Those who put their faith in the Golem, or the people who tried to harness the Golem’s power for good, need to understand that tragedy is the only outcome here.
This whole "the Left wants to prosecute the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump" is nothing but a fever dream for folks looking to feel prosecuted. If that's the tack you want to take, you have a ways to go before you catch up to Rod Dreher in the "society's going to eat me and mine alive" lane.
Two subsequent paragraphs in this very piece illustrate the cognitive dissonance:
"Over 500 people who participated in the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol have been charged with various crimes. But none of them have been charged with treason or sedition. The Senate could not even bring itself to convict Trump the Golem in two impeachments, one of which explicitly linked to January 6th."
So, no one who staged the insurrection in the Capitol has actually been charged with treason or sedition, despite clearly working to interrupt a duly Constitutional process that's been the keystone of American governance since the Founding?
"Donald Trump received more votes than any incumbent president in the history of the United States, and he lost by 7 million votes nationally—it came down to under 50,000 votes in five key states. The 74 million Americans who voted for Trump are not guilty of sedition, and the thousands who went to Washington D.C. on January 6th believed they could speak a victory out of dust, because they believed in the Golem’s power."
Given your use of the passive voice here, you seem to think that someone is calling 74 million Americans guilty of sedition. WHO is saying that 74 million Americans are seditious, WHERE did they say it, WHEN did they say it, and WHY should anyone care what this nebulous entity thinks? (Seriously, I haven't been so disappointed in a villainous cloud since the second Fantastic Four film did Galactus dirty.) For the record, despite your Trump vote(s?), I don't think you're seditious (but then again, I don't call myself a Progressive either).
Further up the piece: "For decades, American culture has been hijacked, in words and symbols, by a radical progressive minority bent on controlling our society. They’ve used the institutions of scientific research, learning, government, and media to shape and reshape society in the way they feel is 'progress.' This is why they call themselves progressives."
A political party winning power is hardly evidence of a "radical minority" (by definition, unless you're one of the two GOP presidents who won office with fewer votes than your opponent), so your issue with "government" isn't that someone tricked their way into office - it's the voters that put those people in office. That's how our system works.
Unless you're speaking of fights in the medical and psychological communities around how to approach transgenderism, your beef with progressives in the scientific research community is less about the scientists and science that they are doing and more with the philosophers orbiting their work (and philosophers saying crazy things is nothing new).
I can see the "learning" leg of your persecution stool making sense, but is that because teachers have been unfairly influenced by progressives, or rather conservatives becoming hostile to the educational endeavor? I'm not referring to home schooling, history food fights, or sexual education classes, but instead a hostility to higher learning and universities (see your swipe at science and research above). If conservatives are going to take their ball and go home when forced to justify their ideas against others, you shouldn't be surprised when someone wackier comes in to fill the vacuum and propagates schools of thought that both reinforce their own standing in the academy and cut off avenues to folks who would displace them as they displaced the conservatives? Contra "Wargames", the only way to win the game is to play it.
And "media" - the Forever Boogieman. Is the issue that the media has been unfairly stocked with progressives, or that conservatives are simply not competitive when it comes to producing a cultural output that the market/audience rewards with its dollars and attention? And when it comes to good old fashioned reporting on the news, why is it that the one outlet that's gotten the most traction is currently headlined by an anti-vax demogouge shouting about the NSA spying on him, instead of a straight-up news organization reporting what's going on in the world, minus any talking head pundits that are not doing any of the journalistic legwork themselves?
