Read on Twitter
1. In case you missed it, @NiskanenCenter has put up a recording of today's webinar with myself and @jerry_jtaylor, @lindsey_brink, and @hamandcheese discussing Brink and Sam's new agenda paper, "Faster Growth, Fairer Growth." This is important because...
2. Policy ideas are in rather short supply on the right these days -- the GOP couldn't come up with a platform this year and its real animating ideas are, per @davidfrum, too loathsome to be expressed openly without sparking backlash https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/new-gop-platform-authoritarianism/615640/
3. To be sure, "Faster Growth, Fairer Growth" is not a Republican or conservative platform; it's an eclectic synthesis of some of the best ideas of R and L that either party could take up to deal w/ the problems confronting our economy, society, & planet https://www.niskanencenter.org/faster-growth-fairer-growth-policies-for-a-high-road-high-performance-economy/
4. Nonetheless, the Democratic Party doesn't lack for policy ideas right now; if they win, the battle within the party will mostly be not over goals but rather how far to go in pursuit of deep structural change https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/29/democrats-turf-war-joe-biden-404549
5. Republicans, by contrast, face a real identity crisis, as @NicholasLemann so insightfully explains; a post-Trump GOP would be riven by Trumpist (Remnant), Reaganite (Restorationist), and populist (Reversalist) factions https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/11/02/the-republican-identity-crisis-after-trump
6. My colleague Steve Teles hopes we'll soon see a breakdown of ideologically homogenous, leadership-driven parties, opening space for political moderation; hapless GOP moderates in Congress may perhaps form a viable faction again https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-future-is-faction
7. But one of the moderate faction's goals really should be to overthrow positions that insured GOP defeat; a party dedicated to voter suppression doesn't deserve to win back the lost college-educated/moderate suburban voters it needs to regain majorities https://newrepublic.com/article/159755/republican-voter-suppression-2020-election?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fund
8. Still, the center-right badly needs a new positive reason why it can be trusted to govern. Anti-government conservatism is no longer viable politically or practically; "The cause of Republican reform will go nowhere until it makes peace with the state" https://www.ft.com/content/affe91ca-c1a9-41b2-8592-9ba9580eb130
9. @jonathanchait usefully reminds us that Daniel Walker Howe's _What Hath God Wrought?_ emphasizes "a belief among the Founders, and especially the progressive Yankee faction, in improvement." https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/donald-trump-genetic-delusions-and-covid-19.html
10. "This concept “constituted both an individual and a collective responsibility, involving both the cultivation of personal faculties and the development of national resources." https://www.amazon.com/What-Hath-God-Wrought-Transformation/dp/0195392434
11. "Just as people could and must develop their own talents through study and disciplined labor, they could enhance the potential of the country by building schoolhouses, canals, lighthouses, and universities." https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-10-02-0001-0007
12. "It was a creed embraced by such disparate figures as John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass. Their political rivals were southern planters who distrusted centralized government [which threatened their] place atop the hierarchy." https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/the-double-battle/
13. It's this theme I see in on p. 15 of Brink and Sam's policy vision paper: Liberal democracy "views all citizens as assets to the republic, potentially valuable contributors to the common enterprise of society -- not as costs or burdens or threats" https://www.niskanencenter.org/faster_fairer/a_new_policy_synthesis.html
14. As they put it on @willwilkinson's podcast, this entails a view of government not as a neutral referee but a coach or a gardener. Brink (1:33:56): "Using fertilizer or weeding – the things you to actively cultivate to ensure that your crops grow..." https://modelcitizen.simplecast.com/episodes/a-plan-for-faster-fairer-economic-growth
15. Should you "dismiss all that as top-down central planning and socialism: 'The real free agriculture is just letting God’s wind and rain and sun do its thing'? No, to be a good farmer you've got technologies you can use to cultivate your crops to maximize the chances of..."
16. "their having high yields. And likewise there are things that governments can do to create enabling conditions to cultivate the conditions for innovation and dynamism." This reminds me of Paul Collier's "social maternalism"... https://medium.com/@sameen/a-doctrine-of-social-maternalism-65f42afb6d79
17. In which Sir Paul describes (p. 21) a state that's active but restrained in both social and economic spheres, compensates those who suffer from capitalism's "creative destruction" vs. suppressing market dynamics, and prefers pragmatism to ideology https://www.amazon.com/Future-Capitalism-Facing-New-Anxieties/dp/0062748653
18. The goal is not an all-powerful state that substitutes for the family but one that cares about its citizens and intervenes strategically when they need help. Its local equivalent is CUNY's ASAP program... https://evidencebasedprograms.org/programs/accelerated-study-in-associate-programs-asap/
19. ...which has radically improved the college completion rate of minorities (particularly black men) through individualized counseling plus financial and logistical assistance https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/05/07/asap-is-more-important-than-affirmative-action
20. At any rate, despite present circumstances I believe there are many ways in which the center-right can change the political dynamic & make progress against the problems that confront America, & I'm proud of my @NiskanenCenter colleagues in that effort https://www.niskanencenter.org/niskanen-changing-the-conversation-in-washington/
