[dontbeevil1992]

seems like a good place to put this quote: "Justice is what love looks like in public." If this conservative economist wants to spread love, he can start by supporting economic policies that prevent the 1% from exploiting everyone else

[panzagl]

Right because conservative = bad and deserving of contempt. This is exactly the type of kneejerk reaction that he is talking about. The 1% do just as well when Democrats are in office, but keep on playing the game ruled by tribe and emotion, see where that gets us.

[Hokusai]

Brooks is literally against wealth redistribution. The parent comment is very relevant for this individual.

[notenoughbeans]

Market economies are full of wealth redistribution. Do you mean that Brooks is against government mandated wealth redistribution?

[Hokusai]

To move wealth from the poor and the middle class to the rich is not what commonly is known as wealth redistribution. Even if it can mean that if you take the words literally.

[notenoughbeans]

I have not read Brooks, so I don't know if his stated position is that he is in favour of plundering the poor for the sake of the rich. I'd imagine that it isn't.

He does mention that there are systemic issues with the status quo, so I'm sure if you asked him if he was happy with how things are running I'm sure he'd have quite a list of things that he thinks could make the world better for everyone -- even if you might disagree with some of his solutions.

In the interview he says that democracy is the political version of capitalism/a market economy and I think that's key to interpreting him charitably. In his worldview many of the good things about democracy are the good things about capitalism, but they also share many of the same flaws. In systems that emphasises individual agency and are incentive based, his view is that contempt locks us into a vicious cycle that de-incentivizes leaders from actually providing a realistic way forward. I tend to agree, and I can hardly fault someone for trying to argue for the best version of their vision for society.

[watwut]

I think they talk about Brooks specifically and institute he works for specifically.

He is not just random conservative with unknown politics within spectrum of conservative voices. He is active player in politics and economy.

[shaldjfb]

The Democratic Party is conservative by any popular measure outside of the insular American worldview. In many European countries, the Democratic Party’s politics would be considered far right.

[Jensson]

It is fiscally conservative, Democrats doesn't try to reduce the dominance of the 1%. It is however not socially conservative, they are probably among the most left wing in the world with respect to race if you only count popular parties. And since "far right" today is mostly used to describe racists they wouldn't considered to be "far right".

Instead in Europe the democrats would just be a typical right wing party. Meaning they are pro immigration to stimulate economic growth, pro healthcare for all etc.

[shaldjfb]

The Democratic Party’s “fiscal” policies are a scourge on the very disproportionately impoverished African American population. Any suggestion that the Democratic Party has any sort of commitment to overcoming racial divisions in the US is undermined by that fact.

There is no such thing as a decoupled “fiscal” conservatism. Politics in practice are inseparable from their historical context and Democratic politicians know that. Their virtue appeals in the media are not supported by their politics but rather serve to distract from their politics. Their politics, in fact, are a conservative politics.

[dragonwriter]

> The Democratic Party is conservative by any popular measure outside of the insular American worldview

Its mostly a center-right / center-left coalition with the center-right currently slightly stronger (until very recently much stronger). While it leans right, it isn't coherently conservative, even by international standards.

[nec4b]

Absolutely untrue. The most extreme leftist parities in Europe do not come close the extremism of progressive democrats.

[bpodgursky]

This is a stupid meme which is wildly untrue if you look at actual policies.

[panzagl]

I've often wondered about this- I mean the US has it's share of coffeehouse anarchists and redistributionists. The large size of the US and the political structure make it hard for e.g. a 'Pirate Party' representative to appear, even if there is the same amount of support per capita.

[Nasrudith]

The implicit premise itself, that the Democratic political party is monolithic is false. It was an old Woodie Alan joke about not belonging to an organized political party and that is true to some extent - if your group is excluded from the GOP the DNC is the big tent. Before the 9/11 xenophobia US muslims were dominantly aligned with the Republican party, afterwards it was reversed. There are in fact many religious conservative demographics in the DNC for one.

Frankly self proclaimed leftists have a terrible habit of consent manufacturing - both from their own natural bubbles and echo chambers and ad nausuem rhetoric. There is tbe "implicit identity and support" which assumes that universal support of the working class is the natural status quo and any who disagree are puppets of the rich. This abstraction spares them from having to consider the actual opinions of the people who compose it. Their poor electoral performance in even their strongholds highlights that they are a noisy minority operating under the pretense of being a majority.

[hnuser847]

The GP's comment about US parties vs European parties is so tired and cliched it belongs on an HN bingo card.

[mensetmanusman]

Some examples please.

[trashtester]

I think virtually every conservative party in Europe supports single-payer healthcare. That's a big one that would put the Democrats to the extreme right in Europe.

Maybe even more importanly, the way Democrat representatives seem to be able to enrich themselves from lobbying money etc, would be totally unacceptable most places in Europe. It would place them more in the class of Plutocrats than conservatives. Democrats tend to have far closer ties to Big Capital than even the most business-friendly conservatives where I live.

It seems to me that their focus on identity politics is a cover for doing very little to actually help the unprivileged, but instead doing the biddings of their donors.

[francisofascii]

One glaring example is climate change issues. For example, the democrats are not pushing to raise the federal gas tax.

[jorblumesea]

So I guess bring up negative facts is now contempt? One party is very much in favor of a more level playing field, for the most part. One party is very much against it.

[registeredcorn]

>One party is very much in favor of a more level playing field, for the most part. One party is very much against it.

I mean, I would hardly argue that the Democrats are "against" a level playing field, but it wouldn't be a stretch to say that they are opposed to such a premise. The fact is though, just because we both strongly dislike progressive ideology does not mean that we need to harp on their shortcomings at every opportunity.

In my mind, it is the constant put downs and negativity that breeds contempt. The thing of itself need not be the act, but merely foster such a stance.

[Nasrudith]

Personally I find another factor of contempt is "failing a reverse Turing Test" where there is such high repetition and little thought that it seems as if they are organic spam bots. The inauthenticity and persistence grating seems to be a common thing given the contempt for Jehovah's witnesses, Hare Krishina's, multilevel marketers and others. Tech support forced into canned scripts are another such example - in computer science terms it seems that the low entropy becomed apparent and raises subconscious red flags.

The infamous "New World Order" conspiracy theorist archetype tends to be negative and full of put downs to their target de jure as the cause of all the world's evils. Even when it is horrifying it draws more of a watching a trainwreck style reaction.

Negativity and putdowns I would classify more as a breeder of disengagement. This is reflected by the impact of negative campaign ads being more reduced total votes than drawing more votes by looking good in comparison.