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The Mainstream Against Democracy

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Posted By: Moritz55, 12/21/2023 11:22:55 AM

Mainstream parties could have responded in one of two ways to the populist wave that began to sweep through developed nations on both sides of the Atlantic in the mid-2010s. They could either offer attractive policy alternatives that answered ordinary people’s anxieties and rallied them away from populist movements like Trump and Brexit, or they could try to use underhanded lawfare strategies to undo populist ballot-box victories. They overwhelmingly picked the latter course of action. They called it “defending democracy.”

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Reply 1 - Posted by: J. Arthur Brown 12/21/2023 12:19:58 PM (No. 1621730)
An excellent article overall but his discussion of Biden and China is disappointing. Biden's attempt to "transition" America from energy sources it has in abundance to energy sources largely under Chinese control (i.e., from an economy based on energy independence to an economy firmly under China's bootheel) is far more fateful for America an its working class than his inaction on tariffs.
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Reply 2 - Posted by: bpl40 12/21/2023 1:25:20 PM (No. 1621794)
What would things have looked like if mainstream parties had sought to accommodate populist voters? Well, for one Donald Trump would be contentedly playing golf at Mar-A-Lago. He doesn’t need this s***.
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Reply 3 - Posted by: DVC 12/21/2023 2:00:02 PM (No. 1621815)
The author gets a lot correct, but in the last few sentences goes off the rails a good bit with his urging that Republicans must "tilt left on wages and job security, social insurance, and health care". Nothing destroys a free market as effectively as 'tilting left on wages and job security' and the FREE market is the only thing that has brought any prosperity to the world in the last 300 years or so. To whatever degree we interfere with free market principles.....we cripple and hobble the engine of prosperity. Perhaps not quite killing the goose that laid the golden egg by ensuring that future eggs will be smaller and fewer. And I have no idea who this author is, and his name sounds like he may come from India, where leftism has crippled that country ensuring that they cannot fulfill their tremendous potential. If he learned his "tilt left" there for economic issues - he learned from an economy hobbled by leftism for it's entire existence.
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Mainstream parties could have responded in one of two ways to the populist wave that began to sweep through developed nations on both sides of the Atlantic in the mid-2010s. They could either offer attractive policy alternatives that answered ordinary people’s anxieties and rallied them away from populist movements like Trump and Brexit, or they could try to use underhanded lawfare strategies to undo populist ballot-box victories. They overwhelmingly picked the latter course of action. They called it “defending democracy.”
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