'Rona, Western decline, liberalism, fake science -- this piece had it all!
The laws of hydraulics are broken. Donald Trump’s approval ratings have dropped to second-term lows yet the Democratic party’s have fallen even further. They ought to be soaring.
No Western liberal party polls well (except Canada, which defies logic...): right (Farage, Le Pen, Meloni, etc) running the show -- by electoral popularity, if not actual mafioso power.
"That there are multiple causes of western liberalism’s malaise makes it harder to fix."
Long after Taylor Swift hits retirement age, Democrats will still be arguing over whether Joe Biden was too old to run, or too selfish to step down sooner. They might also still be debating whether the left is too woke or not woke enough. Can the left in office do more to improve the economy for the blue-collar classes? Does immigration enrich society or further squeeze the working class? Should there be a wealth tax? Is Israel committing war crimes? Such questions reliably divide.
TWO big problems for the left:
- lack of conviction: they are meagre and boring and pathetic, at least next to the above-mentioned characters. They (maybe rightfully) complain a lot about these peeps, but "making the negative case is not enough"
- Intolerance: "American liberals were at their worst during the pandemic."
Read that sentence again. A few short years after madness, columninsts at the FT itself is happy to state the obvious: American liberals lost their minimal-remaining wits during 'rona, absolving themselves for all and any kind of respectability for a generation. Good riddance; leftism and wokeness is a mental disorder.
One day, it seemed, Dr Anthony Fauci was telling America that masks were not essential. The next, Rochelle Walensky, then head of the Centers for Disease Control was insisting that two-year-olds should be masked all day. Anyone entertaining the theory that the virus might have come from a Wuhan lab was dismissed as Sinophobic or worse. In December 2020, when vaccines became available, the Chicago Teachers Union tweeted, “The push to reopen schools is rooted in sexism, racism, and misogyny.”
Everyone could agree back then that otherwise liberal Sweden was foolish to take the herd immunity route. That Sweden ended up with one of the lowest mortality rates in Europe has not been similarly highlighted. Covid is not ancient history. Any survey probing why so many young voters are turning right that excludes their pandemic experience is wasting time. The road to recovery starts with looking in the mirror.
First, not everyone: some of us saw this all along (here, here, or here) -- even at times celebrating Sweden.
Second, Not seeing it in hindsight is another form of delusion and mental disorder. GROW THE FCK UP.
"Liberals said, 'Follow the science', which confused science with faith."
fuck liberals:
Science is a trial and error process that only works with openness to dissent. The same applies to political debate on campus, within newspapers, at think-tanks and society at large.
The good news is that liberalism has rebounded before after losing self-belief. The bad news is that it took a genocidal second world war to rediscover its necessity. Hoping that humanity is on a learning curve is not a strategy. The positive case for liberal democracy in today’s world is still waiting to be heard.
INCREDIBLE
Excellent piece of writing by Mr. Luce.
archived here: https://archive.md/h2j97