I hate to be the one to say this, but praying harder isn't going to be sufficient to getting the various aspects of society back on track in a way that agrees with you. There are no shadowy "elites" calling the shots, from whom you'll be able to reclaim cultural power by replacing them. Instead, you're going to have to do the hard work of being present and presenting a competitive vision your conservatism on each of the fronts where you are being attacked. Put in the work to win elections for non-Golem candidates. Promote the scientists doing the actual falsifiable research showing that the current transgender craze is more of a moral panic than some objectively justifiable new understanding of sex and gender. Encourage conservatives to follow the model of my old professor Robbie George and be present to represent their views on the college campus and in the academic record. Encourage someone looking to make a difference to start an actual news network that pays reporters to go out into the field to tell us what's happening, and avoid the empty calories of paying talking heads to tell us how to think about it. Nurture and support conservative television and film makers who can create cultural products that compete with the best that members of the Left are producing. (And for the sake of conservative storytelling, put a moratorium on "Left Behind" and "Atlas Shrugged" adaptations, until the new storytellers get their own legs.)
At the end of the day, the problem isn't Golems or elites, it's that conservatives have decided to take their balls and go home. If you want conservationism to remain relevant as a vision moving forward, conservatives have to get back onto the field and compete, instead of whining to the umpires that the game isn't fair. The game's not going to be fair (again) until conservatives start putting up some points and winning some hearts and minds to their cause based on the quality of their product, instead of relying someone taking pity on them and their grievances.
Overall, I think that you all at the Racket ARE competing (albeit at a very early stage) and are part of the solution for (genuine) conservatives regaining relevancy. Please don't fall down into the trap of playing the "both sides" game (it's lazy and uninteresting) or leaning too heavily on the conservative persecution narrative. (The American Conservative has that lane sewn up to the point that conservatives there are now starting to look to the Chinese(!) to save them and their way of life.) To use your own metaphor, the answer isn't to keep ruminating on the Golem and those who spoke it to life - those folks are likely lost causes - but instead to start looking forward and finding and exploiting opportunities to get conservatives back into the game and let the Progressives spin their wheels on Golems, grievances, and losing allies, audiences, and attention in the cultural war.
Excellent points made Chris, but especially in the last 3 paragraphs. You are one of the very few who are absolutely spot in the diagnosis as to why the conservative movement is in the predicament they are in. I've long felt that too many conservatives have abandoned our academic and cultural institutions. Instead, we have a tendency to retreat to our intellectual echo chambers and safe spaces, when faced with the prospect of having to compete with progressives and others to compete with, by defending our vision and governing philosophy. The result is a major vacuum for competing ideas in these institutions that we've collectively, with few exceptions, retreated from. And we as a movement keep retreating when reality conflicts with intellectually ensconced narratives. Just look at how many on the right whined and moaned about Fox News of all places, when they wouldn't peddle the Big Lie. And we remember this rush of some of these folks to Parler, Rumble, Newsmax, and OAN. By doing this, we are really doing a disservice to up and coming generations who get deprived of a cogent presentation and case for conservativism.
Unlike what many in the echo chambered right feel, Gen Z, millennials, academia, and our cultural institutions are not predestined lost causes, not by a long shot. But they certainly treat those in these groups as if they are hopelessly close minded progressives. From an anecdotal basis, I can't count how many times people ID'd from these groups, even some who are left leaning, lamented the monoculture regarding political philosophy of the present. And the conservative movement bears a lot of blame for the near political monoculture that exists in these places. Chris is absolutely right in that we need to get back and compete. We need to reclaim our places in these institutions and offer a compelling vision and convince others about why we feel conservatism is a viable governing philosophy. I really believe that many on the right will come to know that people in the institutions and places in which we abandoned, are much more open minded than we give them credit for. A few loud mouths on Twitter, other social media, and on MSNBC doesn't define the entire swath of these institutional and age demographics.
For the grief that I give The American Conservative above, they published a really good piece[1] that illustrates the Happy Warrior stance I'm advocating above:
"With stories of protests and cancellations regularly making the news out of the elite private colleges in New England and the West Coast, America’s colleges and universities are often perceived to be bastions of “woke” progressive students looking to tear down America’s sacred institutions. And while some extremely progressive students at some schools—including many of my own, Sarah Lawrence College in New York—are leading such charges, it is a mistake to assume these young social justice warriors represent the majority of our nation’s college students, especially those at public colleges and universities."
