2 Comments

I think the wrench in this formula is the force of evangelical Christianity in American culture — you couldn’t have a pro-abortion populist in America because these positions are separated by the gulf of evangelicalism and the two-party system. Every time I’m in Europe, I’m a bit taken aback by how their party lines are so much more transient.

Expand full comment

Perhaps my largest critique of Marx’s ideas is that he often operated under the presumption of knowing what is best for the “proletariat” whilst genuinely being too far removed from them throughout his formative and even adult life (despite running out of money during his later years). I think he nailed the nature of bourgeois on the head largely because he was enveloped and educated alongside those very circles.

Where I see the intellectual Left stumble most often, is they often operate under these very similar false presumptions of knowing what’s best for peoples whom they do not thoroughly understand. To the point where they come off as chiding and elitist, and therefore to the average member of the working class - untrustworthy.

Expand full comment