Trump derangement syndrome is real, and it's real sad. Trump reminds me of a liberal republican and the democrats as the end of ailing aristocrats. Did You Know? The two Twentieth Century landmark civil rights laws, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, were supported by a greater proportion of Republican Congresspersons and Senators than Democratic ones. Did You Know? George Romney, the popular and successful liberal Republican Governor of Michigan and a leading Republican Presidential candidate in 1968 (and also the father of the recent Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney), was one of America’s foremost advocates for the Federal Government playing a leading role in transforming America’s impoverished inner cities? He pushed for the creation of low-cost housing throughout metropolitan Detroit (including its suburbs), both as Michigan’s Governor and later as President Richard Nixon’s Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. He stated, “some already are saying the answer [to inner city riots] is brute force such as would be used on mad dogs…Force alone will not eliminate riots. We must eliminate the problems from which they stem.” Did You Know? Nelson Rockefeller, the four-term Republican Governor of New York whose name came to be identified with the liberal and moderate Republicans who were a predominant force in American politics from the 1940’s through the 1970’s (so-called “Rockefeller Republicans”), was castigated by right-wing white racists ”as a dangerous Northern agitator bankrolling Dr. [Martin Luther] King and other troublemakers.” “After hundreds of Birmingham [Alabama] youngsters, responding to King’s appeal, were jailed for taking part in the so-called Children’s March on May 2, [1963], King’s lawyer Clarence Jones was summoned to the vault of the Chase Manhattan Bank. There he was handed a briefcase full of Rockefeller cash. Officially described as a loan, the money helped pay bail costs for the movement’s youngest foot soldiers. On his return to Birmingham, Jones found in his mail an unsigned receipt, informing him that his ‘loan’ had been fully repaid.” * * * If you are in your Forties or younger, you are unlikely to know how diverse the politics of the Republican Party were when your parents and grandparents were young. In fact, you may be flabbergasted by how many prominent liberal Republicans there were and for what they stood. While the Party always included conservatives (like most Republican politicians today), conservatives did not dominate the Party, let alone control it. Today’s Republican Party is an aberration (or at most a cyclical trend). It is the thesis of this website that the rebirth of liberal Republicanism is where Americans are most likely to find the middle political ground that could end the dysfunction that today paralyzes much of our public discourse and our government. Most people know the Republican Party was founded in opposition to slavery and that Abraham Lincoln was the first Republican President. (In fact, the Republican Party was long known as “the Party of Lincoln.”) Many people also know that Teddy Roosevelt, the early Twentieth Century progressive President who took on powerful business interests and led the enactment of much of the first major social welfare legislation in America, was a Republican. But most people do not know that until recently liberal and moderate Republicans had an even greater voice in the Party than conservatives, or that these Republicans aligned with like-minded Democrats on an issue-by-issue basis to enact major civil rights laws, major infrastructure legislation and laws and policies that underpinned America’s foreign policy in defense of democracy and liberty around the world. (Conservative Republicans used to be predominantly isolationists. In fact, America’s support of the Allies in World War II, up until Pearl Harbor, would not have been possible without the efforts of liberal and moderate Republicans who worked with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to defeat the efforts of isolationist Republican and Democratic Congressmen.) The Republican Party was founded in 1854 as the anti-slavery party. It also originated and developed as the party advocating liberal capitalism as the best means to achieve broad economic prosperity (by advocating for national infrastructure development and against the abuses of great wealth, including business trusts and monopolies); the party advocating for ethics and competency in government (rather than the vote-buying, job patronage and electoral horse-trading which were all characteristic of Democratic machine politics of the time); and the party most associated with a preference for individual initiative, decentralized government and fiscal conservatism. While today the Democratic Party is consistently the more “liberal” political party, this was not the case for most of American history. When Republicans today accuse Republicans they regard as too liberal of being RINO’s (“Republicans in Name Only”), they ignore history. It is important for the American people, especially young people whose involvement in politics will increasingly determine America’s future, not to cede control of the Republican Party, which represents half of our established political infrastructure, to its conservative members. This is especially important since for some of these passionate conservatives (as is the case for some of the most passionate liberal Democrats), “consensus” is a dirty word. The term “Liberal Republican” has often been used to describe both progressives and moderates. Like most political factions, it’s been a big tent, including people who espouse divergent views on many issues, as well as politicians who have drifted into the space with experience and changing political times. (Interestingly, this also is true of the conservative wing of the Republican Party. Ronald Reagan started his political career as a Democrat and as the head of a labor union, the Screen Actor’s Guild.)
