Nostalgia is manufactured as easily as plastic trinkets, and it distracts adults who should know better. The 1950s, mythologized by the New Right in its push for a more traditional social and economic order, were not an idyll.
Instead it was an era of shorter life expectancy, of higher poverty by today’s standards, of legal and de facto discrimination, of limited economic opportunity for women and minorities, of gay Americans often being persecuted, and of far fewer consumer goods, technologies, and comforts. Implying that it was a golden age overlooks economic facts and the individuals whose rights and opportunities were sharply constrained.
The left’s narrative—that America remains fundamentally unjust and economically stacked against working families—is equally disconnected from empirical reality. As Michael Strain and Clifford Asness recently detailed in The Free Press, we live in the wealthiest mass-affluent society in human history. Typical workers’ real wages are dramatically higher than they were two generations ago. Post-tax incomes for the bottom fifth of the scale have more than doubled since 1990. Wealth for the poorest quarter of U.S. households has tripled. Consumption, the best measure of a lived-in well-being, is hitting record highs.
These data do not deny that some people struggle, but they show that the dominant narrative of national economic decline is false.”
“Elon Musk finally rolled out a long-requested feature on X, the site formerly known as Twitter: It is now possible to see the geographic location where a given user likely resides. (Yes, it’s possible to fool the system with a VPN.) And what this has revealed is that some—by no means all, but some—highly visible accounts associated with rightwing politics, support for President Trump, extremely anti-interventionist America First foreign policy views, and more sinisterly, racist and antisemitic comments, are not American at all. They reside in foreign countries such as Pakistan, Nigeria, and Bangladesh.”
The online ecosystem of the right includes a heavy dose of straight up anti-semitism. Trump helped break the mold from the beginning of his first political campaign when it comes to rhetoric that used to be unacceptable. Edgy jokes justified by fighting the woke censors pushed the barrier further until today where the far right ecosystem includes actual open Nazis like Nick Fuentes.
“When conservatives reject constitutional limits on executive power and foment civil conflict, what exactly are they conserving?
…
“There was a time when the American right was conservative: appreciative of inherited wisdom, skeptical of rationalism, wary of excessive government power, and against radical change.
…
The New Right is not interested in defending these distinctively American ideals. Drawing instead on collectivist, nationalist, and even monarchist traditions from continental Europe, this New Right seeks to wield the tools of government to advance its own social, cultural, and religious priorities. For years, the New Right, by its own admission, has rejected the tenets of classical liberalism, including individual liberty, mutual toleration, and limited government.
““The MAGA Gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said. “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving.””
If this is all he said, then this is a political cancellation that goes against everything many on the right used to say they stand for. Kimmel’s statement is not totally accurate, but is hardly beyond the pale.
“An archived version of the study is still available online, and states that “far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides” than the left”
There’s an active organized effort to find, report, and spread widely messages and posts that are perceived as negative toward Charlie Kirk’s death, and then try to get people fired. This makes concerns about cancellation look terribly hypocritical. Many of the people are now being harassed and threatened.