"What the GOP should do to support public college and university campuses is promote operational efficiency, something that Republicans have historically embraced, and target one of the greatest sources of not only bloat and spending on campus, but also the source of many of the progressive and woke impulses: college administrators. Not only has this administrative class grown at rates significantly faster than enrollment and faculty, but this powerful group is far more progressive and interested in promoting a political agenda than even the liberal faculty who teach our students, and certainly than the more ideologically balanced student bodies."
"Reigning in administrators would lower costs considerably and give students a better chance to think for themselves in dining halls, dormitories, and the far too numerous “centers” that dot the campus landscape where students are regularly told what to think and how to engage with others. The power of the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” bureaucrats can be used to the benefit of our public budgets and our students’ growth, and Republicans would be well served to focus their efforts there and continue to allow one of our nation’s greatest institutions to thrive."
If conservatives can demonstrate that they can run universities where students can get first-class educations without the debt that's paying the overclass of administrators' salaries. Combine this with highlighting the massive amounts of debt that students are graduating with, and you have a winning formula to start retaking the universities from the Post-Modernists.
"college administrators. Not only has this administrative class grown at rates significantly faster than enrollment and faculty, but this powerful group is far more progressive and interested in promoting a political agenda"
Somewhat like an academic deep state. This post and your post above have a lot of good suggestions but I see no politically practical way to implement them. Maybe thinkers like you can do it or inspire some charismatic leader to take up the cause. Even then it would take several decades.
In the area of public / state universities and community colleges, I don't see any reason a legislature could cap the number of administrators or cap the pay levels that such positions would receive. Ultimately, it's the legislatures that are funding these institutions, and they would be well within their power to be a bit more proactive in how state taxpayers' money is spent.
This isn't going to do a damn thing with private institutions, but a lot of them are on the ropes already with the decline in enrollment from overseas countries (largely China) where they would milk rich foreigners for tuition money, while pitching their financial aid programs to domestic students.[1]
Given the astronomical levels of student debt and a lot of businesses' desire to not be dealing with Social Justice Warriors in the younger workforce that they hire, there's a market waiting to be made where public universities provide a useful education to students who don't have to mortgage their future, and a pipeline of workers to companies (especially small and medium-sized) that are looking for a competent workforce without the workplace political drama that's become increasingly disruptive since 2015.
I see your point, but I did mean prosecuted (as in have them charged and tried with the crime of sedition), given the context that I was responding to.
As for persecution (social ostracization), I'll give Steve credit that there are indeed progressives who would like to see that happen, but that's not something unique to the Left and/or the Trump era when it comes to pillorying folks on the other side of the political aisle.
"The game's not going to be fair (again) until conservatives start putting up some points and winning some hearts and minds to their cause based on the quality of their product, instead of relying someone taking pity on them and their grievances."
The only places for conservatives to gain voters (without becoming more democrat or appeasers like the never-Trumps) are the young and the minorities. There is no competitive conservative party so conservatives must rely on Republicans to advance their cause. Voting for democrats to punish the Republicans does nothing except elect more progressives thereby giving them the most say-so in Congress and on the national stage. Republicans presented and supported two really good minority candidates in John James and Kim Klacick. Minority voters were not listening. They elected useless politicians instead of people who cared.
I will whine a little and say there is not much hope for getting more of the youthful voters to vote Republican. Progressives control how most of our youth are indoctrinated. Most conservatives grow up thinking for themselves and probably don't fully appreciate that half the population doesn't do that. I do not know how to get more conservatives into the education process. It's just not in their genes. I see no solution other than term limits and eliminating the professional politician class.
This whole "the Left wants to prosecute the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump" is nothing but a fever dream for folks looking to feel prosecuted. If that's the tack you want to take, you have a ways to go before you catch up to Rod Dreher in the "society's going to eat me and mine alive" lane.
