Old Socialist speculates.
Oct 24, 2024
The Reader has to wonder at the headline of this Bret Stephens political commentary, that seems to miss the very reason, the whole point of the Stephens essay: ‘There’s One Main Culprit if Donald Trump Wins’
Editor: Bret Stephens offers seven reasons after the opening paragraphs:
The Electoral College. White racism. Black sexism. President Biden.
Should Kamala Harris lose the presidential election next month, those will be among the more convenient excuses Democrats will offer for falling short in a race against a staggeringly flawed, widely detested opponent. There will also be whispers that she was not the strongest candidate in the first place — that the party would have done better to elevate a more natural political talent like Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania or Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
There’s truth in all of it. But it lets off the hook the main culprit: the way in which leading liberal voices in government, academia and media practice politics today. Consider its main components.
Editor: Stephens identifies the culprits : ‘the main culprit: the way in which leading liberal voices in government, academia and media practice politics today.’ Mr. Stephens seems to have forgotten that the ‘liberal voices’ have entered into an alliance with the Neo-Cons:
Headline: Opinion
The emerging unholy alliance between hawkish Democrats and neoconservatives
…
The neocons — led by the likes of Bill Kristol, Max Boot and Dick Cheney — were the ideological motor behind President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, the worst foreign policy debacle since the Vietnam War. The indispensable-nation crowd — personified by Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright and Michele Flournoy — were initial supporters of the Iraq War, championed President Barack Obama’s “surge” in Afghanistan and helped orchestrate the disastrous regime change in Libya. Neither the neocons nor the indispensable-nation crowd has been instructed nor daunted by failure.
Illustrative of their emerging alliance, as Glenn Greenwald reports, is yet another Beltway foreign policy initiative: the Alliance for Securing Democracy. The Alliance describes itself as a “bipartisan, transatlantic initiative” focused on Russia. Its purpose is to “develop comprehensive strategies to defend against, deter and raise the costs on Russian and other actors,” while working to “expose Vladimir Putin’s ongoing efforts to subvert democracy in the United States and Europe.” Consider this an updated version of Kristol and Robert Kagan’s 1997 Project for the New American Century, which fulminated for the invasion of Iraq. The Alliance’s advisory council includes Jake Sullivan, Clinton’s foreign policy adviser, and Mike Morell, acting CIA director under Obama. They sit comfortably with Kristol, Mike Chertoff, homeland security secretary under Bush, and hawkish former Republican congressman Mike Rogers. With a record of catastrophic foreign policy fiascoes, the establishment comes together to strike back.
…
Mr. Stephens offers these seven points to the reader: note that I will leave my ‘signature’, but will not comment on what I think is valuable and insightful in the Stephens’ seven arguments.
1: The politics of condescension
But perhaps those men are responding to something more mundane: Median weekly wages for full-time Black workers rose steeply during Donald Trump’s presidency and essentially stagnated under Biden, according to data from the St. Louis Fed. Why reach for the insulting explanation when a rational one will do?
Editor: Give Stephens credit for providing a more proximal reason, for the failure of black men to support Harris. Obama’s condescension was evident on the You Tube video
2: The politics of name-calling
Trump’s supporters overwhelmingly are people who think the Biden-Harris years have been bad for them and the country. Maybe liberals should try to engage the argument without belittling the person.
Editor:
3:The politics of gaslighting:
Now some of the same pundits are extolling Harris as brilliant and experienced, which may be true but is hardly evidenced by her seeming inability to move beyond a limited set of talking points or the fact that it’s difficult to think of a political or legislative accomplishment of which she was the prime mover.
Editor:
4:The politics of highhandedness:
A Democratic Party that claims to be defending democracy without bothering to practice it is not going to endear itself to voters it needs to win.
Editor:
5: The politics of Pollyanna:
Wouldn’t it be better to meet voter concerns rather than tell them they’re seeing ghosts?
Editor:
6: The politics of selective fidelity to traditional norms.
They decry Trump’s assaults on the news media while cheering the Biden administration’s attempt to strong-arm media companies into censoring opinions it disliked. And they warn of Trump’s efforts to criminalize his political opponents, even as they celebrate criminalizing him. Hypocrisy of this sort doesn’t go unnoticed by people not fully in the tank for Harris.
Editor:
7: The politics of identity over class.
Wiser liberals might want to press two questions: How did Trump still get so very, very close? And how can we fashion a liberalism that doesn’t turn so many ordinary people off?
Editor: The utter collapse of The Neo-Liberal Swindle, that birthed The Tea Party and its successor of Trump and Trumpism: the political watershed of New Democrats, Republicans and Neo-Conservatives Free Market toxin, that collapsed in 2007-2008 that impoverished the Working Class and Middle Classes!
Editor: Its hard to forget Harris jailing of the parents of truant students and laughing about it, her de facto pardon of Steven Mnuchin of OneWest Bank, or her groveling AIPAC speech, nor her support of the Gaza Genocide! Stephens shares in her unwavering support of this continuing crime!
Old Socialist
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