Hits home but misses big on the business and economic drivers.
* low interest rates - bid up nearly all asset prices, but especially primary homes, mostly to the benefit of 401k and home owners who rely on those prices going up for their retirement
* financialization and globalization dogma killed GE as much as ‘MBA mismanagement.’
* tax cuts in the 2000s feel more like reactions to 9/11 + related national fear and dotcom crash than a ‘waste’ and led to massive corporate profits that potentially helped establish the supremacy in tech that wasn’t necessarily guaranteed.
The hangovers of those economic policies, more than anything else, I think is probably driving the current friction in conservatism.
A lot of people out of the financialization system have really been left behind and an increasing number can’t afford to pay the bid up asset prices in competitive markets.
And no one, in particular the later generation who depend on these asset prices remaining high, have interest in letting the market do the work. Panics and crashes ‘destroy’ massive amounts of value.
So then how to speak to a new conservative coalition?
Yep..this is an excellent comment that capture both why the old paradigm isn't working well for people who don't own lots of assets but works so well for people who do own lots of stocks, bonds, pricey coastal real estate that the system has been unusually slow to shift away from the neoliberal paradigm.
Excellent column, Oren, as always. My oldest child was born in 1984, so you know about where I fall on the spectrum.
Times change, conditions change, context changes, and we have to change with it. We get better through continuous improvement, by adapting and adjusting. There’s a saying in business that if you’re not moving forward then you’re going backward. Stasis is not an option.
William F. Buckley, Jr. and Ronald Reagan were giants, in their time. In their time. But it’s time to move on. It’s good to honor them, but it does no one any good to worship them.
I have argued elsewhere that WFB is and always has been the problem with conservatism. Standing athwart history and yelling Stop is exactly the wrong message. Following this advice is giving the future to the Left and enabling the ratchet.
Here’s an “old guard” dude pining for a new vision from the right. I agree wholeheartedly that the movement is moribund. My only quibble is the negativity that permeates your worldview, every generation faces hardship and challenges. But if the “new right” is represented by JD and Josh, count me out. Like the WSJ ed board, their continued rationalizations of Don Trump means they have forfeited their right to be taken seriously. Their capitulation has been complete, and disqualifying. Until the right repudiates the blatant racism, violence, mean spiritedness, lying, and attacks on our most precious institutions, count me out. Don’s election denialism and attacks on our electoral institutions are the worst acts ever committed by a US president. Without the peaceful transfer of power, all the white papers may as well be toilet paper. Is it any wonder that there is a large and growing education divide between the parties? Who wants to hang out with those creeps?
Trump only arose because the movement was moribund and enough voters wanted something new, while all the other candidates in 2016 were still trying to sound like Ronald Reagan.
I too wish reform conservatives had a better more reliable, honest, ethical, articulate standard bearer who was interested less in personal graft and more in actually solving problems, but for the time being we're stuck with Trump.
The New Right senators embraced Trump's more irrational affects in their desire to acquire part of his coalition. It's merely a political move to align themselves as the replacement for Trump. We'll see how it goes. Could have been good for Republican primaries, not so good for general elections. We don't know yet.
I read Oren Cass pieces and think: “Wow, what a reasonable, thoughtful guy who is proposing a different way forward for conservatives.” Then I look at the vehicles through which the message is being delivered (e.g., Vance, Hawley) and it’s just befuddling. These guys are obviously smart (all Yale and Harvard JDs), but I just can’t square the circle. What is the political “secret sauce” of alienating moderates through unnecessarily histrionic statements? They already have the base, right?
I hit reply to demur at Hawley and Vance, only to discover that Mr. Barron had already sounded that alarm. Surely a movement gives promise of integrity can discern voices of character to proclaim its virtues, else the stillborn will lie down with the moribund.