Two subsequent paragraphs in this very piece illustrate the cognitive dissonance:
"Over 500 people who participated in the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol have been charged with various crimes. But none of them have been charged with treason or sedition. The Senate could not even bring itself to convict Trump the Golem in two impeachments, one of which explicitly linked to January 6th."
So, no one who staged the insurrection in the Capitol has actually been charged with treason or sedition, despite clearly working to interrupt a duly Constitutional process that's been the keystone of American governance since the Founding?
"Donald Trump received more votes than any incumbent president in the history of the United States, and he lost by 7 million votes nationally—it came down to under 50,000 votes in five key states. The 74 million Americans who voted for Trump are not guilty of sedition, and the thousands who went to Washington D.C. on January 6th believed they could speak a victory out of dust, because they believed in the Golem’s power."
Given your use of the passive voice here, you seem to think that someone is calling 74 million Americans guilty of sedition. WHO is saying that 74 million Americans are seditious, WHERE did they say it, WHEN did they say it, and WHY should anyone care what this nebulous entity thinks? (Seriously, I haven't been so disappointed in a villainous cloud since the second Fantastic Four film did Galactus dirty.) For the record, despite your Trump vote(s?), I don't think you're seditious (but then again, I don't call myself a Progressive either).
Further up the piece: "For decades, American culture has been hijacked, in words and symbols, by a radical progressive minority bent on controlling our society. They’ve used the institutions of scientific research, learning, government, and media to shape and reshape society in the way they feel is 'progress.' This is why they call themselves progressives."
A political party winning power is hardly evidence of a "radical minority" (by definition, unless you're one of the two GOP presidents who won office with fewer votes than your opponent), so your issue with "government" isn't that someone tricked their way into office - it's the voters that put those people in office. That's how our system works.
Unless you're speaking of fights in the medical and psychological communities around how to approach transgenderism, your beef with progressives in the scientific research community is less about the scientists and science that they are doing and more with the philosophers orbiting their work (and philosophers saying crazy things is nothing new).
I can see the "learning" leg of your persecution stool making sense, but is that because teachers have been unfairly influenced by progressives, or rather conservatives becoming hostile to the educational endeavor? I'm not referring to home schooling, history food fights, or sexual education classes, but instead a hostility to higher learning and universities (see your swipe at science and research above). If conservatives are going to take their ball and go home when forced to justify their ideas against others, you shouldn't be surprised when someone wackier comes in to fill the vacuum and propagates schools of thought that both reinforce their own standing in the academy and cut off avenues to folks who would displace them as they displaced the conservatives? Contra "Wargames", the only way to win the game is to play it.
And "media" - the Forever Boogieman. Is the issue that the media has been unfairly stocked with progressives, or that conservatives are simply not competitive when it comes to producing a cultural output that the market/audience rewards with its dollars and attention? And when it comes to good old fashioned reporting on the news, why is it that the one outlet that's gotten the most traction is currently headlined by an anti-vax demogouge shouting about the NSA spying on him, instead of a straight-up news organization reporting what's going on in the world, minus any talking head pundits that are not doing any of the journalistic legwork themselves?
I hate to be the one to say this, but praying harder isn't going to be sufficient to getting the various aspects of society back on track in a way that agrees with you. There are no shadowy "elites" calling the shots, from whom you'll be able to reclaim cultural power by replacing them. Instead, you're going to have to do the hard work of being present and presenting a competitive vision your conservatism on each of the fronts where you are being attacked. Put in the work to win elections for non-Golem candidates. Promote the scientists doing the actual falsifiable research showing that the current transgender craze is more of a moral panic than some objectively justifiable new understanding of sex and gender. Encourage conservatives to follow the model of my old professor Robbie George and be present to represent their views on the college campus and in the academic record. Encourage someone looking to make a difference to start an actual news network that pays reporters to go out into the field to tell us what's happening, and avoid the empty calories of paying talking heads to tell us how to think about it. Nurture and support conservative television and film makers who can create cultural products that compete with the best that members of the Left are producing. (And for the sake of conservative storytelling, put a moratorium on "Left Behind" and "Atlas Shrugged" adaptations, until the new storytellers get their own legs.)
