PODCAST: "Hexapodia" is þe Key Insight XXXII: Þe “Rule & Ruin” of America’s Republican Party, & Other Topics

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Key Insights:

1. We may well face a generation of right-wing culture war-fueled minority rule in this country.

2. American Progressives have proven bad at making alliances with moderate conservatives—and at giving conservative voters reasons to vote for moderates.

3. Worry most about American national decline—which is happening anyway.

4. American exceptionalism and America as a “city upon a hill” for the world—that is gone. We are no longer a model to emulate, but a horrible warning of a society gone wrong.

5. The things that are real to progressives are fake: democracy is not going to be destroyed by the failure to pass the John Lewis voting rights act, but by state legislature-level nullification

6. The thngs that are real to Republicans are fake: what is being taught to students is not “critical race theory” but simply “history”, vaccines are not a plot to control us, and the 2020 election was not stolen.

7. The Republican bullshit is more egregious, but progressive bullshit is still bullshit. The saying both sides have bullshit does not mean they are equivalent.

8. The best we can hope for is simple exhaustion on both sides.

9. But every time we try to get out, they pull us back in.

10. Hexapodia!

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References:

• Geoffrey Kabaservice: Rule & Ruin: the Downfall of Moderation & the destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party <https://archive.org/details/ruleruindownfall0000kaba>

• Geoffrey Kabaservice: The Forever Grievance <https://www.niskanencenter.org/op-ed-the-forever-grievance/>

• Geoffrey Kabaservice: Vital Center Podcast <https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-vital-center-podcast/>

• Steve Levitzky & Dan Ziblatt: How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future <https://archive.org/details/HowDemocraciesDieStevenLevitsky>

• William F. Buckley: God & Man at Yale: The Superstitions of Academic Freedom <https://archive.org/details/godmanatyale0000unse>

• William F. Buckley & L. Brent Bozell: McCarthy & His Enemies: The Record & Its Meaning <https://archive.org/details/mccarthyhisenemi00buck>

• Rick Perlstein: Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater & the Unmaking of the American Consensus <https://archive.org/details/beforestormbarry0000perl_k0s0>

• Dwight D. Eisenhower: 1954 Letter to Edgar N. Eisenhower <https://www.bradford-delong.com/2019/07/dwight-d-eisenhower-1954-letter-to-edgar-newton-eisenhower-weekend-reading.html>

+, of course:

• Vernor Vinge: A Fire Upon the Deep <https://books.google.com/books?id=fCCWWgZ7d6UC>

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