Weekend Open Thread

 

"Mama Kin" and "Prettiest Girl" - The Neighborhoods

Our discussion about Boston's hideous city hall made me remember this video of local legends the Neighborhoods performing on the plaza there doing a kick ass cover of an early Aerosmith song and their own should have been a hit song Prettiest Girl.  This one's for oddjob and my younger sister, one of the world's biggest 'hoods fans, who is counting down the last thirty days before the school year is over (while also getting sad about having her class of kids leaving her).

- Naturally, this story in the New York Times about the fact that non-white births now exceed white births in the United States made my day. I hate to be such a self-hating white man, but I feel like this is most promising path to a better political day in this country.   A United States that is a little browner, a little less religious, a little less married is a country where the present style of Republican politics will eventually become unsustainable.  I am not sure how long that will take, but it will be in my lifetime.  The GOP will start losing and losing badly and consistently -- and then -- but only then -- it will change although in exactly what ways I cannot predict.  But I don't think that it can continue to be the whites only fest that it's been for the last several decades and prosper.

 - Strangely enough, I actually sympathize quite a bit with this article in the Weekly Standard by Andrew Ferguson excoriating the pseudo-scientific claims of Chris Mooney and Jonathan Haidt regarding (mainly) conservative political attitudes.  I bow to no one in my contempt for contemporary right wing thinking and the degree to which it is dismissive of empiricism.  I seriously doubt, however, that such attitudes are the product of genetics or evolution or anything that can be explained through sound science.  Nor do I think liberal attitudes are similarly dictated by biology.  Political allegiances and attitudes are one of the most socially-based forms of behavior there is.  If they were products of biology, one would expect them to be more or less randomly distributed across society and fairly stable phenomena.  Does anyone seriously believe that there is a genetic explanation as to why blacks vote 90% Democratic?  What bit of collective brain chemistry explains the evolution over the Twentieth Century of the states of the Great Plains from the most left wing region of the country to being among its most conservative.  The answer is that they don't.  Yes, people often have a poor grasp of the reasons for their political opinions.  Yes, in recent years the overwhelmingly ideological nature of contemporary right wing thought has led many of its adherence to reject certain kinds of science with which their ideology conflicts.  This does not render such behavior biological in nature -- unless one wants to make the meaninglessly broad point that tribalism is an evolutionary survival strategy.  As Ferguson points out, this kind of biologically-based pseudoscience renders politics effectively meaningless: 

The real problem with Haidt’s psychopunditry is that it shares with other kinds of determinism a depressing moral impoverishment. Haidt’s own centrism is an artifact of his Science. If the appeal of one idea versus another is explained by a man’s biology (interacting with a few environmental factors) rather than its content, there’s really not much to argue about. Politics is drained of the meaning that human beings have always sought from it. Haidt criticizes his peers for using psychology to “explain away” conservatism, and good for him. Unfortunately, he wants to explain away liberalism too, so that our politics is no longer understood as a clash of interests and well-developed ideas but an altercation between two psychological and evolutionary types.

- Having graduated from college thirty years ago today and as the parent of a child who will be starting college in three months, I found this post amusing.  I cannot really imagine talking to my parents multiple times a day while a college student (as I recall once a week did the trick).  (And I am and always have been quite fond of my parents.)  Nor can I imagine calling my son daily -- when he was away this year doing an internship, I think I spoke to him probably about twice a week.  At one point where he seemed a little down I called him on three consecutive days, which was really hovering for me.   I also can't imagine scheduling my time as a college student in the way that is described in this piece.  One of the great joys of college -- possibly the greatest joy -- was the sheer amount of unstructured time, time that I spent listening to music, bullshitting, falling in love, having sex, getting drunk, and bullshitting some more.  It was a life for which I was made.  The micromanaged life described in this post makes me think youth is indeed being wasted on the young.

What's going on with you?

 

Comments

[beckya57]

Unstructured time in college? I don't remember a lot of that. I mostly remember studying like a maniac, especially late in the quarter.

