TLP Weekend Edition (December 14-15, 2024)
What we're reading and checking out.
📖 “Rebel Yell: Parts 1 and 2,” by Walter Russell Mead. How did the GOP wind up in Trump land? In Tablet, Mead takes the story back to the post-Civil War era and forward to the present day. Debatable but provocative and interesting!
The Reagan Republican old guard never understood the complex political cultures of the Southern ex-Democrats and the ethnic Reagan Republicans of the blue-collar Rust Belt. At least since the time of the Civil War, Jacksonian populists have felt deeply alienated from an intrusive and powerful national establishment. The specter of a deranged wokitarian government aligned with the dominant media, the great universities, and enforced through the HR policies of “woke corporations” and “woke generals” is exactly the kind of thing that, historically, has triggered waves of popular and populist rebellion, particularly but not exclusively among Jacksonians. It is a fear in Anglo-American culture that dates to the Reformation: a satanic conspiracy aimed at destroying freedom, reducing people to servitude, disarming them, and delivering them over to the ruthless designs of an internationalist elite.
This fear and the demand that politicians do something about it helped break the trust between the populist and progressive wings of the Southern Republican Party, and it was not only in the South that the angry reaction to radical wokitarianism gathered force. That reaction is one of the principal sources of fuel for the Trump movement, and no American politician understands better or more intuitively how to exploit its possibilities than our new president-elect.
📊 “The Largest Immigration Surge in U.S. History: We explain the scale of recent immigration to America,” by David Leonhardt. In The New York Times, Leonhardt and his colleagues lay out seven key data points showing how the U.S. in recent years experienced a surge of immigration (both legal and illegal) “slightly larger than that during the peak years of Ellis Island traffic, when millions of Europeans came to the United States.”
If you’re still wondering how Donald Trump won the election, Leonhardt and Co. remind us: “President Biden’s welcoming immigration policy has been the main reason for the recent surge. During his 2020 campaign, Biden encouraged more people to come to the U.S., and he loosened several policies after taking office.”
📚 Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop, by Lee Drutman. Last fall, Gallup released the results of a poll showing that nearly two-thirds of Americans wanted a viable third political party, the highest share on record and a glaring sign of voters' dissatisfaction with their political system. In this 2020 book, political scientist Lee Drutman traces how we got to this point of political stasis and frustration and what the consequences have been. He describes how we have fallen into a "two-party doom loop," which often feels impossible to get out of. Here's a picture of how it works:
Drutman also outlines several ideas for how to reform America's election laws to create more options for voters and a more representative system of government.
📺 “Carville: Winning is Everything, Stupid,” on Max. An excellent new documentary on Max and other streaming services lays out the life and political ideas of James Carville, the “Ragin’ Cajun” and probably the most famous political consultant of all time. The movie traces Carville’s family history in small-town Louisiana, his stints in the Marine Corps and at LSU, his late-in-life political success, and, of course, his biggest win running the famous “War Room” during Bill Clinton’s historic 1992 presidential campaign. The contemporary storyline centers on Carville’s prescient but unwelcome call for Joe Biden to step aside well before he finally made the decision to do so this past July. The documentary includes interesting interviews with Carville’s wife Mary Matalin and his old pals George Stephanopoulos, Paul Begala, Mandy Grunwald, and even former president Clinton.
🎸 Music From The Unrealized Film Script: Dusk At Cubist Castle, by The Olivia Tremor Control. Sadly, Will Cullen Hart, the co-founder of both OTC and the great Elephant 6 Recording Co., recently passed away at the age of 53 from a heart attack. This 1996 gem is one of the best psychedelic pop albums from the glory days of indie rock. Favorite track: “Memories of Jacqueline 1906.” RIP Will.
My all time favorite radio stations are in Fairbanks,, Alaska and Jackson, Mississippi.
Walter Russell Mead article was amazingly accurate. Thanks for sharing.