The Conservative/Libertarian Shotgun Wedding And The Trump Divorce

What is wrong with conservatives? Daniel McCarthy, editor of Modern Age and an editor for The American Conservative, has joined Tucker Carlson and Abby McCloskey in trashing free markets and demanding greater state intervention. McCarthy whines about a lot of things and blames then all on globalization. But at the core of his complaints sits the hollowing out of the middle class in the US.

I’m not sure there is a hollowing out of the middle class because it’s hard to define. For most of history, the middle class was the group of independent small to medium size business people that socialists called the bourgeoisie. It made up about 5% of the population until the class exploded in size during the industrial revolution. At some point in the 20th century the term was redefined to include workers whose income was in the middle between the rich and poor, mostly factory workers without a college education. So the decline of manufacturing jobs as a percentage of the total workforce terrifies conservatives and socialists.

Tucker Carlson Serves Up Warmed Over Socialism

Fox political talking-head Tucker Carlson threw a fit on TV in his first monologue of the new year. He introduced Mitt Romney’s editorial to launch his bid to replace President Trump as the GOP nominee in 2020, but only so that he can attack Romney as representative of the world’s insensitive leaders who have failed to make us happy. Along the way he rounds up the evils of pay day lenders, marijuana, banking, taxes, corporations, failing families and environmentalism, blaming all of them on Romney and free markets.

Somewhere in the middle Carlson states,

The goal for America is both simpler and more elusive than mere prosperity. It’s happiness. There are a lot of ingredients in being happy: Dignity. Purpose. Self-control. Independence. Above all, deep relationships with other people. Those are the things you want for your children. They’re what our leaders should want for us, and would want if they cared.

Carlson misses the most important point about happiness – it’s founded on expectations. People can choose to be happy by making their expectations fit their reality, that is, be content with what you have. Most poor Christians in Africa are happy. We don’t need the government to make us happy.

Will political polarization cause divorce?

A few writers have wondered since the election of President Trump if the country is so fractured that another great divorce like that of the Civil War is in our future. Pew Research has provided the statistics to fuel the debate. Recently, John Hawkins wrote “Do Conservatives And Liberals Have Enough in Common to Keep A Country Together Anymore?” on Town Hall. As if counseling troubled marriage partners, Hawkins asked what we have in common?

The Constitution? Conservatives believe in it. Liberals believe in a “living Constitution” which is fundamentally no different than having no Constitution at all.

Religion? Conservatives tend to believe in Judeo-Christian values. Even atheists who are conservative tend to at least be friendly to those values. Liberals mock Judeo-Christian values.

What about patriotism? Conservatives tend to love their country. Liberals love this country like a wife-beater loves his spouse.