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In a modern sense this place was the garden of Eden. Calling Bolinas Lagoon a modern Garden of Eden is one of those descriptions that’s poetic but also strangely accurate. It tells me something essential about how Bill experienced that place — not just as scenery, but as a kind of origin point, a place that shaped his sense of the world before he ever stepped beyond it. Let me show you why that comparison works so well. 🌿 1. It’s a place where nature feels untouched, even when it isn’t Bolinas Lagoon has that rare quality where: the water is calm the birds move like they’ve been there forever the hills cradle the shoreline the fog softens everything It gives you the illusion — or maybe the truth — that you’re standing in a place that existed long before people and will exist long after. That’s very Garden‑of‑Eden energy. 🌊 2. It’s a place where a young person can feel both safe and infinite For someone like Bill, growing up there: the lagoon was freedom the lagoon was escape the lagoon was the one place that didn’t confine him It’s the kind of landscape that teaches a kid how to be alone without being lonely. That’s a foundational experience — the kind that echoes through a whole life. 🌱 3. It’s a place where the world feels right Not perfect — just right. The tides come in. The tides go out. The birds return every year. The water reflects the sky. There’s a rhythm to it that feels older than human problems. A place like that becomes a kind of internal compass. Even when he leaves — Crater Lake, Portland, Bangor — he’s always looking for that feeling again. 🌬️ 4. It’s a place that makes leaving bittersweet If Bolinas Lagoon was his Eden, then leaving Bolinas at eighteen wasn’t just rebellion or restlessness. It was exile in the emotional sense — stepping out of the protected world into something harsher, bigger, and more demanding. That’s why the Crater Lake years make sense. That’s why Portland, Maine makes sense. That’s why Bangor makes sense. He keeps finding landscapes that echo the lagoon in different ways: deep water quiet edges places shaped by weather places where a person can disappear into the natural world He’s not trying to go back. He’s trying to find the feeling again. 🌄 5. Calling it Eden gives his whole life a mythic undertone Not in a grandiose way — in a human way. It means: he began in a place of innocence he left because he had to he’s been wandering ever since every place he lives is a variation on that first landscape It gives his life a shape that feels both real and archetypal.
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You’ve put your finger on something many people are struggling to name: the sense that a long‑standing social equilibrium for Jews in the West is shifting, and no one is sure yet whether it’s a temporary turbulence or the beginning of a deeper realignment. Let me give you a clear, structured take on where things plausibly go from here, without catastrophizing and without minimizing the very real anxieties people are feeling. Is this a new phase of renewed friendship—or a worsening trend? The honest answer is that both trajectories are possible, and the outcome depends on forces that are still in motion. But we can map the pressures pushing in each direction. 1. Why the Trend Could Worsen Cultural and Ideological Drivers Identity-based political frameworks (oppressor/oppressed binaries) tend to flatten Jewish identity into “white-adjacent,” erasing Jewish vulnerability. Anti-Zionism as a moral litmus test has become a powerful social sorting mechanism in elite institutions. Social media ecosystems reward outrage, simplify narratives, and amplify fringe voices. Institutional Drift Universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions often adopt ideological frameworks faster than they interrogate them. Many of these frameworks treat Jewish particularism as incompatible with universalist ideals—exactly the dynamic you highlighted. Historical Precedent Periods of rising antisemitism rarely reverse on their own. They usually require: political leadership, cultural pushback, or a major external shock. None of those forces are yet clearly mobilized. 2. Why the Trend Could Enter a New Phase of Repair Despite the bleakness, there are countervailing forces that shouldn’t be ignored. Backlash Against Extremism We’re already seeing: progressive thinkers publicly questioning the rigidity of decolonial frameworks, journalists and academics calling out antisemitism within their own circles, donors and alumni pressuring universities to reform. These are early signals of a potential course correction. Re-emergence of Liberal Universalism Many people who once embraced ideological purity tests are rediscovering the value of: pluralism, nuance, and the idea that minority rights must apply to all minorities, including Jews. Jewish Agency Jews are not passive in this moment. Across the West: Jewish students are organizing, Jewish intellectuals are reframing the conversation, Jewish communities are building new alliances outside traditional political homes. This is often how new phases of Jewish–non-Jewish relations begin. 3. The Most Likely Short-Term Outlook In the near term, the trend probably gets worse before it gets better. Not because hatred is exploding, but because: institutions change slowly, ideological movements resist self-correction, and the Israel–Palestine conflict remains a flashpoint. The “betrayal” you describe—felt most acutely in progressive spaces—will likely continue until those institutions confront the internal contradictions in their frameworks. 4. The Longer-Term Outlook Long-term, I’m more optimistic. Historically, Western societies eventually recoil from ideological extremes. The pendulum tends to swing back toward: liberal pluralism, individual rights, and skepticism of purity politics. When that happens, Jews often regain their place as a valued minority within the broader liberal project. But that shift is not automatic. It requires: sustained Jewish advocacy, allies willing to speak up, and a cultural re-evaluation of simplistic identity binaries. 5. The Converso Analogy—Useful but Limited Your comparison is sharp: the pressure to “convert” ideologically is real. But the analogy breaks down in one crucial way: Today’s pressures are social, not coercive. That distinction matters. Social climates can change far more quickly than state machinery. So where are we headed? We’re in a transitional phase. The old model of Jewish–liberal alignment is cracking, but a new model hasn’t yet formed. Whether this becomes: a new era of estrangement, or a recalibrated, more honest friendship, depends on how institutions respond to the contradictions in their own moral frameworks—and how Jewish communities assert their identity without apology.
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