It's been a while since I've visited (and now paid) for this. You're welcome ;-/
I don't really see the "end" of the populist style and I certainly do not see a waning of the neo-fascist style that Trump and pretty much the entire Republican party are about. I see (or hope to see) what seems to be both bug and feature of Americans' voting and belief systems: a wearying even from the "believers" when they realize --consciously or not-- that they followed another false prophet. Just like religion, you have to ignore reality or dive into an alternate reality in order to feel good or righteous: WE ARE AMERICANS AND THE GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH.
When enough Americans come to realize the Populist/Fascist/Fake Economic Ideology is NOT really improving their lives, once again they slink off, hide who they became, what they believed and how nothing improved.
I'm sure I'll incur a great deal of opprobium for this remark, but what the heck: AMERICANS ARE THE DIMMEST POLITICAL ANIMALS in the Western World in that they are so easily manipulated into voting against their own welfare and well-being.
Even the NPR staff seems to have been finally beaten down. They used to sound the alarm with every report as if some imaginary HR department was going to rescue them from Trump. Now they are like the last page of 1984, where Winston concedes that he loves Big Brother.
NPR is pretty much thriving and without the subsidies they got and deserved. Even, strangely, in some red states and red areas where the locals needed the many services only NPR could provide:
This will sound simplistic, but it’s something I’m seeing on the ground, personally and professionally. There’s a saying that 90% of life is showing up. There’s a lot of folks with work, with personal lives, with communities, that have largely tuned out or are distracted with the many avenues that take one’s time. The new constructivism will come from those that show up. This can be good and it can be bad. You mentioned examples in the influencer area, which has gone off the rails. There’s an example of people who show up that can lead to bad. Perhaps, as you allude to toward the end of the essay, the successful constructive good will come from folks who handle personal relationships, or human-social activities, well. It might be that aspect where there’s the most fertile ground, particularly in-person opportunities.
There are great opportunities to build. The human-social aspect, along with Big Tech issues and emerging demographic trends are the challenges for constructivism.
Metaphorically speaking, average citizens are the children who have sat through a long Pentecostal church service—tired of the noise, tears, falling out, long speeches, testimonials, calls to give money and volunteer, the pageantry and restriction of it all, the same old people telling their rambling old people stories.
Thoughts have turned to much more tangible and future-oriented questions like:
“What are we going to eat?”;“When are we going home?”; “What’s the plan for later?”
There seems to be a bystander problem on the right that prevents them from capitalizing on victories the populist right has achieved. As always, the conquest is a lot more fun and sexy then having to rule afterwards. As a people become more wealthy they tend to become more risk adverse, given that the vast majority of Americans who could build and shape institutions in their spare time, but don't because the opportunity cost is so high. So many fun things you could do in those evenings, or more profitable things, and it can be spun as "focusing on my family". Truth is doing those other things produces much tangible results instead of the slow societal change a lifetime of dedication to an institution. I think perhaps there is a great mistrust of conservatives in future generations to lead anything they build, like they don't want to create any worthwhile institution because it will just be taken over by the left in a generation or two.
I'm not familiar with "Big Eva", but I'm no stranger to seeing my fellow Indy Baptists refuse to leave their comfortable spot in the pew to be the salt and light Christ commands us to be. So many rather virtue signal by talking about the need for revival and change instead of being the change. God reward us all the fruits of our labors?
What made you foresee the rise of the manosphere? In 2013 I was a freshman college, and me and friends would often complain about what women claim they want and their actions did were wildly different, but we were scared to be bold because of hyper consent culture on campuses at the time. Maybe we noticing something legitimate after all...
I'm saddened by the new populism against Data Centers. I think the MAGA side is being co-opted by the environmentalists, who want to stop anything that uses energy so they can drive down our energy use. All technologies are disruptive: printing press, steam engines, cars, planes, computers, the internet and now AI. It's not going to destroy the world. It will disrupt things and we will end up at a new normal. Data Centers are just a piece of infrastructure. As long as we don't strip property rights (eminent domain) or allow stupid environmental crap we will be just fine. Put them out in the boonies and the will help raise the tide to raise all boats.