I sure hope you're right about the GOP, Sir C, but I'm pretty skeptical. If Obama can hold on in this election, and the Dems hold onto the Senate, that will help quite a bit. I don't see the basic dynamics changing in my lifetime, though (and I think you and I are about the same age--mid-50's?) The 2 most fundamental problems are (1) the extreme inequality of resource distribution, which gives the top 1% enormous power, and (2) the right-wing dominance of the courts, which gives them virtual veto power over progressive legislation. We've already seen how these 2 factors can work together in the Citizens United decision, and we're going to see a lot, lot more PAC money thrown against Obama and the Dems in this election. And I'm pretty sure we're about to see the SC throw out the ACA, and maybe take a hatchet to the other federal-state programs (e.g. Medicaid) in the process as well. I think the best we can hope for in our lifetimes is a holding action in which we're able to hold on to SS and Medicare. Those programs do have powerful constituencies. Programs that primarily benefit the poor are probably doomed, as the shrinking middle class becomes more and more resentful of any money going to those below them, and the rich are more and more able to avoid paying taxes.

[kathy a.]

i also remember being busy busy busy in college, but not in the micromanaged way described in the article. there were classes, and work to support myself, and yearbook, and all kinds of things going on that were just interesting. i was at a small college and lived in the dorms, so something was always going on -- it was easy to move between the isolation of focused work and spending time with people. i thought it was heaven, pretty much.

and although my college was only about 20 miles from home, i only occasionally talked to my parents. i did talk to one or more of my younger sibs almost daily -- it was still my job as big sister to listen and help where i could. we did not have laptops or social media or cell phones in the olden days -- we had a telephone in the dorm hallway, handwritten letters, mimeographed notices, and running into people in the cafeteria or the quad.

my first year roommate had a hovering mother who dropped by weekly and called daily. it was weird. i hate to think how much more intrusive she would have been with modern tools. ;)

becky, we're definitely up against it with the extreme inequality, the unbridled political money, and the composition of the big court (among others). all we can do is press forward. if it is frightening to think of things getting worse -- which it is -- we need to be clear on and work toward goals defeating that. and there are a panoply of issues and candidates, so to the extent we can, we need to be working each of them. that seems and is a bit daunting, but every one of us can do something. we are after all the citizenry.

i'm not sure how it will happen; am sure it will happen on various fronts, lurching ahead one step at a time. the arc of progress bends toward justice. eyes on the prize. local and state matters are just as important as the big ones; these are the feeders for national politics.

no, we cannot put out a billion dollars and fix everything all at once. but there are things each of us can do.

[Sir Charles]

becky,

I was fortunate enough not to work while at school and although the work load was fairly heavy, it was mainly reading, which was something I generally enjoyed. Being a Politics major was a lot easier than being in the hard sciences I think. And class time was fairly limited -- no labs in my world -- so there was what seemed to me to be a lot more free time than I had ever had or ever would have again.

I don't think the Supreme Court could just either Social Security or Medicare -- there is no real question that these fall within Congress's taxing and spending problem. To the extent that Medicaid was attacked it could be restructured to be a federal program only.

I think with respect to the political future you have to look on a state by state basis. I think the Republicans have already gotten to a pretty tricky point in terms of being able to cobble together the necessary 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. If they continue to lose two-thirds of the Hispanic and Asian votes, 90% of the African American vote, and perform poorly with unmarried women, they are going to have an extremely difficult time getting back places like Colorado, New Mexico or Nevada, and will be increasingly vulnerable in places like Virginia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Georgia. At some point even Texas will be a battleground and that will be a real disaster for the Republicans -- it's really the anchor of their presidential campaigns and has been a big part of their House majority.

kathy,

The unannounced drop by by parents to a college dorm is so completely uncool. I cannot imagine ever doing such a thing. I only lived about 45 minutes from my parents, but it would never have occurred to them to do such a thing.

I don't know how we got by without cell phones and email, but somehow we managed to make plans and go out and about.

[kathy a.]

my dad came by with a bag of food once, my junior year, during finals. it was so strange, but my bounty was the hallway's bounty. nothing very untoward was happening, since we were all in finals panic, and he was too early for the 10 p.m. primal scream.

my first roomie's mom was a piece of work. she was installing decorator window dressings and had granted her daughter the prime space when i arrived with my unruly family and motley collection of belongings. her weekly visits were to switch out clothing for dry cleaning (!), and make sure her daughter's hair was up to snuff (nice curls, no roots) -- a total beauty pageant stage mama. i have no idea how she was ever married to my roomie's dad, a science teacher and great guy who supplied the camping equipment when needed. life is full of mysteries.

