The politics of the Valley was always a liberal sort of libertarianism: pro-choice, pro-immigration, idealistic, even utopian, arrogant about its mission of empowering individuals and connecting humanity, but indifferent to and ignorant of government, with an engineer’s contempt for the creaky workings of bureaucracy and the cluelessness of elected officials.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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The culture war is burning too hot for a class war to snuff it out anytime soon.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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The path that leads from scathing denunciation through gradual accommodation to sycophantic embrace of Trump is a well-worn pilgrimage trail.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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We remember the pandemic as a boiling point in the culture wars. The continuous battles over lockdowns, masking, police violence, expertise, conspiracy theories, and the outcome of the 2020 election have never really subsided. But the pandemic also exposed the grotesque unfairness of our economy and society in deeply personal ways, cutting across the red-blue divide.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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The college-educated are trained to expect that the world will make room for them, and when it doesn’t—when they suffer the indignities of wage work, with its unpredictable schedules and disrespectful bosses, and can see no way up or out—the blow isn’t just economic; it’s psychological.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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The ground that unites the powerless against the powerful is always about to collapse. Our irrepressible red-blue conflict is always ready to set Americans against Americans in every conceivable way: education, race, religion, age, gender, region, even views of foreign wars. It’s better to be honest about these differences, and try not to rub them raw until they destroy the chance for a better country, than to assume that they don’t matter or wish them out of existence.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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The radicalization of college-educated Americans who have begun to live the unpleasant realities of their less privileged compatriots—who can hardly afford rent, much less to buy a house and start a family—is an encouraging turn. They could form part of a broader social movement that finally addresses our deepest problems instead of dissolving them in electronic bile. A professional class that identifies with America’s multitudes of have-nots and votes on that basis would be a powerful force for greater equality and opportunity.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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A college-educated working class sounds like an oxymoron because socioeconomic status is generally defined by education and believed to rise with each academic degree. In recent years, a college education has become one of the most reliable indicators of both economic well-being and voting behavior.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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The right always knows how to exploit the excesses of the left. It happened in 1968, when the campus takeovers and the street battles between anti-war activists and cops at the Democratic convention in Chicago helped elect Richard Nixon. Republican politicians are already exploiting the chaos on campuses. This summer, the Democrats will gather again in Chicago, and the activists are promising a big show. Donald Trump will be watching.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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It shouldn’t be surprising that working-class Americans of color sympathize with migrants but don’t necessarily want an open border, that they fear crime at least as much as police misconduct. But their views confound progressives, who see these issues through the almost metaphysical lens of group identity—the belief that we think inside lines of race, gender, and sexuality, that these accidental and immutable traits dictate our politics.
~ George Packer via The Atlantic
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