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replyI am not even sure it’s a swap. I see a lot of RW sentiment lately that libertarian principles are self-defeating, and the only thing that matters is Straussian friend-enemy distinction.
replyBasically, the extreme wings of both parties are seizing power and preparing for battle, while the moderate wings are tuning out. (Or to put it another way, more of the center is becoming politically independent.)
Traditional ideological lines break down under these conditions, because the important thing is damaging your enemies, not maintaining ideological consistency.
It’s driven by a fundamental shift in political economy. Technology centralizing power and making computation and communication (and thus control) cheap means that politics becomes a winner take all industry, in the parlance of the valley. Those who have read more than a little history understand what being the loser in such a contest means and thus the rush to the extremes and the escalation spiral (and of course the associated democratic backsliding) you see not just in the US but in most western countries.
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