When I was making final revisions for Compact on an article entitled "The Emerging Democratic Minority," my editor suggested I add a comment on Ezra Klein's interview with polling analyst David Shor about the 2024 election.
I’m in admiration of your clarity and explanations of Shor. I’m a longtime liberal, and in my rural area a couple of hours north of New Orleans, I’ve heard my gravel-road neighbors very clearly correlate our weird weather batterings with Climate Change. They would drive electric trucks if models had the horse-power needed to pull trailers and also operate bulldozers and tractors.
It’s easily understandable what I’m seeing.
These folks would dump their gas guzzlers if and when the industry builds trucks et al for reasonable rates with an engine that can go far.
Interesting. In suburban NJ I probably see as many massive trucks as you do, the difference being that the average truck here never pulls heavy trailers and rarely if ever needs to drive on gravel (much less dirt).
So, this issue I have here is with the terms of the debate. Polls are snapshots that we interpolate and can reflect more or less or nothing close to what either the actor or the observer brings to the picture. I think we need to look as much as possible not at stills but at moving pictures. Here’s something I wrote in my own Substack today as part of an argument that much of the focus of the growing ‘liberal’ resistance is myopic and is unlikely to be particularly productive:
“So, I’m just going to say it outright: we liberals have essentially been a bulwark of Neoliberalism, the ultra-rich, and the oligarchs for 40+ years. We happily became the managerial and intellectual elite that is the ‘administrative state’ that supports this entire inequitable class system . . .
“We educated elites still fail to acknowledge the reality of our unthinking complicity in creating the current crisis, let alone take any responsibility for it. And neither have we been able to commit ourselves through the Democratic Party to any serious attempts to remedy and reconcile the consequences for the vast majority of our people.
“As a result, most of the people voting for Trump/autocracy are voting against us perhaps as much as for Trump. They are voting against the privilege we locked-in and against the indifference we developed to the general welfare — to their welfare.”
My point is that I think FDR was right in this observation attributed to him:
“If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.”
Most critical to our future is for us to find the ways and the wisdom to move democracy forward day by day AS A LIVING FORCE. Understanding what this means and the commitments and resources it entails takes some work every day. But, if we were doing this, folks in different:demographics, whether geographic, educational, racial, or whatnot, would be more disposed to factor the common good into their assessments of their own lives, liberties, and pursuits of justice and happiness. As it is, we lost our way on this in the wake of the Neoliberal juggernaut.
Moving democracy forward as a living force bettering the lot of our people is the only way we can fend off the allure of fantastical snake-oil shortcuts to prosperity promised by the autocrats.
Yes, reduce demand for CO2 emitting fuels at as low cost as possible , not production and transportation of CO2 emitting fuels. Abundance 101
I’m in admiration of your clarity and explanations of Shor. I’m a longtime liberal, and in my rural area a couple of hours north of New Orleans, I’ve heard my gravel-road neighbors very clearly correlate our weird weather batterings with Climate Change. They would drive electric trucks if models had the horse-power needed to pull trailers and also operate bulldozers and tractors.
It’s easily understandable what I’m seeing.
These folks would dump their gas guzzlers if and when the industry builds trucks et al for reasonable rates with an engine that can go far.
Thanks for writing such an interesting post.
Bess
Interesting. In suburban NJ I probably see as many massive trucks as you do, the difference being that the average truck here never pulls heavy trailers and rarely if ever needs to drive on gravel (much less dirt).
So, this issue I have here is with the terms of the debate. Polls are snapshots that we interpolate and can reflect more or less or nothing close to what either the actor or the observer brings to the picture. I think we need to look as much as possible not at stills but at moving pictures. Here’s something I wrote in my own Substack today as part of an argument that much of the focus of the growing ‘liberal’ resistance is myopic and is unlikely to be particularly productive:
“So, I’m just going to say it outright: we liberals have essentially been a bulwark of Neoliberalism, the ultra-rich, and the oligarchs for 40+ years. We happily became the managerial and intellectual elite that is the ‘administrative state’ that supports this entire inequitable class system . . .
“We educated elites still fail to acknowledge the reality of our unthinking complicity in creating the current crisis, let alone take any responsibility for it. And neither have we been able to commit ourselves through the Democratic Party to any serious attempts to remedy and reconcile the consequences for the vast majority of our people.
“As a result, most of the people voting for Trump/autocracy are voting against us perhaps as much as for Trump. They are voting against the privilege we locked-in and against the indifference we developed to the general welfare — to their welfare.”
My point is that I think FDR was right in this observation attributed to him:
“If American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.”
Most critical to our future is for us to find the ways and the wisdom to move democracy forward day by day AS A LIVING FORCE. Understanding what this means and the commitments and resources it entails takes some work every day. But, if we were doing this, folks in different:demographics, whether geographic, educational, racial, or whatnot, would be more disposed to factor the common good into their assessments of their own lives, liberties, and pursuits of justice and happiness. As it is, we lost our way on this in the wake of the Neoliberal juggernaut.
Moving democracy forward as a living force bettering the lot of our people is the only way we can fend off the allure of fantastical snake-oil shortcuts to prosperity promised by the autocrats.