When Andrew Sullivan castigates the illiberal left, I believe that he is on point. When he castigates President Trump, I believe that he is over the top and unfair. This either says something about his bias or mine.
Regarding the President, Andrew Sullivan wrote,
But it’s also vital to understand that the most powerful enabler of this left extremism has been Trump himself. He has delegitimized capitalism by his cronyism, corruption, and indifference to dangerously high levels of inequality. He has tainted conservatism indelibly as riddled with racism, xenophobia, paranoia, misogyny, and derangement. Every hoary stereotype leveled against the right for decades has been given credence by the GOP’s support for this monster of a human being. If moderates have any chance of defanging the snake of wokeness, and its attempt to deconstruct our Enlightenment inheritance, we must begin with removing the cancer of Trump from the body politic. It is not an ordinary cancer. It is metastasizing across the republic and spreading to the lifeblood of our democracy itself. Removing it will not be enough. But not removing it is democratic death.
For me, the case for hoping that a Biden election would calm the political waters rests on assuming the following:
1. The liberal left does not in its heart support the illiberal left.
2. Once the liberal left does not have to contend with President Trump, it will seek to contain the illiberal left.
Conservative intellectuals who support Trump’s re-election doubt that these two assumptions are true. Many conservatives believe that (1) is false. See Michael Anton or Victor Davis Hanson. Others believe that (2) is false. See Yoram Hazony, who I think believes that the liberal left is too weak-kneed to confront the illiberal left without the help of conservatives.
Sullivan has it backwards; President Trump is the result of wokeness, not the cause.
His anti-Trump hysteria is likely motivated in part by the need to keep some degree of acceptability within his “community.”
Sullivan knows it, he’s been getting in trouble with the illiberal left since long before Trump, and got the boot from NYMag and a hit piece by Thompson in the NYT for nothing to do with Trump, and despite being vehemently anti-Trump from the very start (just look at his articles from 2016-2017).
To be frank I think this talk about liberals “standing up” to the wokerati cancelistas is “underpants gnomes” magical thinking that can’t explain any particular mechanism on how this is supposed to happen.
1. Some election result
2. ???
3. No more canceling or mostly fiery intensely peaceful riots?
I mean, what happens in step two? Mass persuasion? Stalinist purges and a few counterrevolutionary executions to encourage the others? Administrators suddenly grow spines? Where is this robust sequence of cause and effect spelled out?
People can’t even agree on #1. On the one hand of Trump wins, it drives the left so crazy they just double down on craziness. On the other hand, if Trump wins, then the lesson is “#ThisIsHowYouGotTrump….Again!” and the left goes back to the wilderness drawing board, licks their wounds, and throws the cancelistas under the bus … somehow.
Why not just assume the left will continue being the left regardless of what happens in this particular election? The the question is, do you want the person is charge to amplify or resist those typical tendencies?
Arnold, I reject both assumptions. We cannot separate the left into just two categories. I’d say that at most one-third of the left is truly liberal and at most one-third is truly illiberal. To make any statement I’d say that perhaps at least half of the left is a mix of liberal and illiberal –and the probability of finding at least 10% of this mix accepting a predetermined mixture about a particular, well-defined issue is close to zero.
Yes, we have to simplify to state our views on what is going on. But please don’t assume that people’s political preferences can be reduced to just two positions. Most of our errors come from this simplification. Regarding your two assumptions, I’d rewrite them as follows:
1 – The radical left (meaning the extreme illiberal which is no more than 20% of the total left) is not trusted by the rest of the left.
2 – If Biden became President, the truly liberal left (meaning the extreme liberal which is no more than 20% of the total left) will seek to contain the radical left.
I consider myself a true liberal but I prefer Trump rather than Biden to contain the radical left (yes, I assume that containing them should be a priority of the new government). In the past 70 years, I have observed too many “liberals” to know how much most don’t trust the radical left but are ready to accommodate them to grab power. I call these liberals “weak” in the sense that they are willing to sacrifice “their liberalism” to grab power. What we are observing right now is the collusion between “weak” liberals and the radical left to grab power –and Trump is the target but it could have been any Republican (forget about Sullivan because long ago he opted to be a “flexible” liberal).
