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It just struck me. We haven’t had a pure meta thread. What is at the core of the breakdown in America between two sides. Is it just social media boosting of traditional sports team enthusiasm in sports? And at its core team left and team right get along in person but in online like fighting each other for entertainment? Team left likes standing up a fentanyl addicted criminal as a martyr or a male swimmer in female sports to accuse those who will take the other side as racists Hitler types? And team right likes to own them. Or is there some marxists conspiracy or Christian white behind all this?
I’ll take the view that traditional status symbols still dominate day to day life. I’ll take the view that liberal rich trust fund kid is still going to date the hot brunette from Vassar. And the liberal girl will still marry the frat boy whose parents are real estate developers.
Sure I’m setting up a lot of motte and Bailey’s. Is this just a game among elites and then followed on by keyboard warriors on social media.
As one of the very small number of red tribers with a strong classics background, I feel it is my job to look at how history rhymes and what the common thread tells us about the why's and wherefore's.
Fortunately the classical world has lots of recorded examples of republics collapsing due to political polarization. In every case this was rooted in the political factions becoming aligned with differing economic modes; that's why the optimates and populares had a hundred years of escalating violence and the blues and greens rioted in a way that never spiraled into the multiple civil wars of the first century BC.
So, NAFTA and open borders set the stage. The '08 recession is a major catalyst in the story, and, well, that's when the polarization stuff got kicked into overdrive. Then you've got the Obama admin, which was truly incredibly bad at lowering the temperature of the room, and a red tribe that was primed to take blue tribe obliviousness as malice due to economic polarization- that's functionally what the TEA party was. Then enter Trump, who I've always said is just an American Marius- big mouthed, prone to norm busting, hyperpopulist, attached to power, disdainful of the customs of the elite, but at the end of the day his obvious skill at things that are not statesmanship does not transfer to actual governing. The red tribe mostly doesn't understand why Trump is so offensive to the blue tribe, and the blue tribe mostly doesn't understand how the reds can not be offended by him. Then Covid became a scissor scenario.
Now obviously the US isn't ancient Rome, but ancient Rome wasn't any of the myriad Greek city states that did the exact same thing, either.
The Tea Party just always felt like traditional GOP politics to me. And on Trump I think the gop understands why the left hates him and a lot of his appeal is making them lose their mind. A lot of the time it feels to me the left promotes Trump too and gets him into the news. If we were a serious people we wouldn’t play this game. The fact we aren’t a serious people makes me think most people are comfortable and the issues aren’t real economics. If the right wanted to get shit done I think it’s beyond obvious Desantis is a better a choice. If they want to drive libs crazy Trump is the better choice.
It also seems to me a lot of left elites seem disconnect from the real world. A solution to homelessness isn’t fentanyl tent cities but police enforcement and building more housing. They wouldn’t debate what a “women” is or have trans as their main issue. They would be nicer to black people but deep down have official policies with some understanding that a lot of race differences are genetic.
The left with more people in digital industries seems more disconnected than the red tribe with more people in the real world. But compared to your historical example it just feels to me a lot of todays fight is non-serious people on both sides Larping.
I think if you were to conduct a poll of self described left-leaning voters, the trans issue would fall very very low on the priority list. Twitter, the news, and an extremely loud contingent has made the trans conversation appear much larger than it really is.
Why are left-leaning politicians making such a fuss about it then?
We just had an election last fall and I don't remember any campaign materials or speeches from any left-leaning politicians, prominent or otherwise, that made a big deal about trans issues.
They don't make a big deal about them in their public campaign materials because their position on these issues is wildly unpopular -- then they get elected and apply inordinate focus to things that only impact 0.x% of the population.
I'm pretty sure this is worse?
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