E-Pluribus | June 9, 2022
E-Pluribus | June 9, 2022
The Left gets re-mugged by reality; progressives' Elon Musk dilemma; and, no, "mispronouning" is not a typo.
A round-up of the latest and best writing and musings on the rise of illiberalism in the public discourse:
Bret Stephens: The Left Is Being Mugged by Reality, Again
In the early 2000s, the “emerging Democratic majority” became the “permanent Democratic majority” after the election of Barack Obama - at least on paper. However, Bret Stephens in the New York Times notes that recent developments (Stephens leaves Donald Trump out of it) have overtaken the theory and the pendulum, if it ever was really swinging left, is swinging back.
Progressive overreach has its price. Even for progressives.
What’s going on in San Francisco is happening nationwide, and not just in matters of criminal justice and urban governance. In one area after another, the left is being mugged by reality, to borrow Irving Kristol’s famous phrase. Consider a few examples:
Inflation. For over a decade, progressives insisted that inflation was a right-wing chimera, ignoring the huge increase in asset prices. Then, last year, they insisted inflation was temporary — a “red herring,” to quote the economist Joseph Stiglitz. Later, as it became clear that inflation was sticking, some took a bolder tack: Inflation is good. As a piece in The Intercept put it last November, “Inflation is bad for the 1 percent but helps out almost everyone else.”
[ . . . ]
Energy. It wasn’t long ago that progressives bemoaned low gas prices, on the theory that deterring driving would help the climate. Maybe House Democrats should try running on $7 a gallon as an environmental good and see what happens to their majority. Maybe, too, the Biden administration should tell the Saudis where they can stuff their oil, as opposed to beseeching them to pump more.
[ . . . ]
The culture. How did progressives come out on the losing end of the culture wars? How did they become the butt of jokes for our era’s sharpest comedians, from Bill Maher to Dave Chappelle? Why are lifelong liberals at universities, newspapers and publishing houses constantly whispering under their breath about the rank Maoism of their younger colleagues?
Read it all.
Berny Belvedere: Is It Odd That Progressives Hate Elon?
How could someone whose company produces electric vehicles not be progressive? Berny Belvedere of Arc Digital says that online discourse considerations often overrule real world considerations when it comes to someone being welcome in the progressive’s fold.
Then again, it’s somewhat culturally naive to think the things Musk pumps out of his factories will necessarily override the things Musk says as the most significant determinant of his public reputation.
It turns out that the oddness Yglesias notices is entirely explainable by our culture’s Hierarchy of Political Reality—think Plato’s Great Chain of Being, but instead of a metaphysical order hierarchically structured to privilege the entities that are more perfect than others, it’s an instrument of political epistemology that specifies which inputs people most often rely on to situate public figures along the Good-Bad continuum. Usually, what you choose to fund is the most decisive consideration of all—as it is, for example, for Peter Thiel or the Kochs, who are despised on the left on precisely these grounds.
But in this, our Age of Social Platforms, there is something that trumps even funding decisions, something that trumps even business output, and that is culture war involvement online.
Elon Musk’s products could simultaneously reverse global warming, dismantle structural racism, and eradicate global poverty … yet if he follows all that with a tweet urging people to “take the red pill”, or boasting of his newfound support for the Republican Party, he’s going to find himself in progressives’ crosshairs. Simple as that.
Read the whole thing.
George F. Will: When the pronoun police come for eighth-graders
You may read George Will’s most recent column several times before your brain sees “mispronouning” instead of “mispronouncing.” Pronouns are clearly the most relevant sphere of grammar these days, and Will writes how the government is bending and stretching Title IX language beyond all recognition to serve the administration’s woke agenda.
In April, the district lodged a complaint against three eighth-grade boys for the offense of “mispronouning,” referring to a classmate using the biologically correct pronoun “her” instead of the classmate’s preferred “them.” This, district officials — supposed educators — said, constitutes “sexual harassment,” a Title IX violation.
[ . . . ]
Making a mockery of Title IX illustrates what some progressive theorists call “dynamic statutory interpretation,” meaning law enforcement entirely untethered from congressional intent — actually, from law. In 2014, Catherine Lhamon, an Education Department assistant secretary for civil rights, sent an explanation of a 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter to people who are in no sense “colleagues” of federal bureaucrats: college administrators. She directed them to comply with 66 pages of “guidance” on sexual harassment policies. Many of the policies produced campus kangaroo courts in which persons — almost always young men — accused of sexual misbehavior are routinely denied due process.
Nationwide, accusers are identified, in the language of prejudgment, as “survivors.” The accused are denied the right to question their accusers and can be convicted on a mere “preponderance of the evidence,” not evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. By one recent count, there are more than 700 due-process lawsuits from victims of make-believe courts on campuses, seeking justice in real courts.
Read it all here.
Around Twitter
Via Newsweek, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s Greg Lukianoff and Nico Perrino on free speech and “hate speech”:
Via Bari Weiss’s Substack: is Hollywood finally tired of kowtowing to China?
Interesting tidbit via the Baker Institute about Top Gun as well:
And finally, via Christopher Rufo: is the Washington Post making a distinction without a difference when it comes to Critical Race Theory in K-12 education?
