American Politics

[MarquisdeSade1]

What Happened to the American Dream?

Oct. 27,2023.

An illustration of a person walking into headwinds and an unfurled American flag.

Credit. Fran Caballero.

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Ross Douthat.

By Ross Douthat.

Opinion Columnist.

You're reading the Ross Douthat newsletter, for Times subscribers only. The columnist reflects on culture and politics, but mostly culture. Get it in your inbox.

In the agonized debates over how it can possibly be that Donald Trump has such a strong chance of being returned to the White House in 2024, it's important to stress the ways in which the Trump economy, before the arrival of Covid, departed in positive ways from the trends of the last half-century. Trump's presidency was a period not just of steady growth and low unemployment, but also of growth that was more widely shared than in much of the recent past — with the strongest improvement in median incomes since the 1990's, wage growth for middle- and low-income workers outpacing growth for the upper class, and the lowest African American unemployment rate in decades.

Some of these trends have persisted, as this newsletter has discussed previously, into the Biden presidency, but they've been undermined by inflation and shadowed by rising interest rates, creating an economic picture that's more fraught than some of Biden's boosters want to acknowledge. (Even this week's eye-popping G. The. P. Number — third-quarter growth at a 4. 9 percent rate — coexists with data showing disposable personal income actually dipping just a bit, suggesting that the post-Covid stagnation in real earnings hasn't fully broken yet.) Whereas the Trump era was less complicated: For a few short years, the American economy performed in ways Americans once took for granted, closer to the long post-World War II boom than to the decades of recession-punctuated deceleration we've experienced since the 1970's.

Lately, I've been reading a portrait of that long age of disappointment — "Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream," a new book by my Times colleague and former podcast sparring partner David Leonhardt. It's a rich economic history of the post-World War II era, enlivened with both personal anecdotes (including some Leonhardt family history) and biographical sketches of famous or once-famous figures, from see. Wright Mills to Robert Bork and Barbara Jordan, whose ideas illuminate the larger transformations Leonhardt describes.

The book's argument belongs to a genre, reconsiderations of neoliberalism, that's somewhat familiar by now but is usually more narrowly polemical, where my colleague offers sweep and detail and depth of historical narrative. And the genre's entries usually come from predictable "outsider" ideological perspectives, from the far left or lately the populist right, assailing the neoliberal age in the voice of its traditional enemies. Whereas Leonhardt, I think it's fair to say, is a man of the moderate center-left both in ideological predispositions and in personal temperament, which lends his reconsiderations a more unpredictable aspect and gives some of his criticisms greater heft.

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He is, among other things, more fair-minded than some of neoliberalism's populist critics about the reasons that the United States turned to tax cuts, deregulation, privatization and a more minimal vision of the role of the state from the 1970's onward as solutions to real problems of stagnation and inflation and diminished American competitiveness. He's alive to the ways that economic history and the progressive moral vision do not always perfectly overlap; the reality that African Americans achieved their greatest economic gains before the full triumphs of the civil rights era, before the era of segregation gave way to the era of affirmative action, makes a crucial subplot in his larger case for the benefits of the postwar economic order.

And he's more attuned than some writers on the left to the fundamental tensions between the "Brahmin left," the worldview of the liberal professional class, and the interests of working-class America — not just in the way that cultural issues can distract from liberalism's economic commitments or undermine its political support, but also in the way that the cosmopolitan moral vision and the interests of American workers may sometimes be in direct tension.

This last point yields his greatest heterodoxy, from the perspective of current-era liberalism: an argument that mass immigration might have more to do with post-1970's wage stagnation than liberal experts like to think (even after the improvement in blue-collar wages under Trump's anti-immigration presidency), in addition to playing a crucial role in unraveling the trust and cohesion that midcentury liberalism depended upon for its grander projects.