I have many thoughts, but the tech companies did themselves no favors by seeking special tax breaks so enormous that these facilities end up paying virtually no taxes. Hence there's not much fiscal value to the town for having one. But yet, we need to build them.
To Lance's point, here are what I see as substantial objections to data center construction:
1) they aren't all built "in the boonies" - next time you fly in or out of Washington-Dulles give yourself an hour to drive through nearby Loudoun County - and it may not be possible to build them there.
2) the buildings feel intimidating and inhuman architecturally - 100 feet high walls on all sides with few or no windows/adornments.
3) they generate very few jobs for the amount of land they occupy, which, aside from being an economic development challenge in its own right, reminds people of the constant refrain that AI is going to eliminate a bunch of jobs in a more indirect fashion.
There might well be ways to mitigate all of these concerns but so far the tech companies haven't been great at proffering up such measures.
Agree, though the other problem going on is that it is debatable whether DCs are paying their share of electricity costs. In truth, they probably need to be paying a good deal more than their share, and consumers need confidence in it. Which means they need to see actual relief in electric bills amidst the boom.
It doesn't help that PSCs are notoriously corrupt institutions of state government. Textbook "regulatory capture." The data center boom is huge for utilities, historically a sleepy industry with close to no load growth, and they will push every lever they have to try to get their regulators behind it. They don't want to miss out on the boom to other states with more favorable regulation.
I would say Hochul is wrong here, but I can sympathize with the urge to say "we don't trust anyone involved, we're not messing with it, the risk-reward for us locally is not worth it." Of course, the natural experiment that I will watch with interest will be comparing the trend of residential electricity prices in NY and relatively DC-constructive NJ over the next few years.
Indeed, Republican corporate welfare is a major wedge I feel still between the MAGA right and traditional. Also doesn't help they were slow to move on building additonal power plants to power these things.
I was mussing yesterday that they'll probably will be/is a united front from MAGA and the socialist and scaling back the property rights of corporations because rights should only apply to people or something. I don't hate the sentiment but its a VERY slippery slope.
It's been a while since I've visited (and now paid) for this. You're welcome ;-/
I don't really see the "end" of the populist style and I certainly do not see a waning of the neo-fascist style that Trump and pretty much the entire Republican party are about. I see (or hope to see) what seems to be both bug and feature of Americans' voting and belief systems: a wearying even from the "believers" when they realize --consciously or not-- that they followed another false prophet. Just like religion, you have to ignore reality or dive into an alternate reality in order to feel good or righteous: WE ARE AMERICANS AND THE GREATEST COUNTRY ON EARTH.
When enough Americans come to realize the Populist/Fascist/Fake Economic Ideology is NOT really improving their lives, once again they slink off, hide who they became, what they believed and how nothing improved.
I'm sure I'll incur a great deal of opprobium for this remark, but what the heck: AMERICANS ARE THE DIMMEST POLITICAL ANIMALS in the Western World in that they are so easily manipulated into voting against their own welfare and well-being.
Even the NPR staff seems to have been finally beaten down. They used to sound the alarm with every report as if some imaginary HR department was going to rescue them from Trump. Now they are like the last page of 1984, where Winston concedes that he loves Big Brother.
Could you provide an substantive example/s?
NPR is pretty much thriving and without the subsidies they got and deserved. Even, strangely, in some red states and red areas where the locals needed the many services only NPR could provide:
https://www.npr.org/2026/07/23/nx-s1-5903860/a-year-after-trump-funding-cuts-public-media-finds-support-from-audiences
This will sound simplistic, but it’s something I’m seeing on the ground, personally and professionally. There’s a saying that 90% of life is showing up. There’s a lot of folks with work, with personal lives, with communities, that have largely tuned out or are distracted with the many avenues that take one’s time. The new constructivism will come from those that show up. This can be good and it can be bad. You mentioned examples in the influencer area, which has gone off the rails. There’s an example of people who show up that can lead to bad. Perhaps, as you allude to toward the end of the essay, the successful constructive good will come from folks who handle personal relationships, or human-social activities, well. It might be that aspect where there’s the most fertile ground, particularly in-person opportunities.
There are great opportunities to build. The human-social aspect, along with Big Tech issues and emerging demographic trends are the challenges for constructivism.
