In the long-run, America can have one (and likely only one) of two things:
* An intellectual and institutional establishment that remains inhospitable to conservatives
* A Republican Party that trusts experts, dismisses conspiracy theories, and resists populism
Choose wisely.
My position:
Anyone who wants America to be a decent, functional country needs a theory for how to get the Republican Party to be sane again AND conservatives to feel welcome in the mainstream.
(And no, simply waiting for conservatives to die out is not a realistic plan.)
My points do not rest on the premise that the extent to which establishment institutions are inhospitable to conservatives has CAUSED the radicalization of the Republican Party, by the way.
(Though it is, I think, plausible to believe this played some, likely minor, role.)
A piece of advice for those of you who cannot imagine "a sane conservative idea."
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The filibuster is a relatively recent and arbitrary norm. I don't feel strongly about it.
But I find it strange that the same people who are convinced the Senate is structurally biased against them are also convinced abolishing the filibuster will help them realize their goals.
I get how abolishing the filibuster helps Democrats over the next two years.But will they really derive a partisan advantage from it over a twenty or forty year period?
That question seems to me to be incredibly hard to answer - and everyone is pretending that it's obvious.
Most answers assume the main battlegrounds will be economic and about adding legislation.
It is not at all obvious that either of these assumptions will hold true in the coming decades. Republicans could repeal existing entitlements and pass new laws on e.g. affirmative action.
If you read one thing about the terrible situation in Myanmar, make it this.
Also, let me take this opportunity to explain some of the stubborn factors that make it so hard to raise attention for important issues like this coup. persuasion.community/p/dont-ignore-…
1)
Readers are more interested in issue close to home or that they already have some familiarity with.
Thankfully, Persuasion is funded by subscribers with an ideological investment in these issues, so this doesn't matter much to us.
But even then there's other obstacles.
2)
Myanmar has long been cut off from the world, so editors don't know that much about it.
I have met activists and intellectuals from a large number of countries. I have a sense of who is credible and who isn't. I know who to go to.
It should also make us ask very hard questions about why it took a giant pandemic hitting the developed world for us to give a new technology that could potentially save humanity from one of its worst endemic diseases a try...
Also, there are obviously still a lot of obstacles here. I do not in any way mean to suggest that this vaccine is a done deal.
But, oh man, would it be wonderful news for humanity.