[Don K]

SC -

I graduated in '77, and like you, I was in the social sciences (Econ in my case); although there was plenty of reading, it still allowed time for smoking and ingesting illegal substances (not so much drinking - it's hard to go to an early class hungover), music, BSing, and general f**king off. Now, granted, I didn't go to an elite school, but still, I went on to grad school and a career doing work I absolutely loved. Never became a Master of the Universe, but that wasn't real high on my list of priorities in life.

And I'm with you with regard to unannounced dropins by the parental units. The school I transferred to was less than an hour from my parents, and my Dad had cause to come up to campus frequently for meetings, but he always called beforehand to let me know he'd be there and ask if I'd like to go out for lunch.

I agree completely that the Reps have a medium to long-run problem because of changing demographics. I also think they have a potential problem in upper-income suburbia from being beholden to the voices of intolerance. Changes in voting patterns in the burbs long ago put MA out of reach for anyone who can't pitch himself as a pretty moderate Republican, and now the same thing has happened in CT, NY, and IL. I believe the same thing is happening here in MI, where Gary Peters hung on in '10 in a district that was carried narrowly by Bush in both '00 and '10. How many large to medium-sized states can the Reps afford to write off in order to appease a base that wants a U.S. without Latinos, where gays stay in the closet, and where bad girls get pregnant and are shamed because of it?

[nancy]

Here's to Charles Murray -- Chromatics 2012 interpretation and release of Mr. Young's 'Into the Black' . It's their cover song.

I kind of think Neil would like it.

[Sir Charles]

kathy,

Dry cleaning? In college? I think my entire wardrobe consisted of jeans, flannel shirts, concert t-shirts, and hoodies.

I always liked having my parents visit -- they were great with the other kids and always generous. But surprise visits would not have been cool.

Don,

Econ strikes me as more challenging than Politics. I sweated my econ courses more than anything else I took I think. That and Spanish -- I had zero talent.

But reading and writing about politics and history came pretty easy to me.

Brandeis was a pretty intense place -- lots of pre-meds, lots of kids who had been brought up with pretty heavy expectations. It was a good atmosphere for me to be in, because my natural inclination was to skate a bit. Being surrounded by people who studied hard and took things seriously was a real plus for me.

I was wise enough to avoid early classes on Fridays, so I didn't have to get up early too often with hangovers. Being young also helps -- the old body could really take some insults and shrug them off.

You're absolutely right about the Republicans and parts of suburbia. In affluent suburbs in places like Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, etc., the Republican vote has evaporated because of its intolerance. These kinds of places were once the backbone of the old moderate Republican vote in the northeast.

That's a dynamic I didn't mention in my discussion, but it's an important part of the Republicans ceasing to be competitive in places like those you mention.

[Sir Charles]

nancy,

That's funny -- I heard that cover a couple of days ago and really liked it. I thought about posting it.

I suspect Charles Murray really wouldn't understand Neil Young at all.

[kathy a.]

posted this on the wrong thread: the NAACP backs same-sex marriage as a civil right.. not the end of divide and conquer tactics, but surely a good thing.

believe me, clothing needing dry cleaning was not part of anybody else's wardrobe in the 1979-80 school year.

[Don K]

SC -

I guess it's just the ways different minds work. I entered college intending on a PolSci degree and law school (which, in retrospect, would have been a huge mistake - I would be really bored with the kinds of stuff that occupy the time of the average attorney), but took Econ 101 and 102, realized it clicked in my brain, and I had a new path. Well, that and my mind seems attuned to mathematical and graphical explanations.

Sometime after college, I read a description of Economics as knowing which two curves to apply to a problem, and understanding what the intersection means. I guess I understood that intuitively, because once I figured out the curves, my exam blue books would be filled with diagrams of the curves, explanations of the curves, and the significance of their intersection.

I was going to mention the Philly suburbs as well (I grew up in South Jersey, and the upper-middle income suburb where I lived has evolved from solidly Republican when I lived there to pretty marginal now), but Pennsylvania has the countervailing effect of the western part of the state moving towards the Republicans (along with WV and KY). Without the leftward movement in the Philly burbs, I suspect PA would be pretty Republican by now, but as it stands it's classic marginal. In NJ, on the other hand, leftward movement in the burbs has made the state pretty solidly Dem (yeah, I know, Christie and all of that, but I believe that was more of an anti-Corzine vote than anything else - the Dems kept control of the legislature).