With respect to my second assumption, first I don’t know how few true liberals will join a Biden administration (I assume that many true liberals will take my position in favor of Trump and never will be in a Biden administration). But even assuming that they have a good representation (say 20%) in high positions and were able to persuade “weak” liberals to join them against the radical left, Biden+Harris will never do enough to crush them, and more importantly, Biden+Harris will never be able to contain the radical left’s attempts to terminate with the Dem Party’s Old Guard.
A few counter points:
1) have a look at the archives of the debates from the Democratic primaries since the views expressed in such events are primarily representative of those of the majority base. Was mostly woke or something else?
2) why is it that the only mainstream moderate is an 80 yo with early to moderate dementia? Are there no other electable moderates?
3) why did it take them three months to a) acknowledge the riots (after actively denying them) and b) to condemn them?
Person! Woman! Man! Camera! TV!
I guess only one of the major party candidates had a series of mini strokes that required the administration of this most basic test. But yeah, Biden dementia argle bargle…
The problem was there were too many moderates. Klobuchar, Gillibrand, Pete, heck Harris is considered a neoliberal sellout by the left. Gabbard? All those white male governors? Two progressives – Sanders and Warren. And Warren used to be a Republican.
Biden consolidated the AA vote, which is not particularly leftist.
I guess we weren’t watching the same primaries then. I must have been watching on the wrong network. Sorry about that!
Care to opine on 2) or 3)?
Lastly, I was a big fan of the way that the party and candidates treated Tulsi. Do I need to clarify this or you got it?
My list of centrists running for the nom takes care of 2, no?
Who benefits most from 3? Conway herself said it best – the more violent the protests the better her candidate does. This is no secret. I would start there.
Yep, we weren’t watching the same primaries.
Best wishes to you!
History is full of these sorts of choices, the most egregious example being the conflicts between Nazis and Communists in 1930s Germany. Just because one side of a conflict is bad doesn’t mean the other side is good.
Yes, exactly, and it’s worth remembering that the likes of Anton and Hazony are every bit as illiberal as the leftists they want us to join them in fear of (note e.g. their support for people like Orban, who has literally become a rule-by-decree dictator). They are not a better alternative to woke excesses, and their sneering contempt for the supposed weakness of liberalism should tell you that.
To flesh out the analogy, suppose that you’re a German voter in 1932 and, counterfactually, the only two parties on the ballot are the Social Democrats and the Nazis. The Rotfront and the Brownshirts are slugging it out in the streets, which is terrifying. Social Democrat leaders officially condemn the Rotfront thugs but you worry, legitimately, that some of them, especially the younger ones, are secretly sympathetic and may push Germany toward Communism if the Social Democrats win. Is that legitimate worry a sufficient reason to vote Nazi?
2020 is not a typical year by any means. But in a typical election, the candidate from the non-incumbent party usually follow the script after securing the nomination of pivoting to the center for the general election, to calm the nerves, address the worries, and attract just enough marginal swing voters in the right places to get over the hump. That usually means conspicuously throwing their side’s radicals under the bus with explicit rejection of the more extreme and aggravating positions. And if there’s anyone positioned to do this well who probably is a true #1 case and doesn’t sincerely believe in any of that woke stuff anyway, Old Straight White Guy Joe Biden is the man to do it.
Again, this year is not typical, and part of it is probably that the Democrats feel they have a big lead, many strategic super-weapons, and the wind is at their back. But my impression is that there has been less of this underbussing, and it has been much weaker, than in previous elections. Indeed, the Democratic campaign strategy seems to rely on motivating the base while simultaneously demoralizing the opposition, in a tactic I call “agitprop the vote”. That would be evidence that weighs in favor of both #1 and #2 being false.
Sully starts out but listing some of Putin’s and Xi’s murders. He then claims that Trump approves of these murders. This belief is based at least in part on John Bolton’s word (take that for what its worth).