Norquist is a libertarian used for the purpose of continuing the neoliberal agenda. It beat the Russians and won the cold war. However, as the youngins born after 1980 see it. What has it done for them? nada as they see it and i feel they are correct. For all of the reasons stated so well in this article. The elites are just running their paradigm which has to be changed, concur. When everything is run from the ground up there is no game plan. Everyone is just running into each other. Which is very beneficial to a lot of people making money, crazy money.
Neoliberals are like the football team that is getting crazy scored on, getting killed. They go into the half time and come out and play the same defensive schemes? What? wait guys that didn't work the first half and you come back out with the same ole tired ass gameplan? what? that's called stupid.
There is a reason so many members of his own administration have spoken out and said he’s not fit to hold the office. Read Mark Milley’s account of the lengths they went to in dealing with him on nuclear related issues, it’s harrowing. For that matter, read JD’s own comments about Don, at least those before he capitulated and self-gelded. America’s Hitler, cultural heroin, etc. The man incited an armed insurrection against the United States government. Any honest account of his reign showed him to be ignorant, racist, violent, and utterly disrespectful of our critical institutions. To reduce the decision facing us to one of mere economic policy is to turn a blind eye to what is really at stake. We can fix bad policy, we cannot recover our republic if it is lost. There was a time the right believed that character mattered above all. No one would hire this man to be a school superintendent, to run a public company, or even run the local Arby’s. Why the hell would we give him the nuclear codes?
Ok I give. The video/audio was fake. Besides, who doesn’t like to play a few harmless jokes by bludgening cops with Trump flagpoles, parading through the rotunda with confederate flags, and defecating on a national shrine? What a fun and playful day. I think my favorite is the video of Josh Hawley sprinting down the hallway away from the insurrectionists. Josh must of been watching CNN…or maybe he wasn’t in on the “joke”? Let’s hope Harris supporters have more character, class and decency if she loses.
I’d vote for a canned ham over Don. Read the words he currently speaks every day, they make his bleach ingestion comment appear normal. Read the actual statements of the generals who served him when they describe the danger he represents. He’s a diminished, dangerous old man, not a vessel of reform. Country over party.
They are the generals Don himself hired. Don has repeatedly belittled and degraded our men and women in uniform. As with his depravity more generally, we then discover who among us will stoop to join him. It’s profoundly sad to watch.
Read the actual statements released by Don’s former staff, the staff that Don hired, not the media accounts. Read the actual words spoken about Don by JD prior to his self-gelding. Ponder the actual words that Don speaks and posts daily. Admit that just a few days ago, JD sat for a town hall meeting with the far right Christian nationalist Lance Wallnau (look that kook up on your own). Blaming the media is a shopworn tactic, but since you brought it up, which network was it that was found liable for $787.5 million for parroting Don’s election lies? Then ask yourself if these are the leaders you want leading a new conservative movement, and whether you want your grandchildren to emulate them…
While I applaud Cass's support of protective tariffs and opposition to mass low-skilled immigration and his embrace of the interests of ordinary working- and middle-class American families more generally, I still believe that this new social movement he is trying to birth is in need of something less abstract in the way of a political program: something concrete that will appeal to the imagination of a new generation of social activists across America who are hungry for a meaningful vision of what America's future can and should look like, which they can invest their lives in.
I hope you don’t let Williamson over at The Dispatch push you around like he did today. I’m on your side of the tariff question. Please take a swing at him. Thank you!
I tend to not like generational analysis since generations are big things with lots of intellectual diversity. You managed to do it without demonizing either Boomers or Millennials so I agree with your point about people being stuck in the past when things have changed. As an old guy who has changed my positions many times as new evidence has emerged, I am in full support of the New Right. What we have been doing is clearly not working.
Nice piece. I subscribed because as a lefty I was looking for thoughtful comments from the right. I hold that it is axiomatic that to endure a democracy must have thoughtful discussion between at least two opposing views. In our current period of chaos, I have not found many others on the right that are engaging in such essential discussion.
