Episode #462 from 54:54
Political realignment
There's also a reality, and I mean the book is trying to enter into this reality. I think one thing you're saying is that people have coded you. And so, Donald Trump is really excited to do it and maybe left with politicians are not. One thing that we think is that we're in a period of realignment. The last chapter of the book, we talk about an idea that is picked up from a historian named Gary Gerstle, which is an idea of political orders. And political orders are periods that have a sort of structure of consensus and a structure of a zone of conflict, but it's more or less agreed on by the two sides, even if only tacitly. So, you have a new deal order, new deal order is founded by FDR. It is entrenched when Dwight Eisenhower accepts the New Deal as part of the US proving that it can treat workers better than the Soviet Union. So those are sort of right there. The three ingredients typically have an order. You have a party that starts it, opposition party that accepts key premises. Dwight Eisenhower doesn't come in and say, "We're going to roll back the whole New Deal," and it's often held in place by an external antagonist. In that case, the Soviet Union. You then you have in the 70s stagflation, the Vietnam War, series of problems that the New Deal order no longer seems able to handle. So, you have the rise of what he calls the neoliberal order. And the neoliberal order is if you're going to choose a founder, it's going to be Reagan on that one. It's much more about markets. It's very concerned with things like inflation, and it really is entrenched by Bill Clinton, the era of the government is over. And partially, it's entrenched also by the fall of the Soviet Union.
Why this moment matters
There's also a reality, and I mean the book is trying to enter into this reality. I think one thing you're saying is that people have coded you. And so, Donald Trump is really excited to do it and maybe left with politicians are not. One thing that we think is that we're in a period of realignment. The last chapter of the book, we talk about an idea that is picked up from a historian named Gary Gerstle, which is an idea of political orders. And political orders are periods that have a sort of structure of consensus and a structure of a zone of conflict, but it's more or less agreed on by the two sides, even if only tacitly. So, you have a new deal order, new deal order is founded by FDR. It is entrenched when Dwight Eisenhower accepts the New Deal as part of the US proving that it can treat workers better than the Soviet Union. So those are sort of right there. The three ingredients typically have an order. You have a party that starts it, opposition party that accepts key premises. Dwight Eisenhower doesn't come in and say, "We're going to roll back the whole New Deal," and it's often held in place by an external antagonist. In that case, the Soviet Union. You then you have in the 70s stagflation, the Vietnam War, series of problems that the New Deal order no longer seems able to handle. So, you have the rise of what he calls the neoliberal order. And the neoliberal order is if you're going to choose a founder, it's going to be Reagan on that one. It's much more about markets. It's very concerned with things like inflation, and it really is entrenched by Bill Clinton, the era of the government is over. And partially, it's entrenched also by the fall of the Soviet Union.