> Saying this is a right-wing impulse is, I think, precisely what put Trump in office. Twice. The democrats were largely subverted by progressives and ceded this monopoly on the idea of public order to the republicans. Why is it such a stretch to say that yes, we believe that the common man should be protected from wage theft or pollution, and also we believe that he should be protected from violent or criminal impulses?

You may be right about this.

But if you zoom out, how is it that we are at a moment in civilization with unprecedented wealth, unprecedented technology, unprecedented nutrition, unprecedented medical care, unprecedented education and access to information, and yet politicians gain power at the federal level by railing against petty street crime?

Right-wing impulse thinking is generally what is most desirable to people who have already fully "made it" financially want -- things like a country club atmosphere (no visible poverty or crime), a suburban style layout (private over public transit, low density housing, private security, etc.)

For most people, such an arrangement is suboptimal. Higher density housing is much less expensive and safer, public transit is much more efficient, economic heterogeneity an opportunity for economic interaction and small business creation, etc.

In the US people have been told they need to live in the suburbs and have a big mortgage on a massive property (often 1000+ square feet and one bathroom per person) to escape the dangers of urban crime. They often purchase expensive cars and spend 2-3 hours per day commuting to an office, tying up most of their leisure time.

This of course reduces government revenue in urban, higher density areas, which does lead to increased crime. But you can see how it's a cycle perpetuated by right-wing impulse style thinking. Many Americans are already very bought into this mentality with respect to housing, but they do not realize the extent to which it shapes other aspects of their worldview.

To a significant extent, the financial allocations of people across the US for many decades is invested in perpetuating suburban property values and social values (fear of urban density, fear of economic diversity, fear of crime, etc.).

People like Garry Tan with $100M net worth should be the ones focusing on bringing the fruits of our modern civilization to more people, not calling for them to be punished. It's a bad look and it has the same effect as Trump's rallying cry against the weakest -- it promotes the narrative that suburban, country club isolation from economic diversity is humane and desirable, and it pretends that rather than living in times of unprecedented abundance, we face such scarcity that we should abandon our empathy for the weakest among us. I'm not sure how things could get more ugly.

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