Sully claims that the Democrats will be different and stand up to Putin and Xi. I’ll believe it when i see it. Just try talking about Xi’s crimes on any college campus. You’ll be expelled faster than you can say “Shut up you racist.” When was the last time an NBA star said something bad about China? The fact is the Democrats are far more accommodating to Communist regimes than the Republicans ever were (Venezuela, Cuba).
Sully claims that Trump is the one to turn the DOJ into a politicized agency. That’s laughable. See the following link:
https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/bill-of-particulars/
This post is written by a life long Democrat by the way.
Sorry for the rant. I try to take the most charitable view, but I’m worn out.
I knew some people that watched the 1968 Democratic Convention in a darkened room with shotguns on their laps. I’m ready to do the same this November.
Andrew Bates, Biden campaign spokesman, used the term genocide to describe the Uighur issue. Kayleigh McEnany, White House press secretary, to my knowledge, has not yet.
It’s not just Bolton’s word that we have to rely upon. There are established notions of the president’s attitudes.
As for Putin, when asked about Navaly’s poisoning, Trump said the press should ask questions about China instead.
As for “accommodating to Communist regimes” that’s a matter not only of rhetoric but economics and security. For these long term matters how can we know the optimal strategy for getting favorable outcomes that may be decades from now.
“For me, the case for hoping that a Biden election would calm the political waters rests on assuming the following:
1. The liberal left does not in its heart support the illiberal left.
2. Once the liberal left does not have to contend with President Trump, it will seek to contain the illiberal left.”
Here is my challenge:
Do ANY set of assumptions even exist where a choice of Trump gives us a way to calm the political waters and contain illiberalism? Is there any way where a second Trump term reduces the forces of illiberalism in our society?
Yes, Tom, there is. A resounding Trump victory would give the liberal left the necessary motivation and the political capital to throw the illiberal left under the bus- nothing concentrates the mind of a political party more than a humiliating loss.
Yancey –
I hadn’t expected anyone to propose those two things. They do fulfill the challenge.
The only way I could see that happening is if rioting escalated completely out of control AND Trump somehow was able to rise up and look like he was the best solution to the problem for a large swath of independents who don’t see him that way now.
I do think that is the only answer, but it does require a huge change in circumstances and perception not in place now.
I don’t understand why Trump would have to look like the best solution for this to happen. I think Ward is saying that a Trump win would convince liberals on the left that illiberal leftists had cost them them the election
I myself don’t think this would happen, I think a Biden loss may actually be taken as a failure for the moderate/liberal wing of the Democrats, and vindicate the far left (we’ll hear more ‘if only Bernie had won…). But it’s possible I guess.
I think the argument for Trump is that with him we’d more or less get gridlock, while Biden will much more likely be in a position to push policy in an illiberal direction (he’s more likely to have both chambers of Congress on his side), so while rhetoric and attitudes may cool down, public policy illiberalism may speed up.
Yes.
1. A Trump Administration has some leverage to dismantle left-wing organizations supporting public violence, arson, looting, and intimidation. Those involved in attacking police and public arson have organizational + financial support which can be removed. This fight has just started in 2020.
2. Ban publicly funded schools from teaching hate. Trump recently banned Critical Race Theory. Ban the 1619 Project next.
3. K-12 school choice. Let parents choose the K-12 schools that are right for their families.
4. Higher Ed reform. Let regular college track kids who want to pursue careers in engineering or medicine or math or law do so without mandatory political indoctrination.
I find all four of these more plausible then a liberal left combatting left-wing extremism.
Niko- Trump would be President, not king. He banned critical race theory for the federal government as Executive. He doesn’t have direct control over universities or K-12.
Trump does not want a world without foils. He wants the conflict. You all know that, right? At least Yancey’s assumptions were that traditional liberals were the one’s putting illiberalism down. It is difficult to argue that Trump could or would.
The President doesn’t have direct control over K-12 or universities, but the President does have influence and options. School choice is one reform aimed at K-12 that might limit the influence of political education like the 1619 Project. There are reform options at the higher ed level too. Of course, the left has options as well, and we don’t know how it would pan out. But if you support limiting the left’s power, it seems electing right-wing politicians is a good option.
