Galston On Bridging The Partisan Gulf

Galston on bridging the partisan gulf.

   There's just no doubt about it, there's little hope if the left doesn't de-radicalize. I doubt the current gulf can be bridged--it has to be narrowed first. Well...Scott Adams has good points about the dangers of thinking in metaphors...so maybe that's enough of that one... The center-left has to come to its senses and reign in or dump the extremists who are now setting its agenda. When Trump leaves, his personality leaves, and so that source of irritation will no longer be an excuse. The problems of the right are--currently--superficial. The problems of the left are deep. They've surrendered the reigns to a cult. The cultists can't be compromised with because they aren't liberals. They're radicals that seek to overthrow the liberal order. Probably the best thing the remaining liberals of the left can do is learn to be called "racist" without bursting into tears or begging forgiveness. The current tyranny of the identity-politics left is enabled primarily by a word. The cult basically controls anyone who is so afraid of having the word "racist" directed at him that he'd rather capitulate to lunatics than endure it. That's not all that the center-left, such as remains of it, will have to do. But that's a big one.

   Another thing the left has to learn is that, ceteris paribus, the status quo gets presumption. That's to say, roughly: if Smith (at least tacitly) accepts things the way they are, and Jones comes along and says "Hey, let's dump the way we've always done it and do things this totally crazy new way I just thought up!"...Jones has the burden of proof, and it's a reasonably heavy one. Smith has to be willing to change in some cases. Jones has to understand that Smith gets to refuse when Jones doesn't carry his burden. The more radical, poorly-justified, frequent and downright capricious Jones's suggestions--which are actually generally issued as "demands"--become, the more Smith is justified in telling Jones to get bent. Society can't survive in the face of constant change. And, even if it could, people aren't obligated to go along with it. The left tends to attract people who find novelty titillating, who spend more of their time fantasizing about such changes, and who have less of a stake in stability. Such people have a personal, aesthetic preference for novelty and mistake that for valid reasons. 

   Anyway. I have no idea whether liberal, constitutional government and its ideals can defeat this new religion. In part that's because it's not technically a religion--so it's free to take over our institutions in a way a more blatantly religious religion couldn't. 

   Blah blah blah. Could all be wrong, as always.