I'll admit I haven't understood some of the twists and turns in Neil Young's career, but the man is a genius nevertheless.

[Don K]

kathy -

The NAACP endorsing marriage equality seems huge to me. Perhaps that can move around a few votes.

And dry cleaning in college? I suppose some of the women at Purdue when I was there in '77-'78 had skirts and blouses that needed dry cleaning, but at Macalester and Rutgers in '72-'76? Ewwww!

[kathy a.]

yikes, i wrote the wrong school year! my freshman year was '75-76. everybody had a little bit of dry cleanables in law school ('79-82), but that wasn't what one wore unless headed to an interview or moot court or something.

i am really excited about the NAACP endorsement of same sex marriage, and its framing as a civil right.

[Phil Perspective]

Sir Charles:
Speaking of school, have you heard what's going on in Quebec?

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

One point I've seen Steve Benen mention but have seen no one consider as a factor in this election is 'buyer's remorse.' There were a lot of voters last time who voted Republican, not because they hated Obama or were crazy or Religious nuts, but because they simply believed the Republicans could do -- or at least would try to do -- what they promised to get the economy moving and to produce jobs. And I'm thinking more of the Governors and state legislatures that they voted for. I wonder if there aren't a substantial -- if not gigantic -- number of Republicans who didn't like what they got with Walker, Snyder, Kasich, LePage, Brewer, McDonnell and a few others. Maybe they won't vote Democratic this time -- though a lot of them will, especially women -- but they may be a little more dubious of what they hear from Republicans.

[Linkmeister]

Heh. I was a freshman at the U of Arizona in 1968; my parents were on Guam, 5,000+ miles away. No unannounced drop-bys for me.

[low-tech cyclist]

I just worry that as the racial and ethnic composition of America changes, the people with the big money will just find ways to manipulate some of the relative winners to vote Republican, or just figure out how to buy off enough Dems in Congress to maintain control over legislation.

Even as the Presidency becomes more out of reach for the GOP, they can wreak havoc through control of one house or the other of Congress, as they demonstrated last year, and as they demonstrated in the previous Congress (unless the Dems are willing to reform the filibuster), continue to block practically everything even when the Dems have the House and the Senate in hand.

Ultimately, we're going to have to have a clear progressive message, and sell people on it. Even "no cuts to Social Security, keep Medicare as it is, don't raise the eligibility age" would be more clarity than we can expect from the Democratic Party.

We can't win the fight by demographics alone; we've got to give people something to believe in, preferably something that's easy to hold onto when the big money does its best to confuse people's minds.

[Joe S]

Prup, I think you're missing the static nature of the electorate. Walker won with 53% of the vote in 2010. He's got about 48-50% now in Wisconsin. A big chunk of the population believes in Republican model of governance and blames the poor and lower middle class for their problems. In the Midwest and Appalachia, these are people who came from rural areas into smaller cities and exurbs-- people who grew up in a time where it appeared that hard work and individual virtue led to prosperity and social stability. The fact that a huge "submerged state" apparatus supported that way of life is often forgotten.

I have to disagree with LTC as well. The Democratic vision we trumpet is anathema to most White voters (at least nonmillenials) outside of the Northeast and Northern Pacific Cost. Our message has to be connected to the underlying values of the population. That's why demographics are so important.

[beckya57]

I'm afraid I agree with LTC that the unequal distribution of resources will override the effects of demographic changes. And again I'll point out the effects of the federal court system. The SC gets most of the attention, of course, but the GOP has stacked the entire system with Federalist-Society, mostly fairly young judges who oppose the entire New Deal, and they've used the filibuster to block Dem appointees. Don't forget that a series of anti-ACA rulings at lower levels helped pave the way for the SC to potentially throw out the whole law and made the notion that the law was unconstitutional respectable. The courts are going to be opposing progressive changes (particularly in the economic arena) for the next several decades, and our system gives them enormous power and very little accountability. These 2 factors--unequal resources and the currently biased nature of the federal court system--are why I expect very little progressive change in my lifetime. We're back in the Lochner/Gilded Age era, and it took WWII to put an end to that last time.