As for Trump craving political conflict: arguably, that’s not just Trump, all politics is combative. Politics attracts and rewards those who who enjoy it.
If the thinking is that a left-wing win would hopefully placate the violent elements of the left and a right-wing win might agitate left-wing violence who can’t peacefully accept election outcomes that they don’t like, then the moral case is to support the right that isn’t using violence as a tool for political leverage. Also, it’s clear that it’s not just Trump, the left won’t accept or tolerate any figure from the political right. Before Trump won the nomination, many leading left pundits said that Ted Cruz or a Marco Rubio would be much worse than Trump. Hillary’s team encouraged Trump to win the Republican primary as he was seen to be a weaker candidate. In 2012, Biden said that Romney would put black people back in chains, and similar outrageous rhetoric was leveled against McCain in 2008 when he was a threat to power. Kavanaugh is a nice mild mannered guy but when he got in the left’s path of power, they branded him as a serial sexual predator.
The coming blast-mail ballot voting in many states lacks many of the safeguards of absentee ballot voting. There are few of the procedural and physical integrity measures in place to ensure a fair and accurate election. No matter what the results, the election will lack integrity and whoever takes office will do so tainted by illegitimacy.
To get an idea of what it would take to conduct a legitimate election by mail, we can look to Switzerland where citizens addresses are recorded and kept up to date by the local government and a two envelope system is used:
“Voters are not required to register before elections in Switzerland. Since every person living in the country (both Swiss nationals and foreigners) must register with the municipality within two weeks of moving to a new place, the municipalities know the addresses of their citizens. Approximately two months before the polling date they send voters a letter containing an envelope … …
Once the voter has filled out his/her ballot these are put into an anonymous return envelope provided in the package. This first anonymous envelope and a signed transmission card that identify the voter is then put into the return envelope then sent back to the municipality. The return envelope is in fact the shipping envelope with a special opening strip that allow it to be reused to send back the vote. Many voters, especially in villages and small cities, put the return envelope directly into the municipality mailbox. Others return it by post, although not having to pay the postage in some cantons.
Once received at the municipality, the transmission card is checked to verify the right of the voter, then the anonymous return envelope is put into the polling booths with all the other votes.” Without such safeguards, the authenticity of ballots is an open question.
Moreover vast numbers of mail-in ballots have been rejected In the primaries so far with no notice given to the voter. The disenfranchisement is staggering and the very essence arbitrary.
The professed inability of USA elites to distinguish between absentee ballot systems and the new blast mail balloting is telling. And it is similar to Sullivan’s hysteria. Removing Trump from office is an end that justifies any means. Once this precedent has been established, there will be no going back. Sullivan is merely the voice of a new era of governance in which reason has no place.
What is blast-mail ballot voting?
Each registered voter can register one vote for their registration address. Can someone anonymously first capture then inject large numbers of ballots into the mail flow undetected? What evidence do you have that this can scale?
Well it only needs to scale to one state in order to matter. We have already seen what happened in the Michigan primaries: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/20/benson-asked-investigate-detroit-perfect-storm-voting-problems/5616629002/
And maintenance of Michigan voter registration rolls is the subject of a law suit: https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/06/michigan-secretary-of-state-16-clerks-accused-of-keeping-sloppy-voter-roll-records-in-new-lawsuit.html
Michigan will need to do a lot of work to attain even third world standards of electoral integrity.
I think that Sullivan’s assessment of Trump is pretty accurate. Moreover, I believe that Trump2 will be worse than Trump1. On the other hand, like Dr. Kling, I also believe that assumptions 1 and 2 are wrong, and that, whoever wins the election, the illiberal left will dominate the liberal left. That leaves the question: Which will be less bad for the country and the world, Trump2 or Biden/Harris? I lean toward Trump2, but the only thing I’m sure of is that whoever wins in November, America loses.
+1
Zach Goldberg’s work in chronicling “The Great Awokening” has been covered here. He convincingly demonstrates that the “awokening” and the rise of left-wing extremism happened roughly in 2012, which is well before Trump was a major political figure. BLM formed in the wake of the Trayvon Martin incident which was 2012-2013. Did the liberal left work to contain the illiberal left in 2012-2016? Did they even oppose them? I don’t think so.
