Trends in dynamic systems don't proceed in straight lines, though over short time horizons, they may appear to be that way. But it doesn't take a long journey back through history to see that things that look ascendant over a period of years in the past end up in decline, and things in decline end up ascending. It's not to say that this is always the case, but I would look more closely at past dynamics to see what early signs there were of counter-balancing trends. For example, while it may be true that millenials are trending progressive, zoomers are showing signs of a swing toward conservativism. That may be because millenials have grandparents who said racists things, but zoomers do not. For zoomers, racism is abstract and hypothetical. But they see rise (and shocking justification of) crime and disorder, and a breakdown of social trust. To them and their predecessors, anti-racism may feel bizarre, stodgy, and inadequate to address the needs of the time, and they find themselves open to other approaches. If things get worse relative to the past, it would not be surprising at all if they look to resurrect ideas from the past to try to recreate some of those past conditions.
The only way recent trends will be permanent is if they actually result in a better society, and if there's one thing that people seem to agree on these days, it's that things are getting worse. Whatever emerges, it won't be the same as the ruling class today. Their days are dwindling as fast as their failures are mounting.
I'm increasingly convinced this is all just Trump, and will end with him. Which should be pretty soon, as he's 77, losing a step, and in legal trouble.
He led a revolt of the Republican base against the Republican elite and was hugely successful, to the extent that the public brand of the party now entirely reflects the formerly neglected priorities of the base. Most educated professionals - me included - find those priorities extremely unpalatable, hence the realignment covered in the article.
But, it's going to be temporary. It's becoming increasingly clear that Trump is a one-off, as other politicians attempt to replicate his appeal and keep flopping. See the 22 midterms and the Desantis and Ramaswamy campaigns. Likewise, intellectual efforts to market the Trump base's priorities to the educated class are completely falling flat.
So what happens next is that Trump exits stage left, the base revolt gets bored and wanders off without its evidently irreplaceable frontman, and the former Republican elite's priorities creep back in. Those priorities - free markets, American strength in foreign policy, limited government and pro-business policy, etc. - are much more appealing to educated professionals. They will return to the party.
As evidence this will happen, consider the speaker of the house fracas. Even with Trump very much still on-stage, the revolt commanded fewer than half the votes in the house, couldn't even get their candidate nominated until third try (after McCarthy and Scalise) and then couldn't get him confirmed. When push comes to shove, they're already a minority within the party. When Trump goes, they go too.
conservatives are not underrepresented in power because they have no appeal to intelligent people.
They are underrepresented because it is ILLEGAL to allow a right-winger, or increasingly just a white straight heterosexual male to be in power in any university, corporation, or government department.
This is an explicit declared race war by the regime against the established Native population of America and Europe. Outlawing discrimination against the unintelligent, poor-working, and depraved is to MANDATE discrimination against the intelligent, hard-working, and moral.
Right-wingers are not represented in a hostile occupying government that have explicitly declared them racial enemies to be exterminated... WOW, who would have guessed?
"The youth is not following the pattern of becoming more conservative over time"
But seriously, why would they? What's the platform of the republican party? What they have to offer to the youth besides sound bites they don't even honor? People used to turn conservative because they wanted to keep a status quo that benefited them. The current status quo is instead crushing the youth. Crippling medical/educational debt, unaffordable housing, stagnant wages, climate change, gun violence. What policies does the GOP have to address this? None, in fact the opposite, that exacerbate the problems even more (anti union policies, for example). Besides some relative popular position with policing and immigration, they decide to double down on clearly loosing positions, specially anti abortion, anti Marijuana and voter suppression. In Ohio, the voters had to invoke a referendum to enact this policies and the GOP instead tried to raise the percentage threshold to pass them, trying to block this policies that "the people" clearly wanted. What do they say to justify this? "We are a republic" as an excuse to directly and unapologetically go against "the people". "We are a republic" is the new "state's rights" to ignore the "democratic" part of the republic. They don't even honor their "small government" mantra, they bail out multi billion dollar monopolies and do nothing to protect small bussiness, academic freedom or free speech, specially against arbitrary big tech or institutional decisions (censorship, discriminatory affirmative action and unfair competition). In fact, the "big government" of the European Union does more to protect small bussiness and real diversity in opinion than the GOP (GDPR and DSA laws). Cultural wars (except, and mostly abortion and free speech) do nothing for the everyday life of the average citizen. They could adopt popular positions like protecting consumer's rights and privacy, but they won't, because they clearly support mass surveillance. It's depressing to see that the only topics both parties agrees is to erode individual rights even more. They need to burn down, so a Fenix can come out of that current directionless headless chicken. The GOP need to adopt a more European approach to conservatism, because the "free market" and laissez faire don't work, specially if you don't protect worker's rights and enforce fair competition.
I accidentally deleted an 800 word comment on this topic, but suffice it to say that I agree with your analysis, and it depresses me. I don’t think there are more than 4 college campuses in the country that are predominantly right-leaning, and I am not naive enough to think that this bodes well for the future of our political system writ large. The young generations of upcoming professionals are a monoculture – politically, ideologically, philosophically.
