The “Culturally Conservative Worker’s Party” Is a Pipe Dream, in America and Everywhere Else
Among other people Josh Hawley came out this week to posit that the future of Republicans is as a Working Class Party. Andrew Yang said something similar, that Democrats in the US cannot appeal to normal Americans because they’re obsessed with policing speech. It’s been common since 2016 to hear that at major party level the unserved portion of the political compass is the culturally right, economically left/centrist one. Yet the change hasn’t come and isn’t coming. Why not?
The default ideological orientation of mainstream parties in the west is economically right (Uber and Deliveroo workers living in pods), and culturally far left (puberty blockers and white privilege seminars). This arrangement is based on the needs and preferences of the powerful, not because it’s where the market for voters lies.
The simple desire on the part of the public for a political change is not the most important element in realising that change. For an Unwoke Worker’s Party to take hold, it would have to be desired by some portion of the people in charge. As yet, it isn’t.
Advocating cultural conservatism isn’t in the interests of conservative politicians because they are members of the class — educated white people in big cities — that is most supportive of cultural liberalisation, including in it’s most zany, evil forms. They are comfortable with these ideas and live in a social world where the ideas originate and are taken seriously, and where dissenting from them can lose you status.
Social liberalisation is preferred by people who pay for politicians for the same reason. It is also in the material interests of big business because being performatively woke allows them to fulfil their Corporate Social Responsibility obligations without having to do anything that empowers workers as a class. Social liberalisation in the form of mass migration provides a source of cheap labour that also undermines the cultural power of the existing workforce.
The failure of mainstream Conservative parties to represent their voters is by design, not because they have sauntered down a blind alley out of which they can easily retreat. If at some point in the future woke culture makes life personally difficult for a large number if conservative politicians or their patrons, that may change. Until then, anyone speculating that a grand realignment is imminent because their hispanic vote has gone up 8% is being insincere (though they should be encouraged). As always the long-term role for those dissenting from the status quo is not to stand by waiting for a rock solid system to collapse, but to chip away and the edges, hunker down keep the flame alive.