Public universities are more openly and blatantly aligned with Democratic Politics. Official university websites and materials formally support Black Lives Matter for example. Ten years ago, it was the humanities that did silly political stuff and you could laugh it off. Today it’s the math department, the engineering schools, it’s all of the universities. I don’t think you can reasonably blame this on Trump. I don’t see some liberal left working to counter this at all.
Kling recently said that, “most of the people putting up ‘black lives matter’ signs on their lawns or their business windows are not aware of the Marxist anti-family doctrines held by the organizers of BLM.”. I suspect the Engineering Schools and Math Departments who have chosen to officially endorse the “Black Lives Matter” movement do know about the extreme-left. While I don’t think they agree with the part about abolishing the nuclear family, that doesn’t scare them off, and in large they are sympathetic than hostile to the extreme left.
I view Biden’s election as president the US equivalent of Paul Von Hindenburg- the election of a decrepit old man who will be a cardboard bulwark against political extremism. I would have felt more confident if Biden had chosen some centrist Democrat governor of a red/reddish state, but only a little. Instead he chose Harris, a hard leftist at this point in her political arc, and it is Harris you are electing President, not Biden.
Sullivan’s main mistake is thinking that Trump was some special catalyst for what has happened. He isn’t- the left would have behaved in the exact same manner if Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or John Kasich had won the election in 2016. It isn’t that Trump won the election that has set the left off on the path of insanity, it was the loss of power in 2016 that did it.
“He isn’t- the left would have behaved in the exact same manner if Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or John Kasich had won the election in 2016.”
People always say this kind of thing, ‘they would’ve behaved this way no matter what we did,’ but it’s pretty much never really true. Sure, there are some hard leftists who would be doing the whole Portland thing no matter what, as there always were and always will be, but Trump has definitely swelled their ranks and pushed more and more people toward that camp or toward at least viewing that camp as the lesser evil. Take for example at all the prominent conservatives who over 4 years have turned into consistent Democrats; not just conservatives who think Biden is a lesser evil, but now consistently agree with Democratic policy positions. Their ideological conversion may not be rational, but it is real. Mood affiliation is a powerful thing.
Politics of destruction resulted in Trump being elected because everyone more sensitive resigned from the field when faced with accusations.
Nobody thinks that any of this will be rolled back should Trump be laid low by even more of the same. In fact, that would be anathema and anyone who tried to move that direction would be ‘purified’ away.
Solve for the equilibrium, as they say.
Sullivan has no ground to stand on regarding inequality until he’s discovered out on a city street corner handing out all his wealth to the poor, homeless, and disenfranchised.
Capitalism has nothing to say about what you chose to do with your own money. Nor does it actually address the proper handling of public funds. The real problem with the Sullivan hypocrites is they want to treat all monies not their own as if it were their own. And none of them seem to recognize the stupifying moral hazard that creates.
As for mysogyny, until the left faces their Epstein/Clinton/Biden/pedophile problems, they have no ground to stand on either.
Nothing increases influence within a political party like winning. Nothing decreases political influence within apolitical party like losing. If the liberal left loses it will be good for the illiberal left.
When Bush (43) won he passed Medicare Part D with little controversy within the party. If a Democratic President had presided over its passing it would have been portrayed by the Republicans as the apocalyptic arrival of socialism. When McCain and Romney lost, the centrists in the party were tainted with the stink of losing and their influence collapsed in favor of a Trumpism that was diametrically opposed to many traditional Republican principles like free trade, government not trying to pick winers and losers in the economy, taking an interest in the President’s personal character, and a healthy skepticism about the motives of Russia and former KGB agents. A Trump second term will certainly be viewed as a mandate for the idea that what ever the President does is legal and no one has the authority to investigate his actions.
The Democratic Party has united under the most centrist candidate on the menu. If that fails I haven’t even heard a good argument that it could do anything but benefit the most radical elements in the party. Everyone ought to be concerned about extremist tendencies in both parties. In a two party system, each party is only one recession away from power.