Metaphorically speaking, average citizens are the children who have sat through a long Pentecostal church service—tired of the noise, tears, falling out, long speeches, testimonials, calls to give money and volunteer, the pageantry and restriction of it all, the same old people telling their rambling old people stories.
Thoughts have turned to much more tangible and future-oriented questions like:
“What are we going to eat?”;“When are we going home?”; “What’s the plan for later?”
That's great.
Great piece, Aaron!
There seems to be a bystander problem on the right that prevents them from capitalizing on victories the populist right has achieved. As always, the conquest is a lot more fun and sexy then having to rule afterwards. As a people become more wealthy they tend to become more risk adverse, given that the vast majority of Americans who could build and shape institutions in their spare time, but don't because the opportunity cost is so high. So many fun things you could do in those evenings, or more profitable things, and it can be spun as "focusing on my family". Truth is doing those other things produces much tangible results instead of the slow societal change a lifetime of dedication to an institution. I think perhaps there is a great mistrust of conservatives in future generations to lead anything they build, like they don't want to create any worthwhile institution because it will just be taken over by the left in a generation or two.
I'm not familiar with "Big Eva", but I'm no stranger to seeing my fellow Indy Baptists refuse to leave their comfortable spot in the pew to be the salt and light Christ commands us to be. So many rather virtue signal by talking about the need for revival and change instead of being the change. God reward us all the fruits of our labors?
What made you foresee the rise of the manosphere? In 2013 I was a freshman college, and me and friends would often complain about what women claim they want and their actions did were wildly different, but we were scared to be bold because of hyper consent culture on campuses at the time. Maybe we noticing something legitimate after all...
I'm saddened by the new populism against Data Centers. I think the MAGA side is being co-opted by the environmentalists, who want to stop anything that uses energy so they can drive down our energy use. All technologies are disruptive: printing press, steam engines, cars, planes, computers, the internet and now AI. It's not going to destroy the world. It will disrupt things and we will end up at a new normal. Data Centers are just a piece of infrastructure. As long as we don't strip property rights (eminent domain) or allow stupid environmental crap we will be just fine. Put them out in the boonies and the will help raise the tide to raise all boats.
I have many thoughts, but the tech companies did themselves no favors by seeking special tax breaks so enormous that these facilities end up paying virtually no taxes. Hence there's not much fiscal value to the town for having one. But yet, we need to build them.
To Lance's point, here are what I see as substantial objections to data center construction:
1) they aren't all built "in the boonies" - next time you fly in or out of Washington-Dulles give yourself an hour to drive through nearby Loudoun County - and it may not be possible to build them there.
2) the buildings feel intimidating and inhuman architecturally - 100 feet high walls on all sides with few or no windows/adornments.
3) they generate very few jobs for the amount of land they occupy, which, aside from being an economic development challenge in its own right, reminds people of the constant refrain that AI is going to eliminate a bunch of jobs in a more indirect fashion.
There might well be ways to mitigate all of these concerns but so far the tech companies haven't been great at proffering up such measures.
Agree, though the other problem going on is that it is debatable whether DCs are paying their share of electricity costs. In truth, they probably need to be paying a good deal more than their share, and consumers need confidence in it. Which means they need to see actual relief in electric bills amidst the boom.
It doesn't help that PSCs are notoriously corrupt institutions of state government. Textbook "regulatory capture." The data center boom is huge for utilities, historically a sleepy industry with close to no load growth, and they will push every lever they have to try to get their regulators behind it. They don't want to miss out on the boom to other states with more favorable regulation.
I would say Hochul is wrong here, but I can sympathize with the urge to say "we don't trust anyone involved, we're not messing with it, the risk-reward for us locally is not worth it." Of course, the natural experiment that I will watch with interest will be comparing the trend of residential electricity prices in NY and relatively DC-constructive NJ over the next few years.
Indeed, Republican corporate welfare is a major wedge I feel still between the MAGA right and traditional. Also doesn't help they were slow to move on building additonal power plants to power these things.
I was mussing yesterday that they'll probably will be/is a united front from MAGA and the socialist and scaling back the property rights of corporations because rights should only apply to people or something. I don't hate the sentiment but its a VERY slippery slope.