By design, it has been a while since I have written anything overtly political, or more specifically, anything political that is overtly partisan. (But really, is there any other kind?) I have come to enjoy having the mind clear of all the noise, concentrating instead on the things that actually matter. I do not intend to wade off into that slimy slough anytime soon, as working your way back to firm ground can be daunting. And it is not as if there aren’t other more engrossing things to contemplate: my narrowing window of mortality, for example, as well as faith matters, family concerns, history and genealogy, literature, writing, travel, nature–that’s just a short list of the categories that keep my brain in gear without the miry mendacity of Politics. In the Morning Prayers, there’s a phrase–“raise me far above the world’s confusion.” Ah, that’s it. Political partisanship is one of the primary passions that whips up the flames of Confusion.
But it is hard to block out the times in which we live. Choose your metaphor: we are either shadowed by darkening storm clouds, or helpless observers to an oncoming train smash-up. I do not see why we cannot have both: a railroad disaster in a thunderstorm? For in this “sad and crumbling republic,” as I heard it put, we seem to be trapped in a situation that simply has no solution. All the while, we purport to be the exemplar of liberal democracy. I would suggest that the rest of the world look away for the next little bit.
So, in this scenario, the Social Liberal side of our uniparty, that is to say Democrats/Progressives, clinging tightly to the ghost of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, have allowed their fringiest element to craft the narrative. And they will nominate a man who will be 82 years old before he can be inaugurated. Indeed, his life actually overlaps that of FDR. They offer really nothing new in terms of solving any problems, though any number of things are being “redefined.” Like the Baylor trustees of long ago, “they could not father an original idea if hurled bodily into the womb of the Goddess of Wisdom.” (h/t Brann the Iconoclast)
Meanwhile, the Economic Liberal side of our uniparty, that is to say Republicans/Populists, have been subsumed into a bona fide Cult of Personality to a discredited candidate who cannot possibly win the general election, but whose self-same loyalists will accept no reality other than the electoral victory of said discredited candidate. Several state legislatures, along with those U.S. Representatives aligned with this side of our uniparty, seemed poised to do whatever it takes to accomplish this, post-election. The Goddess of Wisdom’s womb remains undefiled on this side of the aisle, as well.
Were they to accomplish their goal, one doubts they would know what to do with it; that is, if the past is prologue to the future. They do have an agenda, but it does not extend to actual policy, only grievance and power. Even draped in a flag with an eagle on top, this Cult will fall far short of a popular plurality, regardless of what means an electoral majority might be attained.
Meanwhile, both wings are operating in a Post-Truth environment: the Social Liberals in denial of basic biology, human nature, and any hint of universal truths, while the Economic Liberals flourish in denial of history, and it seems, math. At the end of the day, any adherence to an overriding principle of good governance will be jettisoned at once if it conflicts with the acquisition and preservation of Power. I think Phillip Blond has it right:
Liberalism is not a nice ideology about kindness and sharing and being welcoming to minorities… liberalism is an extreme panegyric to human freedom and the denial of any other value or standard except that of unconstrained human will. It denies relationships, solidarity, shared purposes, and objective stands, and indeed objective reality.1
Of course, by “Liberalism” he means the traditional, classical definition which encompasses all American political parties (and the fact that this term has to be explained shows just how far afield we have wandered.) So what will the minority party do if denied the only result they will accept? What will the majority party do if an electoral loss is the result of machinations of a cluster of crimson–hued states? As we say, what could possibly go wrong?
So, if we buy into the narrative we are being fed, it seems that we are headed for a great national bust-up. Michael Warren Davis, however, thinks perhaps not.
Judging only by what you see on the news, it would be easy to think that America is on the verge of a great battle between the forces of right-wing nationalism and those of left-wing radicalism. And maybe that’s true. What is more likely, though, is that American culture will keep drawing us down to our lowest common denominator: a kind of soulless, selfish consumerism.
This is what will shield the United States from any serious unrest—whether it’s racial, ethnic, religious, or ideological. For better or worse, those conflicts are fought by men who define themselves by their convictions and loyalties. Men who live for something greater than themselves, whether it’s their tribe or their king or their God. To lay down their life for that cause, should the need arise, for men like this it is only natural.
This isn’t us. American culture exists to free us of such dangerous attachments. And that may save us from Civil War II. At some point, though, I’m not sure we’re worth saving. 2
Davis may be on to something. At heart, we are not really a serious people. Rooted in commitment and conviction, real revolutionaries work for an idea that is greater than themselves. It is that last part that dooms our erstwhile partisans. If I ever see any of them, right or left, with a gleam in their eye about anything beyond their immediate self-interest, then I will start to take notice. Meanwhile, I will keep my head down and live the best life I can for me and mine and my community, as the natural forces of our particular system of governance play themselves out.