That heterodoxy coexists with a core argument that's more congenial to Biden administration policy, especially insofar as the Biden White House has tried to adapt somewhat to Trump's populist critique. Basically, Leonhardt argues that post-1970's America lost sight of government's crucial role in promoting the democratic aspect of democratic capitalism, and that mass prosperity and widely shared wage gains require not only simple redistribution but also structures that counteract corporate power, elite self-interest and monopolistic entrenchment. What we need, then, is a more mid-20th-century mentality, encompassing everything from direct government investment in technology and industry and public works, to some kind of reinvented labor movement, to a post-Bork approach to antitrust regulation and the new behemoths of the digital age, to a renewal of democratic ambition and capacity in our gridlocked and often-filibustered Congress.

It's a powerful case, and there are good reasons that parts of both right and left, in Trumpism and Bidenomics, have reached for some version of its post-neoliberal vision. But in the spirit of our podcasting days, let me offer two points of possible rebuttal to Leonhardt's critique and prescriptions.

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First, a libertarian response. In his account of Ronald Reagan and his legacy, Leonhardt argues (correctly) that post-1970's neoliberalism did not deliver either the pace of growth or the seeming equality of opportunity that defined the pre-1970's American economy. And he offers America's less libertarian, more social-democratic developed-world competitors as a different model, because "inequality has not risen as much in many countries as it has in the United States," while "broad measures of national well-being, such as life expectancy, fared worse" in America than elsewhere.

But to the extent that broadly shared prosperity depends on having rising wealth to share and redistribute in the first place, the neoliberal American economy arguably deserves a little more credit than this. In terms of per capita income, productivity growth and innovation, our post-Reagan advantage over our major European peers has been robust, and despite occasional talk of convergence, the American edge has pretty clearly increased under neoliberalism. Indeed, even during the post-Great Recession period, the era of life expectancy stagnation that Leonhardt identifies as indicting the USA Economic model, the American economy went from being close to the same size as the European Union's to being about one-third larger.

It's not that we can't potentially learn things from Europe while seeking answers to our social crisis. But whatever we learn can't be as simple as our neoliberalism went too far, their social democracy worked out better — unless we're willing to give up on all the surplus wealth and dynamism that we enjoy.

Moreover, the libertarian reader of "Ours Was the Shining Future" might argue that, to the extent that our own dynamism has been deficient relative to America's pre-1970's trend, that deficiency reflects not neoliberal overreach but all the ways in which neoliberalism simply failed — in its efforts to prevent the growth of regulation, the capture of government by entrenched interests, the culture of safetyism throttling innovation in fields from medicine to nuclear power.

The recent book by the Reaganite economic writer Jim Pethokoukis, "The Conservative Futurist," makes an extended version of this argument, tracing our era of stagnation to anti-progress ideologies and the regulatory bureaucracies that gave them the force of law. Leonhardt nods to this case by including, for instance, efforts to remove the "bureaucratic barriers that prevent the construction of new homes, schools and transportation systems" in his list of progress-oriented movements. But the libertarian critic would argue that when it comes, say, to the strangling effect that the environmental review process has on states like California, or union rules on construction in New York, the real neoliberal program has been found difficult and left untried.

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Then, finally, the example of Europe also points to a social-conservative response to Leonhardt's portrait, because of course one force among many driving European stagnation is the collapse of birthrates and the rapid aging of the continent under conditions of secularization and sexual liberation.

"Ours Was the Shining Future" urges liberals to concede some modest ground to cultural conservatives, but apart from its immigration heterodoxies, those concessions are mostly framed as a matter of coalition building and pragmatic political necessity. The underlying liberal social model is assumed to be basically compatible with the widely shared prosperity Leonhardt seeks.

But is it? To some extent, the deep trends that he bemoans are rooted in social liberalism itself. The slowing of growth is connected to the retreat from marriage and family, which has most of the developed world headed for demographic autumn, in which economic stagnation may be cemented by senescence. The socioeconomic inequalities of post-1970's America are connected to widening inequalities in post-1970's family structure, the rise of out-of-wedlock births and single-parent families that so many progressives are so conspicuously loath to treat as a matter of real cultural or political concern.