"My law school is not overwhelmingly progressive because the Powers That Be want it to be progressive. It's overwhelmingly progressive because progressives showed up. "
Let me know how the job market treats them. Just because the supply of social activists goes up doesn't meant that the demand will follow.
I think you underestimate what can be accomplished by a very small ideological minority.
The media is a case in point. Sure, 98% of journalism degrees go to Democrats. But going outside the system, the conservative social media ecosystem is vibrant and starting to rival legacy outlets in influence. Despite lack of credentialed talent. The same can happen in other fields over time.
Too much of bread-and-butter governing is simply anathema to conservative voters. For a country to work, it has to be funded. Laws have to be passed. If every Republican in high office fears electoral retribution for funding or passing *anything*, it's hard to build a party with the institutional memory required to run things.
I'm reading this a little later than when it was posted, so forgive the late comment. I wanted to mention how insightful I found this essay. It is certainly something I would like to see explored in further depth in the future. The idea that conservative elections and conservative governmental "breadth" (what I'm calling it as a nickname) are diverging in their operational abilities can explain a lot of what is going on with the GOP today. Thanks for this enlightening take on the matter.
He calls you “Trace Underwood,” which sounds rather distinguished even if I’m pretty sure it’s not a pseudonym you’ve ever used. I’m not a paid subscriber, so I can’t see his whole argument, but above the paywall he’s not wrong about some of the ways the Republican Party is responding to the problem that you describe. Where such attempts will eventually lead is harder to say, though, or so I would think, not having read the whole argument.
Late to this, but I think there's an elephant in the room that's not being discussed. WHY are these people so progressive? What are the social and cultural pressures that lead to people adopting a given political stance? Children aren't cold, rational creatures; if everyone under 18 is a progressive there's a reason for that. And so any change will likely have to begin with a change in culture or indoctrination.
Trends in dynamic systems don't proceed in straight lines, though over short time horizons, they may appear to be that way. But it doesn't take a long journey back through history to see that things that look ascendant over a period of years in the past end up in decline, and things in decline end up ascending. It's not to say that this is always the case, but I would look more closely at past dynamics to see what early signs there were of counter-balancing trends. For example, while it may be true that millenials are trending progressive, zoomers are showing signs of a swing toward conservativism. That may be because millenials have grandparents who said racists things, but zoomers do not. For zoomers, racism is abstract and hypothetical. But they see rise (and shocking justification of) crime and disorder, and a breakdown of social trust. To them and their predecessors, anti-racism may feel bizarre, stodgy, and inadequate to address the needs of the time, and they find themselves open to other approaches. If things get worse relative to the past, it would not be surprising at all if they look to resurrect ideas from the past to try to recreate some of those past conditions.
The only way recent trends will be permanent is if they actually result in a better society, and if there's one thing that people seem to agree on these days, it's that things are getting worse. Whatever emerges, it won't be the same as the ruling class today. Their days are dwindling as fast as their failures are mounting.
I'm increasingly convinced this is all just Trump, and will end with him. Which should be pretty soon, as he's 77, losing a step, and in legal trouble.
He led a revolt of the Republican base against the Republican elite and was hugely successful, to the extent that the public brand of the party now entirely reflects the formerly neglected priorities of the base. Most educated professionals - me included - find those priorities extremely unpalatable, hence the realignment covered in the article.
But, it's going to be temporary. It's becoming increasingly clear that Trump is a one-off, as other politicians attempt to replicate his appeal and keep flopping. See the 22 midterms and the Desantis and Ramaswamy campaigns. Likewise, intellectual efforts to market the Trump base's priorities to the educated class are completely falling flat.
So what happens next is that Trump exits stage left, the base revolt gets bored and wanders off without its evidently irreplaceable frontman, and the former Republican elite's priorities creep back in. Those priorities - free markets, American strength in foreign policy, limited government and pro-business policy, etc. - are much more appealing to educated professionals. They will return to the party.
As evidence this will happen, consider the speaker of the house fracas. Even with Trump very much still on-stage, the revolt commanded fewer than half the votes in the house, couldn't even get their candidate nominated until third try (after McCarthy and Scalise) and then couldn't get him confirmed. When push comes to shove, they're already a minority within the party. When Trump goes, they go too.
Ctrl F:
"Antidiscrimination" 0/0. "1964" 0/0. "Civil Rights" 0/0. "Hostile work environment" 0/0. "Dear colleagues letter" 0/0. "Human Resources" 0/0. "Equity Statement" 0/0. "Affirmative Action" 0/0.
conservatives are not underrepresented in power because they have no appeal to intelligent people.
They are underrepresented because it is ILLEGAL to allow a right-winger, or increasingly just a white straight heterosexual male to be in power in any university, corporation, or government department.