[kathy a.]

joe -- great point about the "submerged" government assistance aiding the ability of many to succeed. i'm not sure of the examples you are thinking of, but there are a great many examples, affecting both individuals and industries.

i agree with LTC that we need clear messages on programs and ideas almost everybody supports -- but also, as has been mentioned here many times, we also need the narratives to tie things to actual people's lives and experiences.

i'm a little confused, joe, about your reference to the northern pacific coast as a bastion of the dem vision, equivalent to the northeast. are SF and LA chopped liver? also, there is considerable variability in communities of the pacific NW, and within CA.

what monied republicans forget is that public investment has made possible all kinds of industries, but now they seek to keep the profits to a few.

[kathy a.]

we definitely need to keep limiting the effects of big money on the to do list. money has always had influence, but that is so counter to our ideas about personal autonomy and individual worth.

[Sir Charles]

l-t c,

I'm certainly in favor of a sound agenda and good messaging and not advocating for a passive approach to any of this, but the reality is we already have a pretty damn good agenda for white working class folks and except for those who belong to unions, the message is lost. Now I agree we could do a better job in some respects, but ultimately we have been in a culture war atmosphere for the last forty years and by and large the white working class has sided with the forces of reaction.

I cannot give up on the white working class -- I can't be cured of my heart -- but truthfully they're pretty fucking hopeless. If they constitute a shrinking part of the electorate it is probably for the best -- maybe we will do better with their children.

becky,

The courts are an issue and for some reason one that the Obama Administration did not come into town with a sense of urgency about -- much to the frustration of those of us who litigate for a living. By and large though the lower courts were not nearly as radical about ACA as the Supreme Court sounded. Control of the Supreme Court is a crucial part of this election -- maybe the most crucial part.

The Lochner Era was pretty much done by the late 30s -- FDR got to put five justices on the Court in an incredibly short time -- from 1937-39. And that was that.

I don't think money alone wins elections. Indeed I think at a certain point it's quite overrated. You need an audience for your garbage -- and white men (and their wives) have been the audience for the GOP bullshit lo these many years. The GOP' current formula will not work with a radically different electorate.

[kathy a.]

sir charles, this one's for you, via edge of the american west: other people's money, by louis brandeis. the harper's series began nearly 100 years ago.

[beckya57]

Sir C, I direct you to Ed Kilgore's piece in the Democratic Strategist and TNR on how Rickett's last minute ad buy decided the Nebraska primary. This is the post-CU world at work. You're right of course that money isn't the only factor, but it's a huge one, and will be even bigger from now on thanks to CU.

The lower courts didn't have to be as radical on the ACA as the SC. They just had to introduce the idea that the unconstitutionality of the ACA wasn't just a right-wing fairy tale. And they did.

No Dem will be allowed to put 5 justices on the SC for the foreseeable future. I still think the GOP will pull out all of the stops to prevent any Obama appointees from changing that crucial 5th vote.

[beckya57]

P.S. Money also appears to be a major factor in the now-likely probability that Scott Walker continues as governor in Wisconsin, so that he can continue the assault on unions.

[beckya57]

P.P.S. (Wow, I'm starting to write like Prup!)

I should make it clear that I don't think this state of affairs will go on forever. I think we all know that the current trajectory of the US (and for that matter the world) is unsustainable in the long run. But as Keynes said, in the long run we're all dead. I just don't see things changing in any appreciable way in my lifetime. I think we're in for the same long grind that has happened before with many previous empires, in which the economy becomes excessively financialized, resources become more and more unequally distributed, far-off wars are fought that drain the economy, and investment in the people and infrastructure that made the society great declines. Sorry to sound so gloomy, that's just how I see it. Eventually things will change, hopefully in a more positive direction.

[Sir Charles]

becky,

I think there is still a limit to money's efficacy. One may be able to win a primary with it. Certainly it made Romney very hard to beat -- but I think it is rarely outcome determinative in a race where both parties have decent candidates with adequate funding.

I think the Walker race will be determined less by money than by the turnout in the minority community. Again, I think the mistake was not having the recall coincide with the general election. That's a decision that I hope we don't regret.

Again, things come down to electoral demographics over and over again. Money is not unimportant, but it's not as important as getting out the vote. And our side has consistent difficulties on that score.