It's not that conservatives have a clear solution to these dilemmas (regular readers will note that I have not yet delivered a recently promised newsletter on plausible conservative responses to marriage's decline! Or that they're in any way resolved simply by electing right-wing governments, whether in Washington or Warsaw or anywhere else.

But we clearly live in a culture that's much closer to what social liberals wanted, back when this long era of disappointment began, than it is to any conservative social blueprint. So when liberals reckon with why disappointment shadows us, why the shining future dimmed, the role of their own cultural victories may deserve more attention even than what's offered by Leonhardt's broad-minded, self-critical and always interesting account.

[ErsatzJulian]

Your side is not absolved. Your side is responsible. Seven ultra MAGA Republicans like Gaetz and 208 Democrats put McCarthy out of office. They are the reason that Johnson's Speaker. All your side had to do was go along with the sane Republicans instead of the seven crazies.

Now hoards of American sex tourists will descend on Bangkok. They wont bang in the USA any longer, because they wont want to go to jail. Your price of poontang will go up. And those 208 Democrats, who voted with Matt Gaetz, will be the ones to blame.

I really do not understand the logic of this claim. The Democrats do not support McCarthy because their philosophies do not align, so why is it that when there is a civil war in the Republican Party, it is the responsibility of the Democrats to run to the rescue of McCarthy? Do you expect your enemies to run to your rescue when you are in trouble? What a egocentric and self-entitled worldview.

[EihTooms]

Typical Democratic douche. He virtue signals against racism and then makes a racist statement about blacks in jail and blacks and their cock size.

Oh, I don't think that is what he did at all. Clearly, the reason he made it a black man's cock was because that is the color that would bother Racist Housing Discriminator Repub Trump the most.

And "big", well, there is no point in fantasizing about Racist Housing Discriminator Repub Trump's ass being defiled by the cock of someone whose race he has characterized as governing only "shithole" countries unless it is big enough to at least get his attention.

[Elvis 2008]

There you go again. Stereotyping people with Tiny penises. This is sad. Just plain sad.

Oh please! He and the other Democratic douches here have been stereotyping not just Republicans but people who vote Republicans for years.

I get why the elderly and those on welfare vote Dem but with these Democratic douches anyone who votes or who has voted Republicans is stupid.

[Elvis 2008]

I don't know, the thought of Don gagging on a big black cock in prison somehow makes me warm and fuzzy.

Typical Democratic douche. He virtue signals against racism and then makes a racist statement about blacks in jail and blacks and their cock size.

[MarquisdeSade1]

"According to polls:

Sixty percent of Republicans support Trump, versus those who support other candidates or who are undecided. About 45% of voters are Republicans or lean Republican. And about 30% of Americans believe the 2020 election result was fraudulent.

Twenty-seven percent (0. 6 x 0. 45) to 30% alone isn't enough to win an election.

You are correct, only a single digit percentage of Americans are classical liberals, who believe as I do. However, on average we're smarter than other people.

https://reason.com/2014/06/13/are-co...than-liberals/

Reason magazine lololol what a rag nobody reads Nick Gillespie hes a turd ala the Mittens Flake cabal.

I don't consider libertarians as conservative, rather they are some perversion of conservatism, libertarianism is a deception and an abomination.

Smarter than other people? Really do tell?

Did you steal that line from your top cuck in charge.

https://grabien.com/story.php?id=439323

Ever see the movie Thank you for smoking?

I'm guessing this has a cult following with the "wise wing" LMAO.

Please tell us, smarter than whom?

And did you know just thinking you're smarter than "others" doesn't make it so.

https://efukt.com/22296_I_Am_Very_Intelligent.html

[Tiny 12]

No, no, no...There you go again, getting it all wrong and twisted!

If I wasn't CLEAR, that was me standing up for the rights of guys with tiny (multi-colored) dicks, that also have the RIGHT to have their tiny dick (if that's the case), also sucked-off by the incarcerated Orange Orangutan/Baboon, in the "presidential jail cell"....

