No American politician can escape the reality of the Israel Lobby! Abe Foxman and Aron David Miller are both integral parts of that Lobby, chronicled in the Walt and Mearsheimer book, and this 2006 excerpt in the London Review of Books: that precipitated a moral/political panic among America’s political class :
Even Caudillo Trump must pay obedience to the power of that Lobby. Or does he? One wonders whether a billionaire whose political raison d’etre is a political populism and or a ‘Rebellion against The Elites’, financed by his own money, needs to play by the rules of respectable bourgeois politics? His politics are defined by the singular idea and practice of the anti-establishment, what possible pressure could be used to encourage Trump to play ball like every other American politician? Has his daughter become an ardent Zionist? Or will Trump moderate his positions as his coronation draws near?
Another voice from a ‘Center’ dominated by a total lack of political modesty and an unshakable faith in Neo-Liberalism, and its successor the TPP, offers more of the same: a belief in the political inevitability of both Trump and Clinton. What the future holds is always predictable for those with special abilities! The cast of political characters that bought you that failed Neo-Liberal Revolution now bring you the TPP! If Communism was the product of a failed utopianism, what can we call the ardor expressed by that same old coterie of purchasable thinkers/writers?
Mrs. Clinton isn’t ‘likable’ but compared to the ‘poisonous windbag’ she faces, she has as yet undiscovered charms. The Neo-Cons have pronounced on their preference for Clinton, and even McConnell has pledged, in the heat of the primaries, to drop Trump like a ‘hot rock’. What ever happened to the Republican Party and its 11th Commandment? Like so many political commentators Mr. Weisberg offer comments on the future, yet there are no indispensable political actors, only an ever changing cast of characters and the best laid plans of those actors, who project themselves into unknown territory. The rest is mere chatter.
Does Ms. Tett’s column mark a shift of The Party Line at The Financial Times? From the Rebellion against The Elites hysteria, to a grudging acceptance of Tump as a political inevitability? At which point, we must come to terms with this political monster and hope that he moderates his political tone: the proffered pragmatism? Call this wishful thinking? Or does Ms. Tett exercise clairvoyance, instead of relying on empirical evidence? To state the obvious, the future is unknowable. Political speculation in this instance acts as an analgesic.
Then comes Republicans :Huntsman, Kasich,Christie aided by Neo-Liberals/New Democrats Lieberman, Martin O’Malley, that appear under the Group designation of ‘No Labels’ which advocates ‘reform’ and ‘planning’ for the future. The rise of the political front group is about politicking in a more respectable key, that puts front and center, the perception of that respectability as fact. The very notion that the Republican Party harbors any ‘pragmatists’ is prima facie ludicrous! Sen. Lugar was the last of the political pragmatist, who was purged in 2012. And Ryan’s compromise with Obama was about his galloping, not to speak of ruthless, ambition. His fellow Republicans in the House are restive and outspoken on his exercise of that ‘pragmatism’.
How does TTP and TTIP figure in Ms. Tett’s and this group’s, and its various members, advocacy of ‘reform’? When TPP and TTIP are in fact creatures of an active political collusion between government and business, that is the very definition of fascism. Trump is not an aberration, but the culmination of the political necromancy practiced by the Republicans since the Nixon/McCarthy era.
‘Only women become more radical with age’ One can only marvel at the self-congratulation of this statement, in light of her sharing the stage with both Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright.
Mrs. Clinton who supported three of the cornerstones of President Clintons political reforms of the 90’s: The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA), The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLBA) that were, in effect, reforms that Reagan could not have even advocated, much less passed, in his tenure. But were perfect political bait for the Reagan Democrats and their clearly demonstrated, indeed abundant prejudices. Against Welfare Queens driving Cadillacs, a motto for the New Democrats, of the Clinton eight year tenure ?
The New Democrats were really pseudo-Reaganites, who discarded the New Deal tradition as inconvenient political baggage . These first two laws were utterly disastrous for the most vulnerable segment of American society poor women. Surely not an imperative for Gloria Steinem nor her audience of readers/admirers! And the last the harbinger of the economic collapse of 2008.
Ms. Albright and her notoriously callous, not to speak of morally inexcusable comments of a foreign policy technocrat, in the mold of Herman Kahn, on 500,000 dead Iraqi children place her beyond the pale.
