NOTE: While I did support certain candidates in the 2019–20 Democratic primaries because of their ideas (e.g. UBI, anti-war, broad tent approach), it doesn't mean I endorse their other positions.
TaraElla: Welcome to the TaraElla Report, where I chat with my friends about cultural and political issues. All of us are individuals who are simply looking for more freedom. I believe that it is only through amplifying the conversations of everyday individuals that we can cut through the nonsense and bring back freedom.
Today's conversation is with Katie, an old friend of mine with whom I have had political conversations going back to our college days. Katie identifies as a progressive, whereas I identify as a classical liberal. I think we do share quite a lot of common ground, for example in our preference that our political leaders be truly open-minded. It's a quality that's becoming increasingly rare on both sides of politics, but fortunately we still find it in a few of the 2020 candidates, including Andrew Yang.
Katie: In fact, the reason why I identify as 'progressive' is because it signals an openness to new and creative solutions to solve our problems, and the adaptability this creates. Now, this is very different from how some people think of 'progressive' these days, whether this be a set of dogmatic policy positions that were bundled together for various historical reasons, or a set of beliefs that arise from social theory created in certain sections of academia. The main difference is that, my 'progressive' is open-minded, open-ended and practical, while theirs is dogmatic, rigid and narrow-minded. What I like most about Andrew Yang is that he is a 'progressive' in the open-minded mould. He is open to bold new ways to solve problems, such as the Universal Basic Income, which he calls the Freedom Dividend. This is necessary because the problems we experience at each stage in history is new. For example, the coming wave of automation will create a challenge that we have never seen before. No social theory from an intellectual establishment that is still tied down to a 1960s-based worldview will adequately address this challenge. And, let's face it, this 1960s-era worldview is also something that Hillary Clinton shared to a great extent, and ultimately what led to her being out of touch and running a campaign that didn't connect with today's problems.
TaraElla: It's interesting that you mentioned the 1960s worldview. I see it in supposedly progressive people everywhere. I think British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is a good example of this. The Corbyn cult thinks that he is the future, but actually he is the past. Similarly, the identity politics left, which Hillary Clinton is part of, is, from what I see, desperate to revisit the 1960s and 70s civil rights and second wave feminist battles, when the rest of the world has clearly moved on. I suspect Hillary Clinton imagined Trump supporters to be sexist men straight out of 1950s society and hence called them 'deplorables', when actual Trump supporters are people living in the here and now with real social and economic concerns that are nothing like the conservatives of the 1950s. While Hillary didn't get it, and probably still doesn't get it, Andrew Yang clearly gets it, and this is why he is winning over quite a large number of 2016 Trump supporters.
Katie: I think this is an important point. Unlike Hillary, Andrew Yang actually studies and addresses the problems people have in the present and the future, and he is not biased by the social theory that was developed in response to events in the 1960s and 70s. Hence, he has no problems seeing how rust belt workers are suffering from the loss of jobs, and he fully understands how increasing automation will make it even worse. He understands that Hillary's divisive identity politics is so yesterday, and going forward we are going to face unprecendented challenges, and we are all in the same boat here. This is why he proposes pragmatic, universal solutions that will serve the needs of everyone. Another great thing about Yang is his ability to go beyond the superficial, and come up with novel solutions for problems that nobody knows how to solve right now. For example, he is concerned about issues like rising suicide rates and dropping birth rates. But he doesn't just think it's a cultural problem like many others do. He links this to the economic situation, and proposes economic remedies. Will it work? We can't know for sure yet, but it's at least worth a try, given the dire situation we find ourselves in at the moment.
TaraElla: I think we should talk a bit about the rise of identity politics, on both the left and the right, as an example of a problem where pragmatic solutions that go beyond the superficial are needed. Identitarianism has been a matter of major concern for many people, and rightly so because it tears apart the classical liberal social contract. However, a lot of the analysis on this matter ignore the bigger picture. The post-war period was great for classical liberal values in general, but it did not exist in a vacuum. I think that a society where there is a weak social fabric and weak and unstable family structures is one prone to identity politics. This is because when people don't have the strong bonds of family and tradition to identify with, they turn to identification based on other things, like demographic characteristics or shared worldviews. The bonds of identity around race, gender, sexual orientation or political affiliation have become a substitute for the bonds of families and institutions. Therefore, to cure the identity politics problem, we need a strong social fabric made up of strong and stable families and institutions. Now, we all know that economic stress is a big contributor to family breakdown, and the past three decades of economic policy have increased the economic stress experienced by many families. I think this is the real cause of the rise of identity politics, and the breakdown of values like free speech and the free market of ideas that naturally follow. I believe we can't effectively restore classical liberal values across society without changing some of the economic parameters, to at least make families healthy again. That's why I think the Freedom Dividend is a great idea.
That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.
