manifestation of Leftist power on campus is not found among the faculty but in the administration: The Diversity Dean. Every university and college in the US has a Diversity Dean. The tiniest, most remote community college has a Diversity Dean. Invariably the person who occupies the position of Diversity Dean is an exemplar of some protected group and an activist for the Democratic Party. The existence of an administrative office and staff that supports Democratic Party political views and radical political views is not lost on impressionable young students.
I suggest that citizens take action against the institution of Diversity Dean when it exists at state supported institutions. Citizens should inform their legislators of the activities undertaken by these offices and demand that they be restricted in the services that they supply. These offices should be restricted to aiding students as they navigate the genuine requirements of their college careers. These offices should be forbidden from sponsoring Native American Pow Wow Appreciation Day. (I do not mean to pick on Native Americans. I simply chose one of the more useless events that I have seen. In Florida, NAPWAD Day attracts only white males in feathers, unless the new senator from Massachusetts attends.)
Hofstadter? Great?
I thought is stuff was paranoid liberal wish fulfilment. Life was not as he described, so he just said it was, and voila! Generations of pundits cited him as descriptive.
How long can an idea be cool before it becomes totally passe? It seems to me that the same things have been cook now for almost all my life. This suggest a little subversion of the narrative could cause big changes in a short period of time.
The redistributionist left sits atop an ocean of assets. The Gates Foundation endowment is $37 billion. Harvard’s is $30 billion. What is needed is a secular Luther-a young man or woman composes a barnburner of an expose about the corruption and intellectual bankruptcy of a system that has now mired a generation in debt with false promises even as their own bank accounts fattened.
BINGO! Rebrand the GOP. Make it the “South Park Republican” party. And shove the socons in the closet. Tell them they can come out in 2166.
Yeah, you don’t need 20% of the electorate to show up and vote. That’s how McCain got himself elected in 2008.
All very erudite, but my conclusion from Nov 4 is that we’ve reached the point where most Americans want more free stuff. Analysis concluded.
D’oh, Nov. 6. Now who’s erudite?
> When the country is impoverished, their slice of national income will shrink along with that of everybody else.
Will their slice decrease? They’re trying to increase their slice as a percentage of the national income. (That’s the whole point of “the top 1% get too much” campaign.) If they double their percentage, the absolute value of that slice is unchanged if the national income shrinks by 50%.
Moreover, they’re willing to accept some amount of decrease in their share to get their way, or at least they think that they are.
Fred Siegel’s book should be interesting. I have read a few of his articles and found them insightful.
Martin Sklar’s thesis is quite intriguing. I note that Tocqueville proclaimed in the French Parliament that socialism is opposed to all the principles of the French Revolution: obviously he thought that socialism is Right-wing, which seems a position similar to Sklar’s. (Several others took a similar position before the words “left” and “right” entered the Anglo-American political vocabulary.)
But what is great about Richard Hofstadter’s work? after a century of anti-capitalist antisemitism, a Jew blarneyed his way into associating capitalism with antisemitism: that’s not great, it’s suicidally insane.
I suspect that DeTocqueville, by characterizing socialism as “right-wing” was referring to its tendency to recreate (or re-entrench) the hereditary nobility. The benefits of being in the apparat become indistinguishable from those of being from a noble family.
Rob Crawford @ November 14, 2012 – 6:09 pm
“I suspect that de Tocqueville, by characterizing socialism as “right-wing” was referring to its tendency to recreate (or re-entrench) the hereditary nobility. The benefits of being in the apparat become indistinguishable from those of being from a noble family.”
This is EXACTLY correct. E.g., the attempt to install Chelsea Clinton as a media-ite.
Here’s Tocqueville’s speech, if you want to find out more:
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2136&chapter=195263&layout=html&Itemid=27#a_3122523
If I remember correctly, I searched for it after reading this quote from it, in The Road to Serfdom:
“Democracy and socialism have but one thing in common—equality. But note well the difference. Democracy aims at equality in liberty. Socialism desires equality in constraint and in servitude.”
Show me a peer review study that shows you’re not a fool.
Hey, this is fun. Denigrate your opponent with inane tasks. BTW, we’re still waiting on you to answer her question, which you conveniently ignored.
I have some predictions for you. Sooner or later, Socialism kills everything it touches. There are natural limits to how much debt you can shift to foreigners or to future generations. Someday they run out of other people’s money.
The USSR collapsed in 1989, mostly due to debts, bad economics and incompetence of its ruling class. The USSR splintered into ethnic/language tribes, mostly ruled by local gangsters.
Yugoslavia went the same way as the Soviet Union after Tito died. He was the only thing holding it together.
The EU is collapsing now for the same reasons as the USSR.
The USA will fall apart for the same reasons the USSR did. An incompetent but dogmatic bureaucracy will kill the economy with taxes and regulations intended to save the world. Soon the Treasury will be unable to sell more debts because the foreigners stop loaning us their money. The next generation can’t pay it as they have no jobs. Trying to cover the deficits by raising a lot of taxes will just throttle back on a weak economy and kill more jobs. We’re in a death spiral and the American ‘Elites’ are flying us into the ground. Obama’s epitaph, the Last POTUS.
But the Party Leaders will make just fine.
A true Marxist would give the book away. $4.95?! He can pound sand.