On May 12, 1996, Albright defended UN sanctions against Iraq on a 60 Minutes segment in which Lesley Stahl asked her “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” and Albright replied “we think the price is worth it.”[95] Albright later criticized Stahl’s segment as “amount[ing] to Iraqi propaganda”; said that her question was a loaded question;[96][97] wrote “I had fallen into a trap and said something I did not mean”;[98] and regretted coming “across as cold-blooded and cruel”.[95] Sanctions critics took Albright’s failure to reframe the question as confirmation of the statistic.[98][99][100] The segment won an Emmy Award.[101][1
Can we judge anyone by the company they keep? Where is the self-proclaimed ‘radicalism’ of Steinem’s age? Her political/moral conformity are on full display, wreathed in more of the abundant self-congratulation. If Steinem is representative of Feminism in the 21st Century, the abject poverty of the leadership of that Feminism is an inescapable conclusion.
‘A specter haunts the post-Cold War liberal order—the specter of radical spiritual malaise. This discontent with or downright opposition to the Western-originated, universalist claims of the broadly liberal cultural, economic, and political order takes diverse forms. One can detect it among Iranian revolutionary theocrats, Russian imperialist ideologues, white supremacist “Identitarians,” European neo-fascists, identity-politics partisans, and anti-foundationalist intellectuals of many stripes. But standing behind some of the leading intellectual and political figures in this mélange of counter-liberalism is one animating mind, that of Martin Heidegger.’
Is it any surprise that this essay should appear at The American Interest? Heidegger is the new philosophical enemy and his intellectual ‘ghost’ just happen to hold sway in Russia and Iran. Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran are the enemies of the moment- the argument that Professor Duff presents is quite complex, as Heidegger is a complex,confusing and hermetic in the way of political romantics: whose central concern is with a radical nostalgia for an imagined past, and an ideological re-reading of the philosophical tradition.
Heidegger and Strauss share those two political/ philosophical imperatives. But the political point of this essay is to take the focus of criticism away from Strauss, the Strussians/Neo-Conservatives. Because it serves the purposes of propaganda, not of critical inquiry for its own sake. This essay is an exercise in political hysteria mongering, using an analysis of the thought of Heidegger as its central theme and the Russian and Iranian thinkers who have used some of the insights offered by Heidegger in their own thinking. Yet Rorty offers the idea that the Heidegger corpus of ideas can be part of a philosopher’s tool box , while not overlooking the horrific/catastrophic character of some of the political thoughts, ideas and practices of Heidegger. Does any thinker/writer/philosopher need permission to borrow ideas and concepts from a world tradition?
In his first polemic against Trump, titled ‘The Governing Cancer of Our Time’ ( Brooks has a gift for the pretentious and the hyperbolic!) Mr. Brooks takes a wide and distant shot of American Political life, to use a cinematic expression: a close-up would reveal too much politically inconvenient detail. But in this argumentative fragment, yet he refers to a certain set of political actors, the Tea Party and refers to another set of those actors as ‘not exclusive to the right’ :’- best exemplified by the Tea Party but not exclusive to the right-‘. Perhaps this is a reference to Alan Grayson, the absent Dennis Kucinich or even New Dealer Elizabeth Warren? Compare these three examples to a House and Senate populated with Republican Nihilists. All the rational ‘Conservatives’ have been unceremoniously purged. This wide and distant shot is rhetorically serviceable, to political generalizations, that elides from consideration political history in its fullest expression, less susceptible to blatantly ideological interpretations not to speak of imperatives.
‘Over the past generation we have seen the rise of a group of people who are against politics. These groups — best exemplified by the Tea Party but not exclusive to the right — want to elect people who have no political experience. They want “outsiders.” They delegitimize compromise and deal-making. They’re willing to trample the customs and rules that give legitimacy to legislative decision-making if it helps them gain power.’
In his second installment titled’ Donald Trump, the Great Betrayer’ Mr. Brooks constructs an indictment of Trump as an opportunist, a greedy unscrupulous crook of a Capitalist.Should we compare this essay with his lukewarm support for Vulture Capitalist Mitt Romney?
The bottom line is this: If Obama wins, we’ll probably get small-bore stasis; if Romney wins, we’re more likely to get bipartisan reform. Romney is more of a flexible flip-flopper than Obama. He has more influence over the most intransigent element in the Washington equation House Republicans. He’s more likely to get big stuff done.
One of Mr. Brooks’ many rhetorical guises is as moral/political scold and wise tribal elder, that he lapses into at the turn of a phrase. The ‘as if’ here is that Mr. Brooks portrays himself as an incarnation of Adam Smith’s impartial spectator, rather than as a committed partisan in the Conservative politicking of post war America.
‘The burden of responsibility now falls on Republican officials, elected and nonelected, at all levels. For years they have built relationships in their communities, earned the right to be heard. If they now feel that Donald Trump would be a reckless and dangerous president, then they have a responsibility to their country to tell those people the truth, to rally all their energies against this man.