There you go again. Stereotyping people with Tiny penises. This is sad. Just plain sad.

[EihTooms]

Your side is not absolved. Your side is responsible. Seven ultra MAGA Republicans like Gaetz and 208 Democrats put McCarthy out of office. They are the reason that Johnson's Speaker. All your side had to do was go along with the sane Republicans instead of the seven crazies.

Now hoards of American sex tourists will descend on Bangkok. They wont bang in the USA any longer, because they wont want to go to jail. Your price of poontang will go up. And those 208 Democrats, who voted with Matt Gaetz, will be the ones to blame.

100% of the House Repubs could have saved McQarthy. They didn't. Own it.

NEWS FLASH: McQarthy's great Repub sin was WORKING with Dems. Therefore, the instant Matt Getzakidpregnant stood up and inhaled in preparation to launch into his challenge, McQarthy was rendered utterly useless to Amerca as a factor in working with Dems again and participating in anything positive for America. Done. Finished.

LOL. And you think a single vote by a Dem to save him or a single vote by a Dem in support of ANY relatively normal, patriotic, non lunatic, non Election Denier, non America-hating Repub would not have DOOMED that one as much as McQarthy was DOOMED the instant he committed that Mortal Sin of working with Dems to produce a positive rather than typical Disastrous Repub Result?

Lololol. Seriously. Have you been drifting in and out of a coma since Trump was appointed so-called potus back in 2016?

A "rescued by the Dems" McQarthy would be as utterly useless to working with Dems after that as a "voted for by Dems" ANY OTHER Repub, as Emmer would have been, as Johnson will be, as ANY Repub will be with or without a single Dem vote or ALL of the Dem votes.

BTW, why don't the 18 Repub Representatives from districts won by Biden renounce their Repub Party affliction, switch to the Democratic Party and heroically save the country TOMORROW by flipping the Majority in the House to the side that doesn't want to burn down America and doesn't want to convert America from a democracy into a Theocratic, authoritarian dictatorship?

[Spidy]

The worst form of prejudice is making fun of people with Tiny penises.

No, no, no...There you go again, getting it all wrong and twisted!

If I wasn't CLEAR, that was me standing up for the rights of guys with tiny (multi-colored) dicks, that also have the RIGHT to have their tiny dick (if that's the case), also sucked-off by the incarcerated Orange Orangutan/Baboon, in the "presidential jail cell".


It's ONLY fitting, that these under represented tiny dicks, (especially QAnon/MAGA Repubs, who worship their "Loud and Save-ior['dumb ass'] "), also have the right to be considered, in that long line of dicks, waiting to be sucked off by Trump.


"Prejudice"! Not at all, quite the opposite, as a matter of fact. Again you're seeing the glass half-empty.

How is it "prejudice", if I am sincerely, advocating for tiny dicks, to be equally considered and included in that long line of "suck-off" hopefuls, looking to be a jailed contestant in the "Orange ex-Presidential Dick Gagging Jail Sweepstakes"?

Common now! The consideration and inclusion of tiny dicks, was just the right thing to do. All in the name of an fairness, equality and justice for all tiny dicks, everywhere, looking to serve their "Loud and Save-ior['dumb ass'], who we know to be an equal opportunity offender (...kkkk!).

Initial Post:

I don't know, the thought of Don gagging on a big black cock in prison somehow makes me warm and fuzzy

Let's be honest here, shall we! Who amongst us, after reading the initial post (above), didn't perhaps also think, tiny dicks and other multi-colored dicks, were severely under represented, in the that post? Just a wee teeny tiny bit, perhaps?

• BTW, Why are you trying to make this ABOUT YOU???
• And what's with your silly "Tiny penises" comment, what was that all about?? Is that you wanting to "represent"??

[Spidy]

Google sarcasm and facetiousness.

Secondly I don't believe a word the pope says about anything.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/w...-election.html

If he says ADULT, according to whos definition.