As a nation, it seems we have never been a terribly self-reflective lot. I recently stopped by the used bookstore and selected something for my wife, and then stumbled upon one of the most delightfully strange books I have read in quite some time, The Last American by J. A. Mitchell. It is a satirical dystopian alternative history, that only dips, slightly, into the fantastic on the very last page. The book’s scenario sounds rather up-to-date: America, fueled by incessant greed and acquisitiveness, succumbs to the inevitable consequences of the same, which, coupled with a dramatic climate change, results in a massive population loss. The nation falters and fades from history, becoming the subject of myth and legend, remembered only as Mehrika. The kicker is that this book was published in 1889. The author dedicates it to “The American who is more than satisfied with himself and country.”
In another ironic twist, it is a Persian sailing ship which accidentally rediscovers the East coast of North America. It seems that the burgeoning technology of the 1880s faltered in the early 1900s, while the knowledge that fueled it became lost. This is what seems so jarring to our sensibilities, since we all know that Progress only moves forward, right? The belief in an ever-upward Progress is is one of the pleasant lies we tell ourselves, which, in the absence of a transcendent faith, does offer a degree of solace and comfort. Just don’t look to History for examples to back it up.
Mitchell pulled no punches in characterizing his fellow Gilded Age Mehrikans:
A shallow, nervous, extravagant people…a restless, quick witted, greedy race, given body and soul to the gathering of riches…a people of elastic honor…Prosperity was their god, with cunning and invention for his prophets.
He noted that historians of the year 2951 questioned why so little was left of the culture. He answered, “There was nothing to leave. The Mehrikans possessed neither literature, art, or music of their own. Everything was borrowed.”
One of the Persian sailors, hearing his captain further explain this ancient people, exclaimed, “Allah! What idiots!” The captain replied, “Even so are they considered.” Later, upon hearing how they dressed, in their stiff collars and ties, wondered, “To what quality of their minds do you attribute such love of needless suffering?” The captain responded, “It was their desire to be like others. A natural feeling in a vulgar people.”
Mitchell also commented on the urban mainstream Protestantism of his day, which, with few adjustments, is applicable to the broad American Evangelicalism of today:
The religious rites of the Mehrikans were devoid of character. There were many religious beliefs, all complicated and insignificant variations one from another, each sect having its own temples and refusing to believe as the others…One day in each week they assembled, the priests reading long moral lectures written by themselves, with music by hired singers. They then separated, taking no thought of temple or priest for another seven days…they were not a religious people…the temples were filled mostly with women.
I thought of that as I recently followed a van into a parking lot. I noticed two stickers on their rear window. The one on the left depicted a large evangelical (meaning plain) cross, nestled in a bed of what looked to be sunflowers. The word “Faith” was inscribed in fancy script down the center beam. The sticker on the right was smaller, but its message was no less clear. It simply read, “Let’s Go, Brandon!” Only in America, in a perverse undoing of Jesus Christ’s admonition in Matthew 6:3, can one express sweetly sentimental feelings of blessing with one hand, while simultaneously shooting the finger with the other. So, irony is apparently dead, and this is just one more example of why we can’t have nice things. I think Mitchell and Davis would agree.
But to Davis’ earlier point, there’s no reason to think the wheels are going to come off right away. As Adam Smith wrote, “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation,” which means for us, I think, that for an empire of our strength, it will require consistent bungling and malfeasance over an extended period of time before we collapse. I am not sure just where we are on that trajectory. The 16th-century Florentine philosopher Francesco Guicciardini also suggested caution against panic.
If you see a city beginning to decline, a government changing, a new empire expanding, or any such phenomenon — and these things are sometimes quite clearly visible to us — be careful not to misjudge the time they will take…To be mistaken in these matters can be very harmful to you…Be very careful, for it is a step on which people often stumble.
***
This brings us to the realm of foreign affairs, where the picture is no less confused. Tom McTague suggests that Vladimir Putin may have made the very same error that Guicciardini warned against 500 years ago; mistaking our inchoate stumbling for the fall itself. And our current war with Russia by way of Ukraine is a touchy subject. I avoid it if at all possible, for the fences guarding Acceptable Thought are fiercely patrolled these days.
My point of reference for so many things is World War I. Historians love to debate the causes of the Great War. The old, simplistic answer used to be: German aggression. Anyone who really examines the tragic events leading up to the war, however, can see that just about all the major players had blood on their hands: Germany, Russia, Austro-Hungary, France, to be sure; and even Great Britain to a lesser degree, all had reasons for desiring a conflict they thought they could bend to their own ends. In the treaty-signing afterwards (or really, the Allied diktat), a sullen member of the German delegation mused upon how History would judge what they were doing. Georges Clemenceau, the prime minister of France, shot back something to the effect, “Well, History will never accuse Belgium of invading Germany.”
The current situation is not without similarities. No one will ever accuse Ukraine of invading Russia. Putin is the designated aggressor here, though I doubt that that troubles him much. But just as in the Great War, other players are complicit as well. In this case, both Ukraine itself, and U.S./NATO’s actions contributed to triggering the Russian invasion. In World War I, the earnest idealogue Woodrow Wilson framed our entry into the fight as a war to save Democracy. This, of course, was a lie, the magnitude of which became more and more apparent in the years following.
