My prediction for a while now is that Trump & MAGA are going to take conservatism into the toilet (arguably they are already there), much in the way that wokeness & unhinged progressivism made Democrats nearly unelectable. A new Democratic leader, probably Newsom, will arise and make centrism sexy again - and the Republicans will lose big time. And much in the same way as happened on the left, the right will begin to purge the MAGA freak show from their ranks.
This will happen just in time to see a neo-woke resurgence after Newsom leaves office, with the formerly Democratic centrists jumping the unbearably left-wing ship to join the newly centrist Republicans under a delightfully boring Rubio-like character.
I've been saying for a while now, I'm not really a liberal, I'm just a 2040's conservative.
But the left-wing and right-wing freakshows never go away, they just alternate power with the centrists, in the same way that Democrats and Republicans alternate power. American government is no longer a pendulum, it is a Rubik's Cube.
Sobering article but it assumes that the train stays on the track. While I agree that the left is moderating, and that more effective leadership (than Biden, Schumer et al.) is likely, the folks on the right are agressively trying to derail the train. Repeated violations of the Constitution and court orders. Threats to future elections. Destruction of government capacity. Teaching Americans to love autocracy because they hate the left more. Pushing policies that make climate change worse in the face of a 1.7C estimate temperature rise over preindustrial for 2027. Destabilizing both the American and the world economy, as well as international relations, through the use of tarrifs and hostility to other countries. How do you alienate Canada? So I get this theory but the obvious question is what happens if the train is derailed. That's ommitted from the article but seems like a very possible scenario.
Caplan is totally wrong that voters voting for self-interest is a myth. You need to look up the lengthy debate points between Caplan and Robert Kurzban/Jason Weeden about this. They had many back and forths. https://pleeps.org/2015/01/05/caplans-conspiracy-theory/
Interesting take, though I'm somewhat annoyed with the overall classist tone ("despicables", anyone?). Emmanuel Todd says that what's endangering democracy the most is the separation of the educated from the rest of the population. Democracy was born with global literacy, when everyone but a minuscule fringe could read and write but not much more. Nowadays, people with a college degree are about 30% of the population in the US, and can basically live without any contact with the uneducated populace, which feeds resentment and populism.
Add to this the crazy separatism of the techno-billionaires (I think that Thiel is honestly mad as a hatter now, and Musk probably too) and we're off toward a pretty bumpy ride overall.
No offense to Tyler Cowen or Matt Yglais, they probably are a step up from traditional media, but I wouldn't put them in the same sentence as Scott Alexander.
Is modern political discourse on the internet more sophisticated than it used to be on legacy media? The upper portion of mainstream discourse is probably more nuanced than it used to be because the internet has made ideas more accessible. But at the highest level there's much less influence from big name political philosophers than there was in the mid 20th century.
Whatever you might think of their politics I don't think Foucault or Derrida would be impressed by the sophistication of an Ezra Klein think piece.
My prediction for a while now is that Trump & MAGA are going to take conservatism into the toilet (arguably they are already there), much in the way that wokeness & unhinged progressivism made Democrats nearly unelectable. A new Democratic leader, probably Newsom, will arise and make centrism sexy again - and the Republicans will lose big time. And much in the same way as happened on the left, the right will begin to purge the MAGA freak show from their ranks.
This will happen just in time to see a neo-woke resurgence after Newsom leaves office, with the formerly Democratic centrists jumping the unbearably left-wing ship to join the newly centrist Republicans under a delightfully boring Rubio-like character.
I've been saying for a while now, I'm not really a liberal, I'm just a 2040's conservative.
But the left-wing and right-wing freakshows never go away, they just alternate power with the centrists, in the same way that Democrats and Republicans alternate power. American government is no longer a pendulum, it is a Rubik's Cube.
Sobering article but it assumes that the train stays on the track. While I agree that the left is moderating, and that more effective leadership (than Biden, Schumer et al.) is likely, the folks on the right are agressively trying to derail the train. Repeated violations of the Constitution and court orders. Threats to future elections. Destruction of government capacity. Teaching Americans to love autocracy because they hate the left more. Pushing policies that make climate change worse in the face of a 1.7C estimate temperature rise over preindustrial for 2027. Destabilizing both the American and the world economy, as well as international relations, through the use of tarrifs and hostility to other countries. How do you alienate Canada? So I get this theory but the obvious question is what happens if the train is derailed. That's ommitted from the article but seems like a very possible scenario.
David French -- essentially making the same point.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/01/opinion/midterms-election-influence-trump.html
Caplan is totally wrong that voters voting for self-interest is a myth. You need to look up the lengthy debate points between Caplan and Robert Kurzban/Jason Weeden about this. They had many back and forths. https://pleeps.org/2015/01/05/caplans-conspiracy-theory/
Interesting take, though I'm somewhat annoyed with the overall classist tone ("despicables", anyone?). Emmanuel Todd says that what's endangering democracy the most is the separation of the educated from the rest of the population. Democracy was born with global literacy, when everyone but a minuscule fringe could read and write but not much more. Nowadays, people with a college degree are about 30% of the population in the US, and can basically live without any contact with the uneducated populace, which feeds resentment and populism.
Add to this the crazy separatism of the techno-billionaires (I think that Thiel is honestly mad as a hatter now, and Musk probably too) and we're off toward a pretty bumpy ride overall.
No offense to Tyler Cowen or Matt Yglais, they probably are a step up from traditional media, but I wouldn't put them in the same sentence as Scott Alexander.
Is modern political discourse on the internet more sophisticated than it used to be on legacy media? The upper portion of mainstream discourse is probably more nuanced than it used to be because the internet has made ideas more accessible. But at the highest level there's much less influence from big name political philosophers than there was in the mid 20th century.
Whatever you might think of their politics I don't think Foucault or Derrida would be impressed by the sophistication of an Ezra Klein think piece.
I am not impressed with the records of big name philosophers thinking about practical political issues.