[Joe S]

kathy, in referring to the Northern Pacific Coast, I'm referring to an area from approximately Half Moon Bay to Juneau, AK. The Whites that live in that area are genuinely pretty liberal. Along with Whites in parts of the Northeast (Vermont and New England especially) and in pockets of the Upper Midwest and some college towns, these are the only areas where a truly liberal vision for the country is going to reverberate among the majority of Whites. Southern California and Los Angeles generally would not be particularly liberal but for the huge Latino population (See Wilson, Pete, Reagan, Ronald, County, Orange). The liberal, White areas of the Country are not chopped liver, but they aren't the basis for a Democractic majority either unless when added to other demographic groups.

[janinsanfran]

I feel like a stuck record when I write about demographic change in the electorate, but I guess I shouldn't be surprised since this is what I've worked in most of my political life.

In the 1990s, California was where the whole country is now: young people predominantly of color; older electorate overwhelmingly white (80 percent in 1994) and scared witless. It looked like we'd never beat back anti-immigrant measures, anti-affirmative action laws, outlawing bilingual ed ... a whole package of racial fear wrecking balls. And we didn't.

And then -- long before the demographic facts on the ground would seem to warrant it -- we turned a corner. Some fraction of the white electorate (Democrats!) linked up with the emerging browner majority. Aside from a freak (the Terminator), the Reps haven't elected anyone statewide since 1998. And they only barely hold one third of the state legislative seats -- they could lose that in November.

Now we still have the wreckage. We have dumb term limits and super majority requirements and a lot of bad initiative law -- mostly all a product of the era of demographic panic. But we are on track to begin to fix the state and move on toward some kind of realignment that isn't about racial fear. Maybe we'll finally line ourselves up along class lines ....? Anyway, the present seemingly immovable configuration is NOT permanent. I know because California has lived it.

[nancy]

One week on after his last week's NYT op-ed, William Deresiewicz's short response to the blowback. "Enough."

Blowback so tediously predictable. Germane to above discussions I think.

[Sir Charles]

janinsanfran,

California is illustrative of both positive demographic change and the negative affects of Republican obduracy and extremism, which sadly are able to obstruct the democratic changes that have occurred.

Let's hope that at some point the Republicans cease being able to hold up all that needs to be done in California.

[kathy a.]

nancy -- great link.

[kathy a.]

LATimes on the fast progress of gay civil rights.

sadly, this paper limits online looks to 10 per month unless you pony up for a subscription.

[Sir Charles]

kathy,

I think it's important to keep that historical progress in mind whenever short term events seem discouraging.

[Crissa]

You get the same assholes in Santa Barbara, Monterey and Santa Cruz as you do in Coos Bay or Aberdeen. They're the entitled sots whose parents own the land and think that means their royalty.

But we're just as solid blue south of Half Moon Bay. And if the hispanic voting bloc in Watsonville, Castroville, etc weren't split, you'd see a stronger identity out of the farming community between the coastal communities.

Fishing is coming back down here, too. We've had some nice recovery of the kelp and sardines; if the Salomon could spawn in our rivers - there's not been enough rain - we'd see more of that. Hence the push to restock the SF runs up the American, Russian, and Sacramento.

[KN]

Boy howdy, things sure happen fast around here, y'all must live in the same time zone.

SC - I'll only address one part of your post. I mainly agree with you on Mooney, evolutionary psychology is junk. I think he is just pandering to the Templeton Prize committee. On the other hand there is solid science in the psychological field, namely radical behaviorism, which is quite handily able to provide a logical framework for the efficacy of right wing ideology. Verbal behavior in particular is an interesting issue to be considered. Some years ago I was challenged by someone on talk.origins over the Skinnerian version of verbal behavior versus the hypothetical constructs of Noam Chomsky, supposedly a "linguist" whatever that is.

There is a certain irony buried in all this. On the one hand, the liberal side is averse to the idea that behavior can be readily manipulated. What is free thought after all? On the other hand you have the proponents of thought control enthusiastically embracing the empirical science of behaviorism to propound their delusional world view.

In my narrow and simplistic experience I have found that those who would most benefit by understanding how behavior actually works in practise, are most averse to the ideas, and scorn understanding how they can be influenced, whilst the cynical and unscrupulous few embrace the technology so that they can maintain and compound their hegemony.

PFUS.

[Sir Charles]

KN,

I think there are definitely psychological aspects to political attitudes. I am particularly convinced that right wing politics are the province of a certain kind of mind.

But I would never pretend that this is some sort of scientific or immutable fact.