Since the start of his campaign Trump has had more energy and more courage than his opponents. Maybe that’s now changing.’
Mr. Weisberg chooses Sinclair Lewis’ ‘It Can’t Happen Here’ as the rhetorical frame for his homily against ‘the loony left’ and the ‘loony right’ which turns out to be part of the ‘Rebellion against the Elites’ series here at The Financial Times. Luce, Wolf and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman of ‘Today,America is burning’ have carried that banner aloft. Mr. Lewis is also known for his Capitalist satire Babbitt, a political inconvenience to Mr. Weisberg’s anti-Trump polemic. And absent from this essay is the ‘loony left’ candidate Sen. Sanders. Don’t mention the Socialist tradition in American political life and one of its most celebrated/reviled political figures Eugene V. Debs.
The Panic of the Elites is on full display in this essay. Mr. Weisberg and his political allies have reason to panic: the respectable bourgeois intellectual/political salesmen of an overarching Neo-Liberalism, that advocated and institutionalized the financialization of the whole of Western Democratic life, collapsed in 2008. Trump, to foreshorten considerably, in the eight year of what seems like an interminable economic depression, seems to offer a solution to the dismal present. He is a Caudillo in the mold of Peron:the strong man who will ‘knock heads together’, or worse, to achieve his ends. See Joseph A. Page‘s Peron: A Biography and the brilliant fiction of Tomas Eloy Martinez in The Peron Novel.
One marvels at the American Political Class’ panic over the political consolidation of Mr. Trump, that Super Tuesday made real. And the die hard Republican Nihilists’ quandary at a political creature of their own making. Another marvel was Mitt Romney’s speech, awash in moralizing self-congratulation, that didn’t quite mask the political ambition of this paragon of Vulture Capital. One very salient question arises: where is Michael Bloomberg? The oligarch who will save us?
My favorite Reactionary Dandy is Mr. Ganesh. Is that a tautology? In America, Tom Wolf, who dresses like the Hollywood idea of a Dandy, is the one and only Dandy I know of, Literary or Political. For some valuable insights on the history of the Dandy read my favorite Literary Dandy Cyril Connolly’s The Evening Colonnade where he reviews in three brief but very informative chapters,the Dandy I,II &III. Mr. Connolly is largely forgotten, as a literary taste maker of another age, who wrote for a long disappeared readership of literary aficionados. Like Mr. Ganesh, his readers are too engaged in the questions of the day to read actual books, much less bother with breakfast or lunch.
Connolly and Ganesh both exercise a literary style that is winning if not beguiling, to engage in hyperbole.
But on to Mr. Ganesh, a practitioner of silver-fork punditry, which in sum can be characterized as Tory Apologetics. The centrality of the literary : George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman books prove to be a central rhetorical framing device that enjoys a currency in British political discourse. Given that literary opening, I draw my inspiration from ‘The Silver Fork Novel: Fashionable Fiction in the Age of Reform’ by Edward Copeland
‘In the early nineteenth century there was a sudden vogue for novels centring on the glamour of aristocratic social and political life. Such novels, attractive as they were to middle-class readers, were condemned by contemporary critics as dangerously seductive, crassly commercial, designed for the ‘masses’ and utterly unworthy of regard. Until recently, silver-fork novels have eluded serious consideration and been overshadowed by authors such as Jane Austen. They were influenced by Austen at their very deepest levels, but were paradoxically drummed out of history by the very canon-makers who were using Austen’s name to establish their own legitimacy. This first modern full-length study of the silver-fork novel argues that these novels were in fact tools of persuasion, novels deliberately aimed at bringing the British middle classes into an alliance with an aristocratic program of political reform.’