This is an explicit declared race war by the regime against the established Native population of America and Europe. Outlawing discrimination against the unintelligent, poor-working, and depraved is to MANDATE discrimination against the intelligent, hard-working, and moral.
Right-wingers are not represented in a hostile occupying government that have explicitly declared them racial enemies to be exterminated... WOW, who would have guessed?
"The youth is not following the pattern of becoming more conservative over time"
But seriously, why would they? What's the platform of the republican party? What they have to offer to the youth besides sound bites they don't even honor? People used to turn conservative because they wanted to keep a status quo that benefited them. The current status quo is instead crushing the youth. Crippling medical/educational debt, unaffordable housing, stagnant wages, climate change, gun violence. What policies does the GOP have to address this? None, in fact the opposite, that exacerbate the problems even more (anti union policies, for example). Besides some relative popular position with policing and immigration, they decide to double down on clearly loosing positions, specially anti abortion, anti Marijuana and voter suppression. In Ohio, the voters had to invoke a referendum to enact this policies and the GOP instead tried to raise the percentage threshold to pass them, trying to block this policies that "the people" clearly wanted. What do they say to justify this? "We are a republic" as an excuse to directly and unapologetically go against "the people". "We are a republic" is the new "state's rights" to ignore the "democratic" part of the republic. They don't even honor their "small government" mantra, they bail out multi billion dollar monopolies and do nothing to protect small bussiness, academic freedom or free speech, specially against arbitrary big tech or institutional decisions (censorship, discriminatory affirmative action and unfair competition). In fact, the "big government" of the European Union does more to protect small bussiness and real diversity in opinion than the GOP (GDPR and DSA laws). Cultural wars (except, and mostly abortion and free speech) do nothing for the everyday life of the average citizen. They could adopt popular positions like protecting consumer's rights and privacy, but they won't, because they clearly support mass surveillance. It's depressing to see that the only topics both parties agrees is to erode individual rights even more. They need to burn down, so a Fenix can come out of that current directionless headless chicken. The GOP need to adopt a more European approach to conservatism, because the "free market" and laissez faire don't work, specially if you don't protect worker's rights and enforce fair competition.
I accidentally deleted an 800 word comment on this topic, but suffice it to say that I agree with your analysis, and it depresses me. I don’t think there are more than 4 college campuses in the country that are predominantly right-leaning, and I am not naive enough to think that this bodes well for the future of our political system writ large. The young generations of upcoming professionals are a monoculture – politically, ideologically, philosophically.
"My law school is not overwhelmingly progressive because the Powers That Be want it to be progressive. It's overwhelmingly progressive because progressives showed up. "
Let me know how the job market treats them. Just because the supply of social activists goes up doesn't meant that the demand will follow.
I think you underestimate what can be accomplished by a very small ideological minority.
The media is a case in point. Sure, 98% of journalism degrees go to Democrats. But going outside the system, the conservative social media ecosystem is vibrant and starting to rival legacy outlets in influence. Despite lack of credentialed talent. The same can happen in other fields over time.
This theory leaves no room for the impact of policy failures. The future could cause serious whiplash and I'm not so sure the country has finished processing COVID. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4319127-rfk-jr-leads-2024-candidates-in-favorability-poll/
Not a rhetorical question - where is the intellectual energy on the progressive left now? Who are the up and coming figures or movements?
The right and liberal centrists seemed to have possessed most of the intellectual and creative energy over the past decade.
Good article. I agree with everything you said.
Nicely done. Thanks for moving this to Substack, Trace.
Too much of bread-and-butter governing is simply anathema to conservative voters. For a country to work, it has to be funded. Laws have to be passed. If every Republican in high office fears electoral retribution for funding or passing *anything*, it's hard to build a party with the institutional memory required to run things.
I'm reading this a little later than when it was posted, so forgive the late comment. I wanted to mention how insightful I found this essay. It is certainly something I would like to see explored in further depth in the future. The idea that conservative elections and conservative governmental "breadth" (what I'm calling it as a nickname) are diverging in their operational abilities can explain a lot of what is going on with the GOP today. Thanks for this enlightening take on the matter.
Congratulations on attracting the attention of The Bulwark! Not sure if you saw, but Jonathan V. Last has a piece replying to this post up today: https://open.substack.com/pub/thebulwark/p/the-republican-party-isnt-doomed
He calls you “Trace Underwood,” which sounds rather distinguished even if I’m pretty sure it’s not a pseudonym you’ve ever used. I’m not a paid subscriber, so I can’t see his whole argument, but above the paywall he’s not wrong about some of the ways the Republican Party is responding to the problem that you describe. Where such attempts will eventually lead is harder to say, though, or so I would think, not having read the whole argument.
Late to this, but I think there's an elephant in the room that's not being discussed. WHY are these people so progressive? What are the social and cultural pressures that lead to people adopting a given political stance? Children aren't cold, rational creatures; if everyone under 18 is a progressive there's a reason for that. And so any change will likely have to begin with a change in culture or indoctrination.
This is great analysis, thank you.