In the wake of the election, both parties face critical questions going forward. Both are in disarray, both headed in potentially dangerous directions. During the course of 2020 I have become increasingly pessimistic about the outcome, not just because of what is happening within the parties but because of larger trends in American society. We cannot survive as a functioning society if the outcome of every national election becomes a potential extinction moment for one party or the other. We need two viable parties with supporters that agree to some common set of rules. That no longer exists. What happens next?
The Democrats
For the Democrats, it can be summed up simply - will it revert to the party of traditional liberals and progressives, like former New York Times writer and editor, Bari Weiss, or will it become the party of the intolerant totalitarian-minded haters who work for the New York Times and drove Bari Weiss out?
I don't use the word "totalitarian" lightly, preferring in past posts to refer to "authoritarian" tendencies. On reflection, watching what has happened over the past few months and better understanding the academic theories driving the Woke, I think totalitarian is the more accurate word. It is a totalizing philosophy that considers the personal as political. It reaches everything in life, including one's private thoughts. They will come for your job, they will destroy your career, they will deny you educational opportunities. Everything in your life is in play. It is an unending version of the Salem Witch Trials. You can read my Your Future series for more on this philosophy.
They feel threatened as long as everyone in society is not in accord with their beliefs. And eliminating that threat requires complete control of society. It reminds me of the scene in Godfather II, when Michael Corleone responds to Tom Hagen’s question about why Michael needed
to continue to kill people when he’d already won his gangland war, “I don’t feel I have to wipe everyone out, Tom. Just my enemies“. And anyone who does not agree with them is an enemy to the Woke.
U.S. Grant's observation in his Memoirs of the cause of the Civil War also comes to mind:
Prior to the time of these encroachments the great majority of the people of the North had no particular quarrel with slavery, so long as they were not forced to have it themselves. But they were not willing to play the role of police for the South . . .
The encroachments Grant refers to are the Fugitive Slave Act and other intrusions into the life of the North that the Southern slave owners insisted upon because they felt threatened. The Identitarian Philosophy bear similarities to the attitude of the Southern aristocracy in the 1850s, which felt threatened by anything going on elsewhere in the United States that could be seen as undermining the legitimacy of its ruling philosophy.
During the decades leading up to the Civil War, that aristocracy became more aggressive in demanding the demolition of opposition to its rule. It demanded, and actually undertook, censorship of abolitionist literature being transported by the postal service. For several years it imposed a gag rule on the House, forbidding discussion of any resolutions regarding slavery. In 1857, the Supreme Court gave us the first "Living Constitution" opinion in Dred Scott, rewriting American history in light of current conditions in order to meet the modern needs of a 19th century America, potentially opening up the entire country to slavery.
And we hear echoes of John C Calhoun in the Woke. They agree completely with Calhoun's reinterpretation of American history which insisted that blacks were excluded from the American compact (that was the point of the 1619 Project), and we see Calhoun's nullification theory in action today in Progressive sanctuary cities where violent illegal aliens are privileged over the life and safety of law abiding Americans, including legal immigrants. Now that I think about it, we can see the evolution of Southern views on slavery from a regrettable situation which would end someday to Calhoun's formulation of slavery as a "positive good", reflected in the change in language around abortion from Bill Clinton's "safe, rare, and legal" to its celebration today as a positive good not subject to any restriction.
It's why the New York Times and other media now run pieces explaining why the First Amendment needs rethinking; it's why media and the social media companies now classify and censor as hate speech, any opinions that do not align completely with the Woke creed.
Do I think most Democratic voters support this philosophy? No. But the party activists, including those who will fill Biden administration positions, do. More dangerous for our future is how the events of this year revealed how many of our institutions are under the control of those who subscribe to this quasi-religious creed - look at our universities, the infiltration of these concepts into the K-12 system, the media's overwhelming support, the high tech oligarchs and their employees, public employee unions (particularly SEIU and teacher's unions), major foundations, and many large corporations.
Do I think Joe Biden supports this philosophy? No, because I don't think he is capable anymore of understanding what is going on. He thinks when he speaks of "systemic racism" that he means "being against racism", but the people around him know better, and it is those people I am worried about.
Can old-fashioned liberals mount a successful counter-offensive against this pernicious development? We need a Democratic Party that turns away from the suppression of dissent, so I hope so, but have my doubts. I now read a long list of liberals/progressives who understand the danger of Woke philosophy - Wesley Yang, Asra Nomani, Claire Lehmann, Zaid Jilani, James Lindsay, Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, Andrew Sullivan, Seerut Chawla, Bari Weiss, Inaya Folarin Iman, Mike Nayna, Colin Wright, Heather Heying, Chloe Valdary, Helen Pluckrose, Debra Soh, Bo Winegard, Bret Weinstein, Jody Shaw - they are impassioned and eloquent, but lack political influence. It will require a lot more liberals waking up to the danger, a danger that will swallow them, not just the Right, if it prevails.
