As we are still in a period of doing election autopsies, I wondered whether Al-Gharbi's -- and other academic analyses -- would add or subtract from the political punditry. For example, were both Harris's and Trump's teams both representative of "symbolic capitalists"? A tweedle-dee/tweedle-dum comparison? Certainly voters saw or believed there were differences that likely weren't understood in such academic frameworks. To me, the political pundits, whether I agreed or not, were more understandable to the political contest. So, if we grant that academic analysis have value, how are they meaningful to the man and woman on the street? To the unfolding political contest?
Was disappointed in another interview to see al-Gharbi's casual anti-Semitism on display - his offhand comment on the supposed "genocide" in Gaza. I expect bigots and politicians to misuse words like "genocide," or simply not grasp the concept. But al-Gharbi knows what genocide is, presumably understands that whatever else the Israelis are doing, ethnic cleansing of Gaza is not involved in any way, shape or form, and nevertheless tossed that off in his wildly inaccurate description of President Clinton's campaign stop in Michigan in support of Vice President Harris.
That glaring anti-Semitism is now, unfortunately, coloring how I read his book, which I think does the best job of any attempt so far to explain the motivations and behavior of the urban professional elites.
I hope he is both willing and able to reassess his own biases.
AOC recently posted a video inquiry into how it was that many of her voters also voted Trump up-ballot. That's an example of leadership in genuine curiosity and understanding that seems disturbingly absent in the post-election discourse across the board, in the wake of Harris' extremely narrow loss to Trump (1.7%; ie Trump won the popular vote by less than Clinton did in 2016). Instead, I see mostly armchair punditry. An avalanche of "hot takes" across the board, right to left, left to right, up and down, down and up.
I see it as a representative artifact of the level of political polarization in this country that serves no one, except perhaps Ruzzia's and China's naive imperial ambitions, etc. Even then, as the authors of the book The Spirit Level make clear, no one actually benefits from extreme socioeconomic inequality, including the oligarchs themselves.
I don't know anyone who isn't struggling economically/financially/medically/mentally. Right or left. Those same struggles seem to drive people to make very different voting choices, depending on their information space. As long as we keep hating on each other instead of trying to understand each-other, we are going to fail in identifying and addressing the root causes of our collective struggles. We will also fail to hold our elected leaders accountable to their most fundamental promise, to lead in the spirit of service. There's a lot of work to be done there, to avoid the sort of intensifying systemic corruption that threatens to turn us into another dysfunctional authoritarian autocracy like Ruzzia.
What I fear most is the race to the bottom of the brainstem and loss of collective consciousness and vision that entails. I appreciate enclaves of deep reflection like this one. They are becoming more and more important.
As we are still in a period of doing election autopsies, I wondered whether Al-Gharbi's -- and other academic analyses -- would add or subtract from the political punditry. For example, were both Harris's and Trump's teams both representative of "symbolic capitalists"? A tweedle-dee/tweedle-dum comparison? Certainly voters saw or believed there were differences that likely weren't understood in such academic frameworks. To me, the political pundits, whether I agreed or not, were more understandable to the political contest. So, if we grant that academic analysis have value, how are they meaningful to the man and woman on the street? To the unfolding political contest?
Was disappointed in another interview to see al-Gharbi's casual anti-Semitism on display - his offhand comment on the supposed "genocide" in Gaza. I expect bigots and politicians to misuse words like "genocide," or simply not grasp the concept. But al-Gharbi knows what genocide is, presumably understands that whatever else the Israelis are doing, ethnic cleansing of Gaza is not involved in any way, shape or form, and nevertheless tossed that off in his wildly inaccurate description of President Clinton's campaign stop in Michigan in support of Vice President Harris.
That glaring anti-Semitism is now, unfortunately, coloring how I read his book, which I think does the best job of any attempt so far to explain the motivations and behavior of the urban professional elites.
I hope he is both willing and able to reassess his own biases.
AOC recently posted a video inquiry into how it was that many of her voters also voted Trump up-ballot. That's an example of leadership in genuine curiosity and understanding that seems disturbingly absent in the post-election discourse across the board, in the wake of Harris' extremely narrow loss to Trump (1.7%; ie Trump won the popular vote by less than Clinton did in 2016). Instead, I see mostly armchair punditry. An avalanche of "hot takes" across the board, right to left, left to right, up and down, down and up.
I see it as a representative artifact of the level of political polarization in this country that serves no one, except perhaps Ruzzia's and China's naive imperial ambitions, etc. Even then, as the authors of the book The Spirit Level make clear, no one actually benefits from extreme socioeconomic inequality, including the oligarchs themselves.
I don't know anyone who isn't struggling economically/financially/medically/mentally. Right or left. Those same struggles seem to drive people to make very different voting choices, depending on their information space. As long as we keep hating on each other instead of trying to understand each-other, we are going to fail in identifying and addressing the root causes of our collective struggles. We will also fail to hold our elected leaders accountable to their most fundamental promise, to lead in the spirit of service. There's a lot of work to be done there, to avoid the sort of intensifying systemic corruption that threatens to turn us into another dysfunctional authoritarian autocracy like Ruzzia.
What I fear most is the race to the bottom of the brainstem and loss of collective consciousness and vision that entails. I appreciate enclaves of deep reflection like this one. They are becoming more and more important.