This war, like all our military engagements, is being presented to us as a struggle between Good and Evil, a war of Democracy against Tyranny, with the valiant Volodymyr Zelensky being all that is standing in the way of Russia sweeping back into eastern Europe. I have learned by experience to be skeptical of these official narratives. I’m just not buying into it. To be sure, it is an existential fight for Ukraine. And who cannot admire their determination and resolve in this defending their borders? But on a larger level, the level of the U.S. and NATO’’s involvement in material support clearly marks this as just another one of our proxy wars, this time against Russia, fought on Ukrainian soil, spilling Ukrainian blood. I have consistently opposed our proxy wars for as far back as I can remember.
I cannot help but believe that in our approach to Russia, we have been consistently wrong-headed. Despite all our advanced weaponry, in our minds we are fighting a 20th-century war, unable to grasp the emerging 21st-century global realities. A unipolar, or even bipolar mentality misses the mark. We were locked in a 45-year struggle with the Soviets, followed by a few brief, misspent years in an unsustainable unipolarity. In the long run, neither one of those periods were good for us, in the long run. We came to believe that this was normative—we being in control. I think that the simplicity of our religiosity had something to do with, as we came to believe American hegemony was the natural consequence of our being chosen by God; or in its secular variation, the inevitable March of Progress as we take Democracy to the world. We should perhaps remember that it was the Greeks who gave us Democracy, and that they also gave us Hubris.
I do not believe we understand China, either. We huff and puff about their actions in the South China Sea, which is comparable to them being worked into a lather about our navy in the Florida straits. With Russia and China, we talk as if they are either trying to revive the Soviet Union, or “take over the world.” Meanwhile, we are the ones with over a 1,000 military installations around the globe. To be sure, both nations have very specific aims consistent with their own national interests, not necessarily ours. It would not be wrong to label some of them as “expansionist” in our view. But foreign relations as TV Western with the good sheriff keeping the villains at bay totally skews our understanding.
For many countries, closer relations with China (and Russia) are more attractive than being joined at the hip with America. India, Brazil, Turkey, Iran, and many African nations fall into that category. Former Clinton Treasury Secretary Larry Summers sounded the alarm recently, noting fragmentation in the world, and “a growing sense that ours may not be the best fragment to be associated with.” Summers is troubled by such developments as the President of Brazil visiting China, the recent coordination between Russia and OPEC, the China-brokered rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, dogs and cats living together, etc. Why yes, I can see how peace and diplomacy can be unsettling. In a telling line, he quoted from a recent conversation he had. “Somebody from a developing country said to me, ‘what we get from China is an airport. What we get from the United States is a lecture.’”
He finished with one of our favorite old chestnuts: “We are on the right side of history–with our commitment to democracy, with our resistance to aggression in Russia.” If nothing else, this shows that he is not seriously engaging the issue at hand, and is flailing for an explanation of the emerging post-unipolar world. What is taking shape now is something altogether new to our experience of the last seventy years. Elites on both sides of the aisle occasionally discount Samuel Huntington and his Clash of Civilizations, but he has been more right than wrong. Many like Secretary Summers, who struggle to make sense of a world where Ideology is losing its grip, should perhaps brush up on their Huntington. And there is a certain philosopher in a certain Eurasian country who has coined a term for this process, but as I do not want to trigger anyone, I will not mention his name.
So, we bluster along, free with our advice and hectoring, secure in our Indispensable Nationhood. Western Europe is tied to us in an embrace from which they cannot extricate themselves. The rest of the world, however, now has other options. And despite our warmongering and doomsaying, these other options are indeed more attractive.
Meanwhile, as we straddle the globe, Tom McTague again offers some sobering statistics: 3,000 people sleep homeless in the U.K., while 113,000 sleep homeless in California alone: we have 7 murders per 100,000 nationwide, while Western Europe has 1, the rise in mass shootings are simply too grim to note the number; we lost 58,000 to fentanyl overdoses in 2020, while the entire EU lost 97; and our life expectancy is collapsing across all socioeconomic groups.
And so, our problems are deep and wide, the American Dream has taken a nightmarish turn, and “the situation is hopeless, but not serious.” But, it is Spring and my oakleaf hydrangeas are blooming. I have passed the 42-year mark on our marriage, and it looks like it is going to hold. My dog remains ever faithful. And—I have found a solution to keeping the squirrels out of our bird feeder. (I did not , however, take the advice of the woman who made our acquaintance in Walmart. She suggested that we grease the pole with Vaseline, as she does every morning.) So, in all sincerity, I can say that life is good. What an exciting time to be alive!
Phillip Blond, “The Nationalist Mistake,” Modern Age Fall 2022/Winter 2023: 7-17.
Michael Warren Davis, “A Melting Pot of Dross,” The American Conservative, April 23, 2023.
Well, that should clear away the need to write on politics for a while.
I appreciate the reminder that we don't really know where we are on the trajectory of decline.