The Post-Partisan Emporium

  A Wolf by the Ears: Or Why the Left Can't Moderate The Patronage–Client Trap John Slaughter Definitions up front: By “Left,” I mean today’s progressive coalition clustered around the Democratic Party and the administrative class. By “dominant culture,” I mean the historic high-status bloc that set a nation’s public norms (in the U.S., White Christian Historically Protestant America). And by “Bioleninism,” I mean Spandrell’s idea that regimes recruit marginal or low-status groups with promises of power and protection, using their resentment to upend the old hierarchy/status quo. A coalition that survives by perpetual grievance must either mint new enemies or pay ever-rising rents to its clients.  — the Patronage–Client Trap The Left cannot tone down its rhetoric. It cannot moderate its positions. The Left is, by nature, a revolutionary force, and a revolutionary force needs an enemy. Every nation has a high-status ethnic or religious group that sets the public norm. That grou...

  Democracy, oligarchy, and demagoguery Nothing is as it seems in the midst of decadence Carlos Ramalhete Photo by  Element5 Digital  on  Unsplash In order to “save democracy”, the leading candidate in the next French elections, Marine Le Pen, had her political rights suspended. A short while ago, the same happened to the leading Romanian candidate, Calin Georgescu. The former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, also a leading candidate, also had his political rights suspended by the Supreme Court. Attempts to do the same to Donald Trump didn’t work that well, and despite a shocking case of lawfare that managed to turn one accounting trick into dozens of felony convictions, he was reelected President of the US. What do all those cases have in common? It’s not just a matter of political incumbents persecuting their political opponents. The same tale about “protecting democracy” was used in all of them for a reason. Those who support the accusers really believe that t...