Elon Musk says our two major parties have turned him off; he’s starting the “American Party.” Musk isn’t the only person uncomfortable with the direction offered by the two parties. The Democrats seem to cling to small minority positions, the majority abhors, such as biological males in women’s sports, and open borders. A Republican president playing footsy with organized labor and imposing industrial policy through tariffs. These used to be Democratic policies.

It’s not surprising that long-term adherents to either party are dismayed. Recently, I began to understand what was going on, thanks to two books., “Abundance,” by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, and “The New Conservatives,” edited by Oren Cass. In a post last April, I noted, “Abundance” is weak tea, heavy on lamentations about how nothing ever gets built or finished. We’ve all seen this in action, or more realistically, inaction. What I found lacking is solutions.

The authors decry California’s high-speed rail boondoggle, but fail to mention that Florida already connects major cities with its non-government high-speed rail. It’s not profitable, but it’s running and rapidly growing. Completed green power projects are more abundant in red states. Houston has affordable housing, California doesn’t.

While the U.S. as a whole suffers from excessive regulation, some individuals have found ways to accomplish their goals. Instead of merely pointing out the overregulation, the authors needed to demonstrate how to mitigate the problem, providing examples of success, even if they’re in Red States.

I was surprised to read E.J. Dionne’s critique of the book in The Washington Post. Long featured on the left of the center media, such as MSNBC, he’s a longtime window into the progressive intelligentsia’s thinking. In his words, this mild book” has “the potential to divide the party.” What, a book that ends in the aspiration for “a liberalism that builds.” What a shocking idea.

Dionne points out a main line of resistance to “Abundance” in one paragraph, “This gets to the broader challenge Abundance advocates face from the left: By placing so much blame for government failure on the accretion of well-intended rules, regulations and reviews imposed over the years by progressives, the new disposition, in the view of its critics, “redirect[s] the public’s rage away from the parasitism of economic elites and toward the regulatory regimes of state and local Democrats,” as Aaron Regunberg, a former Rhode Island state representative, wrote in the Nation.”

The impediments to building are righteous, and discarding or reforming them is dangerous or misdirected. One must understand the vast network of organizations encountered when trying to build or extract anything. Legal organizations, such as the ACLU, conservation groups like the Sierra Club, Labor unions, and various ethnic organizations.

Want to build a pipeline, be prepared for visits from lawyers, conservation representatives declaring you’re destroying the earth, and Native Americans claiming you’re disrespecting “Sacred Land” while beating on their drums.

These organizations are the heart of the progressive movement. They only exist to resist. The Sierra Club doesn’t plant trees or nurture wild animals; it’s a lobbying organization. Streamlining the process by limiting their power to obstruct is an existential threat.

This reaction explains why this mild book has “the power to divide the party.” So much of the party’s progressive base exists to obstruct, not to build. The reaction to “Abundance” illuminates the Democrats’ dilemma. Progressives aren’t about expanding the pie, only how it’s divided. Even this little book that dares to propose that we need more houses, EV chargers, and trains provokes an outsized reaction on the left—no wonder the Democrats have lost touch with the majority of Americans.

Republicans used to know what they were for. Reducing regulation allowed the free market to improve our lives. Individual liberty. No forced unionization, or government picking winners and losers. Standing up to those threatening liberty here and abroad.. Dealing fairly with the world in ways to expand the well-being of all.

Now we have Republican Schizophrenia. While still adhering to some of the libertarian principles so well propagated by Ronald Reagan, such as reining in regulation and lower taxes, we are sliding into industrial policy through tariffs. Republicans have long favored the Right to work, but here is the Republican President standing with union leaders, promising to protect union members’ jobs with 50% tariffs on steel imports. We bomb one bad actor in Iran, but fail to punish Putin’s Russia.

Reading the “New Conservatives” will at least tell you where these 180-degree ideas and their rationale come from. A compilation of essays by the leading lights of the movement, you will be acquainted with the intellectual basis for many of the Trump administration’s actions.

You don’t even have to buy the book, as many of the essays included are available online. The theme is that libertarian principles, such as free trade and minimal government interference in the economy and people’s lives, have destroyed the culture of America and are responsible for hollowing out the Nation.

The liberty idea in Libertarianism pertains to individual freedom, economic freedom, government size, and taxation, according to the State of the World Liberty Index. The New Conservatives, rather than extending these freedoms, the government must take action to return to a time when they claim people were more fulfilled. Achieving this outcome by making everything here in a fortress America will lead to pride in well-paid work, improving families, and our culture, according to Oren Cass. “The organization of that labor affects these outcomes,” Brian Dijkema, an essay contributor, adds.

It’s easy to see the “New Conservatives” influence on the Trump administration’s actions. Getting to know them will explain a lot.

What I found fascinating is how similar these people are to the progressives troubling the Democrats. Both want to return to an idealized world they think occurred in the 1950s and 60s, but as I’ve pointed out, never existed. I know, I lived through that era. Both look to the government to achieve their goals. Both abhor libertarians.

Stranger still, both rely on easily derided assumptions. When the highly visible far end of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Socialists, are confronted with the fact that there has never been a prosperous Marxist nation, Bernie Sanders and AOC reply that true socialism has never been implemented. Oren Cass, American Compass co-founder, Michael Lind, and essay contributor, bolsters the new Democratic attack on Libertarianism by asking, “Why hasn’t any country anywhere ever tried it?

I’m indebted to Trace Mitchell and the Cafe Hayek Blog for clarity on these issues: “True socialism has never been implemented.”

No, but attempts to get closer to it have resulted in death and poverty.

“True libertarianism has never been implemented.”

No, but attempts to get closer to it have resulted in peace and prosperity.

Choose your direction.”

The State of Liberty Index adds perspective on direction. Switzerland comes closest to the ideals of liberty, while communist North Korea ranked last. Interestingly, ever-struggling Argentina is rated the most progressive.

Data through 2023 forms the basis for the latest index. That same year. Argentina elected an avowed libertarian, Javier Milei, as its President. Despite predictions, he has been remarkably successful and is the first world leader President-elect Trump met with. Trump’s admiration of Milei is no secret. He’s called him his favorite President.

Elon Musk shepherded the Trump-Milei friendship. The billionaire and the Argentinian appear to be libertarian soulmates and share an affinity for chainsaws. This situation created an oil and water situation with the New Conservatives in and out of the Trump administration, which goes a long way to explain the Trump-Musk split.

Leading both progressives and New Conservatives are educated elites with prefixes and suffixes in their names. They appeal to narrow constituencies. Academics, artists, professionals, and media populate both the progressives and the New Conservatives.

While the New Conservatives see themselves as the future, in reality, their success depends on the approval of one person, Donald Trump. Where does he stand today, and what will he do tomorrow?

What’s happening with these books will help you identify the players, if not the outcome.