Since GAY men love raping little boys.

ZERO credibility follows.

If you cannot say what you mean then all you're doing is, at best lazily posting misleading and misinformation, at worse you're lying. CLEARLY you wanted to make people think "altar boys" were involved, to foster and bolster your antithetical beliefs.

Sarcasm intact, you could have still made whatever sarcastic bullshit you wanted and demonstrated (or qualified) to your reader, what was report and then mix in the real truth of your sarcasm, ie."...that while no altar boys, have been implicated so far, I (MDS1) have no doubt there were altar boys, at said sex-party." That's sarcasm!

You must think, we all somehow live in YOUR "QAnon/MAGA WORLD" where everyone is to think, "Every GAY man loves sexually abusing BOYS", and is at the center of all conspiracies and the all the world's evil. And illogically by YOUR very same antithetical logic, your also saying "Every STRAIGHT man loves sexually abusing GIRLS".

I doubt many us, who don't live in "your QAnon/MAGA WORLD", would even get or understand your woeful attempt at said sarcasm, given the nature of the subject matter, your antithetical beliefs, your crass and cavalier attitude towards the children (in particular BOYS, while conveniently leaving out GIRLS), involved in sexual abuse by the church, is indeed troubling.

You'll forgive me if I don't get, understand or see your "brand of sarcasm". Because asking anyone reading your post, to somehow crawl into your "QAnon\MAGA World" and come to the conclusion that your were being sarcastic, is quite frankly, "a bridge too far", IHMO.

Since it's so hard to tell, was it sarcasm, when you said:

"...I never heard of any nuns fucking the other altar boys or, I certainly would of been all over it".

And also sarcasm when you said:

How many raped the little girls? ZERO, why? You might ask why is that, because they are fucking GAY.

I went to a Catholic grammar school (and high school and university) there were plenty of girls for them to rape.

Of course not all priests were gay, but if they were GAY they were sure to be raping the little boys, whilst the hetero ones were not raping anyone.

Whoa...that's a lot of sarcasm, if true! Is everything you've posted on the church/priest/nuns sexual abuse scandals, just all been sarcasm? If so, how is anyone to believe anything that comes out your mouth, is anything but sarcasm?

So how about you put that (Trump?) Uni. degree of yours to work and say what you mean?

And if YOU can't say what you mean, then perhaps you shouldn't say anything at all?

[Spidy]

Note Tiny 12, first swears and claims, he's not calling me or my moniker, here:

Man you guys can be a sensitive and humorless bunch at time. I am not making fun of your moniker. A Spider Monkey is far more advanced than a Spider. I gave you a promotion of about 350 million years on the evolutionary ladder. ... Spider Monkey is not perjorative, or at least I didnt mean it to be

Then note, the "foot-in-mouth", confirmation and incrimination here:

Stop or I'm going back to calling you Spider Monkey.

Thank you for the CONFIRMATION, of the very thing you swore you "were NOT" doing. Sure enough, if I give you enough rope you'll, just hang yourself (as it were).

For Spider Monkey
...

You are welcome by the way to call me something like Massive Throbbing Tiny Penis Head. I'd wear that as a badge of honor. And a touch of sadness as it calls to mind former board member Dickhead, may he RIP.

I have simply been titling my posts with something to do with monkeys to see if you'd follow through with your vow not to participate in monkey discussions. Well now that you've broken your vow at least twice, there's no point in continuing the experiment. So I'll stop.

And youve called me a lot worse, like a clown in your last post.

You directly posted "For Spider Monkey" in the headline of your post, as if to childishly call me out, in some kind of petty angry vendetta. Replying to a post, already comes with the ISG user moniker, embedded into the post. It was CLEARLY seen for what it was...petty and clownish behavior!

Please show me where I directly called you a clown, to your claim?

Yes I've called Republicans (mostly MAGA Repubs) "clowns" (as well as other names), as a collective or group of people and called your behavior clownish. I did not directly single you out and call you a clown, or associate your moniker with the word "clown". There is difference, in what you claim!