You might even call Mr. Ganesh a political reincarnation of Disraeli’s Vivian Grey as political commentator/polemicist.Disraeli is one of the authors covered in Mr. Copeland’s evaluation and survey of that genre. Also consider Hazlitt’s review of Vivian Grey and Dandyism:
On the pressing question of Mr. Cameron as ruthless, shaming political bully and opportunist, leaving the question of scoundrel aside, as a political too much,view this video from YouTube for an example of Mr. Cameron’s methodology :
And more of the same of Cameron’s Tory snobbery/bulling that serves as political obfuscation, in its wider political context. Not to speak of the very clear demonstration and confirmation that the opposition, meaning Mr. Corbyn, is neither a patriot nor a gentleman.Executed in true Oxbridger form and style:
On David Cameron, the political thinker, we have this from Professor Bogdanor via Wikipedia:
‘When commenting in 2006 on his former pupil’s ideas about a “Bill of Rights” to replace the Human Rights Act, however, Professor Bogdanor, himself a Liberal Democrat, said, “I think he is very confused. I’ve read his speech and it’s filled with contradictions. There are one or two good things in it but one glimpses them, as it were, through a mist of misunderstanding”.[33]
Mr. Ganesh exhausts the Flashman comparison until it runs out of rhetorical momentum, because it has served its purpose as foil for Tory Apologetics. Which instances a defense/advocacy of a Social Dawinism, the product of the political opportunism preached by Lynton Crosby via Karl Rove. Which then appears as Mr. Ganesh’s worship of Cameron, as a strong man, detected by a ‘primal instinct’ for a powerful leader who exercises the ‘swagger of command’, and the political inevitability of Tory rule as a matter of faith. This is a philosophy or its simulacrum freighted with some of the central beliefs of Political Romanticism.
This essay, from one of the captains of the Neo-Liberal Wrecking Crew, whose policy prescriptions that were turned into law: Gramm–Leach–Bliley, Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act,Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act set the stage for the economic collapse of 2008, and the political unraveling of the present, as the watershed of that collapse.
The Clintons did what Reagan could not do, accomplished under the political rubric of an ersatz ‘Progressivism’. Mr. Summers, and his employers the Clintons, are the logical precursors of Trump and his idiosyncratic American Peronism.
Rep. Paul Ryan’s wan condemnation of Trump’s racism is a corollary to the panic at this newspaper from Luce, Rachman,Wolf: the rebellion against The Elites ? The reality of Trump’s political appeal is indeed frightening. But who does Mr. Summers quote but Niall Ferguson, on the parallel of Trump with William Jennings Byran,who appears as the specter of Left Radicalism, call this predictable: perhaps we can attribute this to an exercise in counter-factual history? Neo-Conservative Robert Kagan follows, an admirer of Mrs. Clinton’s foreign policy jingoism. Summers’ defense of the Corporate Coup of TPP as an essential part of ‘rebalancing toward Asia’ is without surprise. Too little too late is the motto of this newspaper, if not its modus vivendi.Not to speak of the retrograde defense of an utterly failed Neo-Liberalism, in its political,economic and moral iterations.
Mr. Deist’s political monologue was interesting even compelling listening. Yet when it came to examination/explanation of the Left as being friendly to The World Bank and the IMF, it was a description more in keeping with Neo-Liberals like Clinton and Obama, rather that any actual Leftist, that I can recall. Also he makes the charge that the Left remains in the thrall of Identity Politics. Perhaps we might look at this as a rhetorical gambit to avoid the very real question of Utopianism on both Right and Left. The unfettered Market that Mr. Deist continually presents as the answer to a failed politics, and a equally failed idea and practice, not speak of its status as a cornerstone of America’s political faith, of democratic consensus. Mr. Deist leaves the Utopian question alone, in order to make much of Identity Politics as illegitimate, even without foundation, when the reality of contemporary American Conservatism is its overt hostility to people of color, gays, Muslims etc. For an institutional confirmation of this, one need only look to Selby County v. Holder that nullified the pre-clearance clause of the Voting Rights Act, to see one salient, egregious example of the power of the Neo-Confederate/Originalist quartet and their ally Justice Kennedy. The claim of the majority that ‘things have changed’ utterly eviscerated by Justice Ginsberg’s withering dissent . On the question of Left Utopianism the name of Marx could have been a target worth at least a mention. Marx and Marxism being the all purpose specter of the Right.
Sen. Sanders is a Democratic Socialist who fits easily into the American Political Tradition that is briefly mentioned in Deist’s low key polemic. One can also look to the long career of Eugene V. Debs as Union leader and presidential candidate as another political inconvenience.
Mr. Deist demonstrates an trustworthiness on the question of the ‘Left’, but what I found most disturbing was his almost unhinged hostility to democracy and democratic consensus! Does he believe in the political efficacy/relevance of the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights? Or is his political fealty to the wisdom of The Market as political/economic/ethical/historical singularity?
I have just re-read chapter 9 of Malachi Haim Hacohen’s Karl Popper, the Formative Years 1902-1945. This chapter is devoted to Popper’s critique of Plato, Hegel and Marx and ‘Historicism’. And what Mr. Haim Hacohen presents to the reader is that the friends who acted as editors of his manuscript of The Open Society had to edit carefully the vulgar negative characterizations of those three thinkers. Mr. Deist could have used such friends and allies, if they even exist.
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