Zeitgeist
A Quantum of Relevance
The classic interpretation of Ian Fleming's James Bond character is that he stands as a ki...
Richard Spencer is the executive editor of the Alternative Right webzine and former managing editor of Takimag.
If most of the Beltway Right has given up on drowning government in a bathtub, few have been as bold as Douthat and Salam in arguing that the GOP should try to win elections by promising to give the masses tons and tons of federal stuff. It wouldn”t be outright socialism, of course, though a large bureaucratic apparatus would be necessary. The GOP would instead make its backers feel like the welfare state is working for them”that it will help them get their kid into college, increase their hourly wage, get their brother a job on the force, or perhaps give them some tax breaks that make those big city liberal snobs envious. Accompanying it all is a full-throated egalitarian rhetoric. Among talk of the “common man,” the reader encounters sentiments like, “The ultimate goal should be a politics of solidarity, a constellation of policies that make all Americans … believe that we”re all in this thing together.”
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