PS. Current campaign dog-eat-dog rhetoric aside, JD Vance as a constructive politician? Really?
Vance (and Hawley) are willing to work with leftists like Elizabeth Warren on issues where the anti-establishment factions of both Left and Right align. Case in point is the legislation to claw back bonuses from the executives of banks that failed. Campaign rhetoric aside, it is the establishment that hates all of them.
Clinton co-opted Reaganomics and mainstream Dems have followed suit ever since. At a high level, the mainstream economic policies of both parties value assets and capital gains over the earned income. The predictable result is over a generation's worth of economic stagflation. Neither party is pushing worker-focused parties. As a "left-leaning" libertarian it is difficult to understand how supporting workers will somehow become a conservative priority. But I expect Mr. Cass and his followers think the same thing about liberals, who focus discussions and, to a lesser degree, spending, on a growing class of people dependent on government handouts. The true paradigm shift will come when both parties dump Reaganomics. But increasing the earned income's share of the economy will never be popular with big money. If we don't figure it out, those of us born in the 80's may experience the collapse of the empire before retirement.
My right wing friends are numerous. I ask, Trump? really? they say who else do i have Biden? No way! Trump is all we have?! sucks but he is it.
Democrats and Republicans never did mentor any new blood over the last 40 years. These old hacks just kept it all for themselves. So we have all these old rich old old politicians still running their game.
There was one, Hillary. She was mentoring? or using Obama? whom she met in Chicago where they were learning to street organize at ACORN. That didn't work out so well, he zoomed past her to get the presidency! lol BUT if your a true mentor and that happens you SHOULD be happy for them, right? Oh well?
Hits home but misses big on the business and economic drivers.
* low interest rates - bid up nearly all asset prices, but especially primary homes, mostly to the benefit of 401k and home owners who rely on those prices going up for their retirement
* financialization and globalization dogma killed GE as much as ‘MBA mismanagement.’
* tax cuts in the 2000s feel more like reactions to 9/11 + related national fear and dotcom crash than a ‘waste’ and led to massive corporate profits that potentially helped establish the supremacy in tech that wasn’t necessarily guaranteed.
The hangovers of those economic policies, more than anything else, I think is probably driving the current friction in conservatism.
A lot of people out of the financialization system have really been left behind and an increasing number can’t afford to pay the bid up asset prices in competitive markets.
And no one, in particular the later generation who depend on these asset prices remaining high, have interest in letting the market do the work. Panics and crashes ‘destroy’ massive amounts of value.
So then how to speak to a new conservative coalition?
Yep..this is an excellent comment that capture both why the old paradigm isn't working well for people who don't own lots of assets but works so well for people who do own lots of stocks, bonds, pricey coastal real estate that the system has been unusually slow to shift away from the neoliberal paradigm.
Excellent column, Oren, as always. My oldest child was born in 1984, so you know about where I fall on the spectrum.
Times change, conditions change, context changes, and we have to change with it. We get better through continuous improvement, by adapting and adjusting. There’s a saying in business that if you’re not moving forward then you’re going backward. Stasis is not an option.
William F. Buckley, Jr. and Ronald Reagan were giants, in their time. In their time. But it’s time to move on. It’s good to honor them, but it does no one any good to worship them.
I have argued elsewhere that WFB is and always has been the problem with conservatism. Standing athwart history and yelling Stop is exactly the wrong message. Following this advice is giving the future to the Left and enabling the ratchet.
Yes, while that famous quote of his was somewhat taken out of context, the fact that it is easily misinterpreted makes the outcome the same.
He is deified in some circles, which is too much for me. His time was a long time ago.
