I spoke yesterday with @democracynow about Paul Ryan's retirement and what it tells us about the state of conservatism and the GOP. democracynow.org/2018/4/12/poli…
My argument on @democracynow builds on arguments I've been making since the election in @nplusonemag, nplusonemag.com/online-only/on…, and after Ryan's first failure to repeal Obamacare, back in March 2017, in @nytimes, nytimes.com/2017/03/24/opi….
While there have been some other excellent takes on Ryan's retirement and what it means, I think even those takes assume that conservatism has a future if it can just make the full white economic populist turn or deal with GOP base economic discontent. But as I argued in my
my n+1 and Times pieces, conservatives *can't* make that full turn, and certainly not within the GOP, until there is a systematic, successful project of dispossession from the left. Only then, will conservatives be able to launch a successful civil war on the right, and a
successful political transformation within the ruling class and the GOP, in which they can force both of those entities to make a fundamental change. But until there is a real left that succeeds, the right will continue to flounder, with one new branding after another, each
going the way of the last.
