Requiem for the Realignment

As Republicans rubbed their eyes on the morning of November 9, it became painfully clear that the much-predicted red wave had turned out to be a mirage. A slew of unremarkable Republican candidates lost their bids to unseat Democratic congressmen, and prominent “MAGA-style” Trump-backed candidates lost as well. Both groups within the GOP blamed the other, with MAGA Republicans saying that the establishment GOP was milquetoast, and mainstream Republicans criticizing the crass populism of many Trump candidates. In spite of rampant inflation and general economic anxiety, Republicans only narrowly reclaimed the House of Representatives and failed to take the U.S. Senate.

Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016, many on the right have preached the advent of a “realignment.” Accounts of realignment have taken various forms, but generally involve some traditionally Democratic constituencies shifting to the Republican Party and the GOP itself beginning to reflect the populist priorities of its base. The authors of the 2019 declaration “Against the Dead Consensus” inveighed against the “failed” conservative intellectual infrastructure that had gone before. “Trump’s victory,” they wrote, “driven in part by his appeal to working‑class voters, shows the potential of a political movement that heeds the cries of the working class as much as the demands of capital.”1 Calls for realignment on the right are even more urgent now than they were five years ago. But they are currently on very precarious ground, and only an honest reckoning with that fact can keep the possibility of realignment alive.

.....Contrary to what many backers of conservative causes think, it’s not the spread of ‘socialism’ or ‘woke ideology’ on campus that is driving college students to the Left. Rather, they manifestly have nothing to gain in material terms from voting for the Republican Party.

This is a thought provoking and provocative article. There is some good in it, but much that is bad in it. Intellecutally it is all over the place and he sent me over the edge with his early intellectually sloppy and badly reasoned early parts, before he gets to his more substantive and thought provoking parts. I don't know how you analyze anything statistically about 2022, for insance, when all statistics are corrupt and suspect. That RINOism helped prevent a Republican senate majority and cost a few governorship is indisputable as is the unopposed voter fraud that flourished under GOPee anti-Trumpism.

Furthermore, this author has his own baises. He writes: "A small architecture of “aligned” think tanks and projects sprouted into existence, initially American Affairs and with many worthy projects following suit. American Compass was launched to provide cool-headed policy recommendations from within a framework broadly supportive of the realignment approach." But DC policy wankers of every stripe are part of the problem. Thye are part of the swamp and deplore productive jobs because of smelly sweaty workers.

He goes on, to prove this point: "America’s seemingly immortal conservative think tanks, from AEI to the Heritage Foundation and everything in between, are holding symposia across the land." But AEI, Heritage and let's thrown in CATO to boot are not conservative. They are want the economic freedom to support the expansion of corporate globalism backed by the US military.

ON the other hand he has a fair point about the student loan problem. It has multiple components - the fraud that is modern college eduction - the self-destruction of the US economy that requires a useless college degree to be upwardly mobile - easy loan money, etc. etc.

Then he offers this tidbit "The Hungarian government does offer a student debt cancellation program, but ties the program to conservative social goals—getting married and raising a family. For several years, Hungary has offered first-time mothers with student loans a three-year suspension of their loan payments after the birth of their first child. Having a second child results in halving the remaining student loan balance, and having a third child wipes the balance out entirely."

“...Rather, they manifestly have nothing to gain in material terms from voting for the Republican Party...”

And there you have it. College students want to vote ONLY for Santa Clause. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

The collapse is going to be glorious. These college students will be dreaming of the good ole days when they had few material possessions instead of NO possessions, NO food, NO shelter and NO country.

This is essentially correct: "the GOP turns new constituencies into cultural tropes while avoiding substantive policy change."

The GOP does not want substantial policy changes because they will hurt their outsourcing, cheap labor and bankster donors.

The political struggle in this country is actually a class war masquerading as a cultural battle. College grad wokesters are rewarded with virtue signaling instead of a paycheck that would enable them to form an independent household and then press for more handouts, which is exactly what the upper classes want to give them, because the costs of those handouts will be less than the cost of a decent wage and will be borne by all of society and not just the employers.

This is all correct, but I think you need to add the context that it's not just class warfare, but the class warfare arises from a geo-political crisis caused by the fact that we have transformed from an economically strong democracy that agreed to provide stability to the rest of the world to a nonproducctive leach on the world, trying to expand our take from the pile of loot the rest of the world is producing. The hot jobs for college graduates are not degrees in engineering or science but thnigs like international law, which is about negotiating terms of trade contracts. This geopolitical trend has meant that the international trade lawyer is now a highly remunerated individual at the expense of those who produce, and this is leading to a crisis where we have globalist occupiers [the deepstate] sucking the world dry.

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