At the end of the day, the problem isn't Golems or elites, it's that conservatives have decided to take their balls and go home. If you want conservationism to remain relevant as a vision moving forward, conservatives have to get back onto the field and compete, instead of whining to the umpires that the game isn't fair. The game's not going to be fair (again) until conservatives start putting up some points and winning some hearts and minds to their cause based on the quality of their product, instead of relying someone taking pity on them and their grievances.
Overall, I think that you all at the Racket ARE competing (albeit at a very early stage) and are part of the solution for (genuine) conservatives regaining relevancy. Please don't fall down into the trap of playing the "both sides" game (it's lazy and uninteresting) or leaning too heavily on the conservative persecution narrative. (The American Conservative has that lane sewn up to the point that conservatives there are now starting to look to the Chinese(!) to save them and their way of life.) To use your own metaphor, the answer isn't to keep ruminating on the Golem and those who spoke it to life - those folks are likely lost causes - but instead to start looking forward and finding and exploiting opportunities to get conservatives back into the game and let the Progressives spin their wheels on Golems, grievances, and losing allies, audiences, and attention in the cultural war.
Excellent points made Chris, but especially in the last 3 paragraphs. You are one of the very few who are absolutely spot in the diagnosis as to why the conservative movement is in the predicament they are in. I've long felt that too many conservatives have abandoned our academic and cultural institutions. Instead, we have a tendency to retreat to our intellectual echo chambers and safe spaces, when faced with the prospect of having to compete with progressives and others to compete with, by defending our vision and governing philosophy. The result is a major vacuum for competing ideas in these institutions that we've collectively, with few exceptions, retreated from. And we as a movement keep retreating when reality conflicts with intellectually ensconced narratives. Just look at how many on the right whined and moaned about Fox News of all places, when they wouldn't peddle the Big Lie. And we remember this rush of some of these folks to Parler, Rumble, Newsmax, and OAN. By doing this, we are really doing a disservice to up and coming generations who get deprived of a cogent presentation and case for conservativism.
Unlike what many in the echo chambered right feel, Gen Z, millennials, academia, and our cultural institutions are not predestined lost causes, not by a long shot. But they certainly treat those in these groups as if they are hopelessly close minded progressives. From an anecdotal basis, I can't count how many times people ID'd from these groups, even some who are left leaning, lamented the monoculture regarding political philosophy of the present. And the conservative movement bears a lot of blame for the near political monoculture that exists in these places. Chris is absolutely right in that we need to get back and compete. We need to reclaim our places in these institutions and offer a compelling vision and convince others about why we feel conservatism is a viable governing philosophy. I really believe that many on the right will come to know that people in the institutions and places in which we abandoned, are much more open minded than we give them credit for. A few loud mouths on Twitter, other social media, and on MSNBC doesn't define the entire swath of these institutional and age demographics.
Regarding the culture war aspect, Tim Miller put out a piece yesterday: https://thebulwark.com/whos-waging-the-culture-war/
For the grief that I give The American Conservative above, they published a really good piece[1] that illustrates the Happy Warrior stance I'm advocating above:
"With stories of protests and cancellations regularly making the news out of the elite private colleges in New England and the West Coast, America’s colleges and universities are often perceived to be bastions of “woke” progressive students looking to tear down America’s sacred institutions. And while some extremely progressive students at some schools—including many of my own, Sarah Lawrence College in New York—are leading such charges, it is a mistake to assume these young social justice warriors represent the majority of our nation’s college students, especially those at public colleges and universities."
"What the GOP should do to support public college and university campuses is promote operational efficiency, something that Republicans have historically embraced, and target one of the greatest sources of not only bloat and spending on campus, but also the source of many of the progressive and woke impulses: college administrators. Not only has this administrative class grown at rates significantly faster than enrollment and faculty, but this powerful group is far more progressive and interested in promoting a political agenda than even the liberal faculty who teach our students, and certainly than the more ideologically balanced student bodies."