The Republicans
Three questions:
Can the post-Trump GOP find a path that rejects the coming attempt by the Romney/Sasse/Bush Remnants to regain control while avoiding falling into the fever swamp of crazies?
Will Donald Trump allow the growth of a non-Trump GOP which can tread that path?
Is there a candidate who can retain Trump's appeal to new voters and bring back some of the suburban voters alienated by Trump's personality and antics?
Unless the answer is yes to all, the GOP will have trouble sustaining its national viability.
The repulsive, impulsive, chaotic traits of Donald Trump contributed to his defeat. But he also realigned the GOP and began creating a new coalition, drawing more than 10 million new voters in this election - more working class, more Hispanic, and with a start on adding black support.
The pre-Trump GOP of chamber of commerce friendliness, always scouting for foreign interventions to Make America Great Again, pretending to care about controlling immigration, afraid of taking on the underlying cultural issues, and running for the hills anytime it is accused of racism, is dead and any attempt to revive it will rip apart the party.
Donald Trump's time is over. The question is whether he recognizes it. Does he want to run again? He will be closer to 79 than 78 on inauguration day in 2025. I don't think he will wear well with the greater public. He'll be tweeting and holding rallies and looking even crazier than before because he will not have any positive accomplishments to point to over the next four years to offset the nuttiness. It would be a disaster if he runs in 2024.
Unfortunately, he retains a large personal following and will be influential if he chooses to be so, I fear a temptation too hard for him to resist. Even if he ends up not running in 2024 but manages to smother the emergent of any potential successor more palatable to a larger part of the electorate it is a big problem for the future of the GOP and, worse case, it could tear the party apart if he remains a prominent figure.
And this is what I mean by the crazies:
CCP & 1000’s of US citizens worked together to try to steal 2020 election at top of ticket & selected down ballot races. Serbia, Canada, Venezuela, Cuba, CIA, George Soros, Bill Gates, Biden, Clinton Foundation & many national state & local officials from both parties involved.
A new and successful GOP will need to look closer to Trump on substance than to the old GOP. It will be non-interventionist (and when action is needed it will be quick, overwhelming and decisive as with the Iranian Soleimani), engaged with the world but not subservient to international institutions, smart about taking on China from the perspective of protecting American security and jobs, less focused on tax rates for the wealthy but willing to take on the bureaucratic regulatory state, serious about border security and immigration policy, and willing to forcefully take on the educational, media, corporate and tech establishments, and confront those attempting to reracialize American society. Can it be done? Theoretically yes, but as a practical matter it will be difficult. It will require politicians savvy enough to put a coalition together and smart enough to avoid the personal pitfalls associated with Trump.
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Looming behind all this is a fiscal crisis for the country somewhere down the road. Our federal spending habits will prove unsustainable at some point. The Democrats haven't cared and Trump's presidency allowed the GOP to stop pretending it cared. It's like how the Democrats pretended to care about illegal immigration until they thought it politically safe to endorse open borders. There is no visible solution since no one in national politics is serious about it so best not to think about the problem.
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There are some glimmers of hope, amidst the ruin. I mentioned that I do not think the majority of Democratic voters, unlike party leadership and activists, support the Woke. We got some evidence in California last month. Californians gave nearly 2/3 of their votes to Biden, who carried the state by five million votes. At the same time, they decisively defeated a ballot proposition proposed by the Democratic Party, and backed by public employee unions and tech oligarchs who outspent opponents 17-1, which would have eliminated the anti-discrimination provision of the California constitution. The votes of Asians and Hispanics were key to defeating the proposition. This was a direct rejection of the Woke attempt to re-racialize America.
Another ray of hope is how Democrats and the media have chosen to attack the Trump administration's actions to forbid training using race and sex stereotypes and scapegoating in the federal government and by government contractors and grantees. Democrats and their media allies have deliberately and repeatedly lied in describing these actions as banning diversity training. As explained in a prior post, Trump's order states it:
. . . does not prevent agencies, the United States Uniformed Services, or contractors from promoting racial, cultural, or ethnic diversity or inclusiveness
Democrats and media are lying in their description because they are aware that most Americans, across the political spectrum, would agree that Trump's action banning training based on racial hatred, stereotypes and designed to be divisive, is justified. They would find it shocking that such actions are needed 56 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act.
As to the Republicans, ask me in the middle of 2021, because it will take a few months before we get a glimpse as to whether the party can avoid the multiple pitfalls in its path, but the events of the past few weeks are not a good omen.
One further reflection helps me battle my increasing pessimism. Growing up during the Cold War for the first 40 years of my life hovering in the background was the possibility of a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States. It was very difficult to see a path that could resolve matters short of ultimately some type of major conflict, whether planned or inadvertent. I think anyone predicting in 1980 the tearing down of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union two years later would have been thought out of their minds. Yet it happened to the surprise of most of us. A reminder of the limits of our ability to predict the future and the contingent factor of unexpected events and singular personalities.
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