Thread by @JVLast

MAGA has a lot of internal contradictions.
thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/you-are-defi…

What brings the coalition together is a set of shared antipathies. These subgroups all hate the same people: "the Left."

But even here, "the Left" isn't really a coherent set.

As a logical matter, this contradiction seems problematic. But as a political matter, it's not a bug. It's a feature.

Because a coalition based on policy goals has winners and losers. Parts of the coalition will come first, others will be junior partners.

But when a political coalition is based purely around *resentment*? And when the resented "other" is fluid?

Then everyone gets to be first among equals because there are no trade-offs.

Policy is a zero-sum game.

Resentment is a win-win game.

I mention all of this in talking about @CarlosNYT's review of Josh Hawley's manliness book.
nytimes.com/2023/06/01/opi…

Hawley thinks men are facing societal challenges and identifies the villains: The woke-socialist-whatever leftist elites. But the challenges Hawley identifies—drugs, porn, video games, lack of ambition—aren't really traits of the liberal elite.

They're closer to characteristics of the Joe Rogan-ish MAGA right.

One of the secrets of American demographics is that the higher you go on the income-education scale, the more "traditionally conservative" you live your life in terms of marriage, divorce, out-of-wedlock births, drug use, incarceration, etc.

Anyway: This is partly about sociology, partly about economics, and partly about politics.

TL;DR: The new conservatism and new Republican coalition may turn out to be more durable than many outsiders think.

thetriad.thebulwark.com/p/you-are-defi…