Tiny 12, don't flatter yourself! I've been called worse, by some of the "best in class". I've had all kinds of clownish, trollish, vile, vitriol, vulgar and venomous crap spewed at me, by the "best in class", be it online (you may know some of THEM here at ISG) and offline. So if you think calling me "Spider Monkey", is in anyway, suppose to bother me or my "sensibilities", just know that I remain steadfast and unfazed.

But feel free to step up such clownish behavior and silly name calling towards your fellow ISG brethren, if it makes you feel and sleep better at nights. Just be aware YOU only serve to incriminate and debase yourself. So knock yourself out!

But just know, to really offend me, you've got a lot of tough sledding to do, in order to become, "best in class" (w/r to those who have come before you, you'll have to get in line) when it comes to such clownish and buffoonery behavior. But, by all means have at it!

Sadly, you're mistaking, what you believe to be "sensitivity", as nothing more than basic concern for this forum/thread. FWIW, you may need to adjust your internal instrumentation, dials, or radar, when it comes to detecting actual "sensitivity".

My concern is that this forum/thread, NOT descend into or become, YET ANOTHER "Stupid shit in...{fill in the blank} forum", filled with vulgarity, debasement, MF bombs, FU bombs and silly name calling. Ooops!...perhaps I'm already too late?

Anyway, I happen to think, you don't want that either, as "a good steward" of the "American Politics" forum/thread? Or does the thread descend into Repub nihilism?

[Beijing4987]

Now that a Johnson (dickhead) has the gavel, what next, a long March to the shores of California to install liberal, don't tread on me contrarians for a free state.

[Tiny 12]

I have no idea what Repub Bob Portman and other Repubs' FOSTA-SESTA bills have to do with Repubs getting closer than ever today to establishing a nationwide ban on Abortions, outlawing Sex For Pleasure, restricting sex to "for the purpose of procreation only", etc, but I think it is really cute that you have such a rosy, positive, little cupcake view of your beloved Trump Repubs that you actually believe Matt Getzakidpregnant, Marjorie Taylor Greenjewishlazerbeams and any one of dozens of other classic Repubs in the House would not stand up and demand a newly-elected Speaker be thrown out within 10 minutes if by whatever miracle he / she had been elected after getting even 1 Dem vote.

LOL. Really. So cute.

Your side is not absolved. Your side is responsible. Seven ultra MAGA Republicans like Gaetz and 208 Democrats put McCarthy out of office. They are the reason that Johnson's Speaker. All your side had to do was go along with the sane Republicans instead of the seven crazies.

Now hoards of American sex tourists will descend on Bangkok. They wont bang in the USA any longer, because they wont want to go to jail. Your price of poontang will go up. And those 208 Democrats, who voted with Matt Gaetz, will be the ones to blame.

[EihTooms]

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/bi...25/id/1139684/

MAGA takes the house, we have the Supreme court.

Onto the Senate.

And then our Lord and Savior will evict that illegitimate squatter in the White House, and then all will be well in the Universe.

LOL. No way was any Dem going to vote for an America-hating, anti democracy Election Denier and those were the only ones Repubs were allowing to get as far as two steps toward the podium to accept the nomination.

Had any Repub remotely deserving a moment consideration by a Dem been nominated and he had gotten a Dem vote, Trump would have been ordering his slavishly obedient House Repubs to kill him, possibly quite literally, before the second sentence of his acceptance speech.

This Bible-thumping, anti Sex For Pleasure, pro Great Repub Depression / Great Repub Recession / Massive Repub Jobs Destruction, anti democracy Speaker is all on you and your beloved fellow Repubs, not on Dems.

Own him.

[MarquisdeSade1]

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/bi...25/id/1139684/

MAGA takes the house, we have the Supreme court.

Onto the Senate.

And then our Lord and Savior will evict that illegitimate squatter in the White House, and then all will be well in the Universe.