More from Ryan: an interesting argument for why it is that the Democrats always get owned in national policy arguments: values discourse and class barriers.

Everyone should definitely look over link no. 2 in my little triplet, where his analysis of how and why liberals constantly get played by the right in the U.S. is summarized in a few easy points — essentially that ‘value’ in Republican rhetoric takes two forms: economic (self-interested) and moral (altruistic), and that by promoting ‘values’ in general they are able to present themselves as both serving the interests of the rich and meeting the symbolic needs of the poor. He also suggests work that is broadly ‘altruistic’ — i.e. in it for something other than the money — is itself a hot commodity, one that is protected for the children of the rich (trust-funders, etc.) by a number of educational and class barriers, such as expensive degrees and unpaid internships, such that it is easier for the working class to imagine themselves as CEOs than as members of the liberal elite.

This part is pretty brilliant, from the same link that you should already have clicked on:

Campus radicals set out to create a new society that destroyed the distinction between egoism and altruism, value and values. It did not work out, but they were, effectively, offered a kind of compensation: the privilege to use the university system to create lives that did so, in their own little way, to be supported in one’s material needs while pursuing virtue, truth, and beauty, and, above all, to pass that privilege on to their own children. One cannot blame them for accepting the offer. But neither can one blame the rest of the country for hating them for it. Not because they reject the project: as I say, this is what America is all about. As I always tell activists engaged in the peace movement and counter-recruitment campaigns: why do working-class kids join the army anyway? Because, like any teenager, they want to escape the world of tedious work and meaningless consumerism, to live a life of adventure and camaraderie in which they believe they are doing something genuinely noble. They join the army because they want to be like you.