Here’s an “old guard” dude pining for a new vision from the right. I agree wholeheartedly that the movement is moribund. My only quibble is the negativity that permeates your worldview, every generation faces hardship and challenges. But if the “new right” is represented by JD and Josh, count me out. Like the WSJ ed board, their continued rationalizations of Don Trump means they have forfeited their right to be taken seriously. Their capitulation has been complete, and disqualifying. Until the right repudiates the blatant racism, violence, mean spiritedness, lying, and attacks on our most precious institutions, count me out. Don’s election denialism and attacks on our electoral institutions are the worst acts ever committed by a US president. Without the peaceful transfer of power, all the white papers may as well be toilet paper. Is it any wonder that there is a large and growing education divide between the parties? Who wants to hang out with those creeps?
Trump only arose because the movement was moribund and enough voters wanted something new, while all the other candidates in 2016 were still trying to sound like Ronald Reagan.
I too wish reform conservatives had a better more reliable, honest, ethical, articulate standard bearer who was interested less in personal graft and more in actually solving problems, but for the time being we're stuck with Trump.
VERY WELL SAID. AGREE 100%
The New Right senators embraced Trump's more irrational affects in their desire to acquire part of his coalition. It's merely a political move to align themselves as the replacement for Trump. We'll see how it goes. Could have been good for Republican primaries, not so good for general elections. We don't know yet.
Totally baffling to me as well.
I read Oren Cass pieces and think: “Wow, what a reasonable, thoughtful guy who is proposing a different way forward for conservatives.” Then I look at the vehicles through which the message is being delivered (e.g., Vance, Hawley) and it’s just befuddling. These guys are obviously smart (all Yale and Harvard JDs), but I just can’t square the circle. What is the political “secret sauce” of alienating moderates through unnecessarily histrionic statements? They already have the base, right?
I hit reply to demur at Hawley and Vance, only to discover that Mr. Barron had already sounded that alarm. Surely a movement gives promise of integrity can discern voices of character to proclaim its virtues, else the stillborn will lie down with the moribund.
Norquist is a libertarian used for the purpose of continuing the neoliberal agenda. It beat the Russians and won the cold war. However, as the youngins born after 1980 see it. What has it done for them? nada as they see it and i feel they are correct. For all of the reasons stated so well in this article. The elites are just running their paradigm which has to be changed, concur. When everything is run from the ground up there is no game plan. Everyone is just running into each other. Which is very beneficial to a lot of people making money, crazy money.
Neoliberals are like the football team that is getting crazy scored on, getting killed. They go into the half time and come out and play the same defensive schemes? What? wait guys that didn't work the first half and you come back out with the same ole tired ass gameplan? what? that's called stupid.
There is a reason so many members of his own administration have spoken out and said he’s not fit to hold the office. Read Mark Milley’s account of the lengths they went to in dealing with him on nuclear related issues, it’s harrowing. For that matter, read JD’s own comments about Don, at least those before he capitulated and self-gelded. America’s Hitler, cultural heroin, etc. The man incited an armed insurrection against the United States government. Any honest account of his reign showed him to be ignorant, racist, violent, and utterly disrespectful of our critical institutions. To reduce the decision facing us to one of mere economic policy is to turn a blind eye to what is really at stake. We can fix bad policy, we cannot recover our republic if it is lost. There was a time the right believed that character mattered above all. No one would hire this man to be a school superintendent, to run a public company, or even run the local Arby’s. Why the hell would we give him the nuclear codes?
If Trump really incited an armed insurrection, Jan. 6 wouldn't have been the joke it turned out to be. Might want to lay off the CNN and NYT.
Ok I give. The video/audio was fake. Besides, who doesn’t like to play a few harmless jokes by bludgening cops with Trump flagpoles, parading through the rotunda with confederate flags, and defecating on a national shrine? What a fun and playful day. I think my favorite is the video of Josh Hawley sprinting down the hallway away from the insurrectionists. Josh must of been watching CNN…or maybe he wasn’t in on the “joke”? Let’s hope Harris supporters have more character, class and decency if she loses.
So we get Romney, eh.