“If that fails I haven’t even heard a good argument that it could do anything but benefit the most radical elements in the party.”
That doesn’t make a lot of sense. The contest is for the swing voters. Did Hillary’s failure benefit the radicals, or … cause the party to unite behind the most centrist candidate on the menu?
Hillary lost just barely. A very small number of people in a small number of states were getting freaked out at The Great Awokening and she just didn’t do enough to assuage their anxieties because the sense among everybody was that she had the thing in the bag, so she didn’t need to.
The party has united behind someone even more centrist who is trying just a little bit harder to do that, and if by some second black swan event he loses, it will be because he could have done slightly more, but held back, because the radicals in his own party would get too upset. And the lesson would have been the same – that he should have tried harder to get those marginal voters that went with Trump.
This is perfectly symmetric and is the same post-morten one would give Trump if he loses, “alienated marginal voters by trying to appeal to his base instead of compromising moving to the center.” Well, to be fair, if Trump loses, it will be the definition of “over-determined”, and people will argue for a variety of different, but all plausible, theories on what is the *most* important factor among many.
>—-” The contest is for the swing voters. Did Hillary’s failure benefit the radicals, or … cause the party to unite behind the most centrist candidate on the menu?”
Within a political party the swing voters are the ones who care more about winning than ideology. Nothing would change more minds faster about what would win than a second consecutive loss by a heavily favored centrist. Extremists always argue they could do better if given a chance. People start to believe that when moderates lose repeatedly.
>—“This is perfectly symmetric…”
Ok here’s some more symmetry for you: The Republicans nominated centrists in 2008 and 2012 and lost. In the 2016 Republican primaries every centrist candidate underperformed spectacularly. Two consecutive losses in Presidential races will undermine the influence of any faction either political party.
Agree that, in a close race, any number of factors may be reasonably said to have been the difference in the race.
I’m of two minds about this narrative. I certainly hear this rhetoric about moderates a lot, and I think it’s backwards, in that parties tend to nominate moderates when they have a poor chance of winning (e.g., Republicans were going to lose no matter what in 2008 because of the Iraq War and financial crisis, Democrats were probably going to lose in 2016 as well, moderate or no).
I can buy that many people believe this is a retraction of the mandate of heaven, I’m not quite convinced it drives internal party politics. I think the relative stagnation of rust belt states during the recovery and the growing salience of ‘wokeness’ largely drove Trump’s victory, both of which mostly happened after 2012. His primary victory was mostly due to an over-crowded GOP field with the other wings of the Republican base split too many ways and candidates with no chance of winning unwilling to drop out. Explanations abound.
You start the posting saying Sullivan is unfair, quote him, but then don’t say which part was unfair. Is it all unfair?
It seems fair to mean. But I also agree with your description of the assumptions underlying the left.
Can you think Trump is all the things Sullivan says, that he is being fair. But that also the illiberal left is bad and so you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
You seem to be confusing negative views with the illiberal left with positive views for Trump. You can have negative views of both.
A Biden victory would be worse than a Trump victory for the following reasons.
1. It would be a vindication of the strategy of politicizing and staging impeachment simply to overturn an election.
2. It would be a vindication of widespread and conscious dismantling of voting safeguards.
3. Even in this post (and in the sources it mentions) there nobody can quite bring themselves to admit the plain and unspoken truth of this campaign, which is that the Democrats and the Left have implemented a campaign of coercion and violence, along with an implicit message that it will abate if they win the election. And a threat that, if the preferred candidate isn’t voted for, it will continue.
In the last respect, the question isn’t whether Biden or Trump will reduce the threat, but whether the voting public will be intimidated into compliance.
In all of these instances, a Trump re-election is the preferred outcome because the precedents set by a Biden victory under these circumstances seem obviously fatal to democracy.
+1
That’s why I’m a hold-your-nose MAGA conservative.
And, add to this that the most substantive accusations against the very strange orange man have basically zero basis in actual facts: Russian collusion and Charlottesville.