"Reigning in administrators would lower costs considerably and give students a better chance to think for themselves in dining halls, dormitories, and the far too numerous “centers” that dot the campus landscape where students are regularly told what to think and how to engage with others. The power of the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” bureaucrats can be used to the benefit of our public budgets and our students’ growth, and Republicans would be well served to focus their efforts there and continue to allow one of our nation’s greatest institutions to thrive."
If conservatives can demonstrate that they can run universities where students can get first-class educations without the debt that's paying the overclass of administrators' salaries. Combine this with highlighting the massive amounts of debt that students are graduating with, and you have a winning formula to start retaking the universities from the Post-Modernists.
[1] https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-the-gop-should-be-supporting-public-higher-education/
"college administrators. Not only has this administrative class grown at rates significantly faster than enrollment and faculty, but this powerful group is far more progressive and interested in promoting a political agenda"
Somewhat like an academic deep state. This post and your post above have a lot of good suggestions but I see no politically practical way to implement them. Maybe thinkers like you can do it or inspire some charismatic leader to take up the cause. Even then it would take several decades.
In the area of public / state universities and community colleges, I don't see any reason a legislature could cap the number of administrators or cap the pay levels that such positions would receive. Ultimately, it's the legislatures that are funding these institutions, and they would be well within their power to be a bit more proactive in how state taxpayers' money is spent.
This isn't going to do a damn thing with private institutions, but a lot of them are on the ropes already with the decline in enrollment from overseas countries (largely China) where they would milk rich foreigners for tuition money, while pitching their financial aid programs to domestic students.[1]
Given the astronomical levels of student debt and a lot of businesses' desire to not be dealing with Social Justice Warriors in the younger workforce that they hire, there's a market waiting to be made where public universities provide a useful education to students who don't have to mortgage their future, and a pipeline of workers to companies (especially small and medium-sized) that are looking for a competent workforce without the workplace political drama that's become increasingly disruptive since 2015.
Win-Win.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/13/amid-coronavirus-cutting-international-students-jeopardizes-colleges.html
"don't see any reason a legislature could cap the number of administrators"
should be
"don't see any reason a legislature could NOT cap the number of administrators"
We need our edit button, Curtis!
I knew what you meant and it's a good idea. In lieu of edit, I have resorted to copy, cancel and reposting with edits.
Well written response Chris. In the first sentence, I think the word you're looking for is 'persecuted', not 'prosecuted'.
I see your point, but I did mean prosecuted (as in have them charged and tried with the crime of sedition), given the context that I was responding to.
As for persecution (social ostracization), I'll give Steve credit that there are indeed progressives who would like to see that happen, but that's not something unique to the Left and/or the Trump era when it comes to pillorying folks on the other side of the political aisle.
"The game's not going to be fair (again) until conservatives start putting up some points and winning some hearts and minds to their cause based on the quality of their product, instead of relying someone taking pity on them and their grievances."
The only places for conservatives to gain voters (without becoming more democrat or appeasers like the never-Trumps) are the young and the minorities. There is no competitive conservative party so conservatives must rely on Republicans to advance their cause. Voting for democrats to punish the Republicans does nothing except elect more progressives thereby giving them the most say-so in Congress and on the national stage. Republicans presented and supported two really good minority candidates in John James and Kim Klacick. Minority voters were not listening. They elected useless politicians instead of people who cared.
I will whine a little and say there is not much hope for getting more of the youthful voters to vote Republican. Progressives control how most of our youth are indoctrinated. Most conservatives grow up thinking for themselves and probably don't fully appreciate that half the population doesn't do that. I do not know how to get more conservatives into the education process. It's just not in their genes. I see no solution other than term limits and eliminating the professional politician class.
This article makes me wonder something. Has anyone ever achieved anything by whining about it?
Whining caused MLB to move All-Star game to Denver. Not much of an achievement but the whiners liked the result.