I’d vote for a canned ham over Don. Read the words he currently speaks every day, they make his bleach ingestion comment appear normal. Read the actual statements of the generals who served him when they describe the danger he represents. He’s a diminished, dangerous old man, not a vessel of reform. Country over party.
Are those the generals who lose all the wars.
They are the generals Don himself hired. Don has repeatedly belittled and degraded our men and women in uniform. As with his depravity more generally, we then discover who among us will stoop to join him. It’s profoundly sad to watch.
It's sad to watch people believing the media after all the lies
Read the actual statements released by Don’s former staff, the staff that Don hired, not the media accounts. Read the actual words spoken about Don by JD prior to his self-gelding. Ponder the actual words that Don speaks and posts daily. Admit that just a few days ago, JD sat for a town hall meeting with the far right Christian nationalist Lance Wallnau (look that kook up on your own). Blaming the media is a shopworn tactic, but since you brought it up, which network was it that was found liable for $787.5 million for parroting Don’s election lies? Then ask yourself if these are the leaders you want leading a new conservative movement, and whether you want your grandchildren to emulate them…
What solutions proposed by the New Right have been tried and tested exactly?
While I applaud Cass's support of protective tariffs and opposition to mass low-skilled immigration and his embrace of the interests of ordinary working- and middle-class American families more generally, I still believe that this new social movement he is trying to birth is in need of something less abstract in the way of a political program: something concrete that will appeal to the imagination of a new generation of social activists across America who are hungry for a meaningful vision of what America's future can and should look like, which they can invest their lives in.
I have one such idea. Can anyone think of a better? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U0C9HKW
I hope you don’t let Williamson over at The Dispatch push you around like he did today. I’m on your side of the tariff question. Please take a swing at him. Thank you!
I tend to not like generational analysis since generations are big things with lots of intellectual diversity. You managed to do it without demonizing either Boomers or Millennials so I agree with your point about people being stuck in the past when things have changed. As an old guy who has changed my positions many times as new evidence has emerged, I am in full support of the New Right. What we have been doing is clearly not working.
Hi Orem,
Nice piece. I subscribed because as a lefty I was looking for thoughtful comments from the right. I hold that it is axiomatic that to endure a democracy must have thoughtful discussion between at least two opposing views. In our current period of chaos, I have not found many others on the right that are engaging in such essential discussion.
PS. Current campaign dog-eat-dog rhetoric aside, JD Vance as a constructive politician? Really?
Vance (and Hawley) are willing to work with leftists like Elizabeth Warren on issues where the anti-establishment factions of both Left and Right align. Case in point is the legislation to claw back bonuses from the executives of banks that failed. Campaign rhetoric aside, it is the establishment that hates all of them.
Clinton co-opted Reaganomics and mainstream Dems have followed suit ever since. At a high level, the mainstream economic policies of both parties value assets and capital gains over the earned income. The predictable result is over a generation's worth of economic stagflation. Neither party is pushing worker-focused parties. As a "left-leaning" libertarian it is difficult to understand how supporting workers will somehow become a conservative priority. But I expect Mr. Cass and his followers think the same thing about liberals, who focus discussions and, to a lesser degree, spending, on a growing class of people dependent on government handouts. The true paradigm shift will come when both parties dump Reaganomics. But increasing the earned income's share of the economy will never be popular with big money. If we don't figure it out, those of us born in the 80's may experience the collapse of the empire before retirement.
My right wing friends are numerous. I ask, Trump? really? they say who else do i have Biden? No way! Trump is all we have?! sucks but he is it.
Democrats and Republicans never did mentor any new blood over the last 40 years. These old hacks just kept it all for themselves. So we have all these old rich old old politicians still running their game.
There was one, Hillary. She was mentoring? or using Obama? whom she met in Chicago where they were learning to street organize at ACORN. That didn't work out so well, he zoomed past her to get the presidency! lol BUT if your a true mentor and that happens you SHOULD be happy for them, right? Oh well?