An intriguing article. What the author fails to see in her otherwise intelligent criticism is that her much beloved Reagan/Thatcher combination inevitably lead to exactly what she is condemning now. She believes they were wonderful and what is happening to conservatism today is a betrayal of their ideals. But even when Ronald Reagan was sitting in the White House, I could see that those ideals were going to lead to exactly this sort of situation. Perhaps Thatcher and Reagan would indeed condemn what is happening today, but they cleared and plowed the field upon which it has flourished.
Two excerpts:
>National conservatives cannot simultaneously be helpless victims of a totalitarian culture and also hold enormous political power, which some of them plainly do.<
Of course they can! Double think may be a term created in the novel 1984, but it’s been with humanity as long as there have been humans and possibly before we even fully evolved as a species. Always remember that even the very exemplar of extreme evil to the vast majority of humans, Hitler and the Nazis, insisted they were saving their nation. Those horrible liberals, communists, and leftist elites with their Jewish science had to be destroyed to protect freedom. It wasn’t just propaganda. Any true believer Nazi knew that he was a savior not only of Germany, but of the entire human race. The radical right wing nationalist conservatives of current American politics are determined to save democracy by declaring a military dictatorship, having military trials for all important Democratic Party leaders, and locking members of the opposing party up in Guantánamo Bay. Yes, they actually say this. Just Google Q anon to see how they intend to save democracy by having a military overthrow of the government of the United States, establishing Donald Trump as president for life, and using martial law to send all their political enemies to concentration camps.
Freedom!
>The world inhabited by Reagan and John Paul II is long past, and no one knows how they would react to so-called cancel culture and Twitter mobs, or the backlash against Western culture on American (but not Hungarian) college campuses, or some of the uglier strains of far-left thinking. But somehow I doubt their response would be the creation of a new, kleptocratic authoritarian right that chips away at the institutions preserving democracy. Nor do I believe they would have wanted to destroy the institutions that have long undergirded the West, as so many of these new “nationalists” want to do.<
Once again using the extreme example of the rise of the Third Reich, remember that the Nazis were contributors to the success of preventing the Communist Party from seizing control of Germany, a great dream of Stalin. However the answer to one level of extremism is not its opposite. What is necessary is balance.
Imagine a teeter totter. On one end sits a small child trying to have some fun, while on the other end sits a cartoon weight labelled “ten tons”. To bring things back into balance and restore fun, you might think, let’s take the small child off the teeter totter and put another 10 ton block on that end.
This would fail for two reasons. One is simply that the child is no longer on the teeter totter even trying to have fun! The second is that this will not result in a balanced teeter totter. It would invariably result in a teeter totter with both extreme ends firmly sitting on the ground and with the center of the teeter totter snapped in two by the excessive weight.
The answer to extremism is not mirror opposite extremism. The answer to extremism is moderation. Instead of adding more weight to the other side of the teeter totter, let’s remove all of the excess weight. Let’s put another child about the same size and weight as the first one on the opposing seat. Result? Balance! Result? Fun.
So far I think the author would agree with this comment, yet, once again, she is ignoring the simple reality that the right wing extreme of today is not really a betrayal of the golden age conservatism she so fondly recalls. However well-intentioned it was, it was obvious to me, and I suppose to at least a few others, that by turning America into the general direction of extremism we were making a change of course with ever increasing consequences as the decades accumulated. A very small change in initial angle can result in massive change developing over time. For more detail on this, refer to the butterfly effect and chaos theory.
Democracy in America is crumbling. I have literally spent decades referring to America as a failing democracy; as an oligarchic kleptocracy. As time has gone on, I have been proven more and more correct as we continue to sail further and further off course. I do not regard America as a functioning democracy. I cannot say the democracy is alive and well in America. Instead I must sadly say that democracy is alive and on life-support in America.
There is a point upon which I have never heard anyone else comment and which I think is absolutely critical and yet another sign which I see as part of the effort to put an end to the great experiment begun in 1776. I may be seeing something that isn’t there, but I remind you that when I saw the religious fanaticism of a tiny minority of the ultra religious threatening to seize power in America forty years ago, many thought I was being foolish, yet the decades have proven me to be correct. (Think I am exaggerating? Do some googling. All around America state legislatures are attempting to ban elements of science that don’t match their religion from the classroom. They are attempting to teach their religious doctrines as science. Preachers openly declare that the Constitution is not the supreme law of the land, instead it is the Bible, and that the Constitution is null and void if it contradicts their interpretation of Scripture.)
And what is this point I find so threatening and dangerous? If you follow politics at all you will have heard in recent years conservatives defending the erosion of democracy by declaring that America was never intended to be a democracy. We are are republic, they say, not a democracy. This is the equivalent of saying I don’t own a car, I own a Ford Mustang. It is true that America is not a pure democracy, but it is also true that the Founding Fathers were very clear that what they were creating was not simply a republic but a democratic republic. One could also call it a republican democracy. In other words, there are many kinds of democracy. If we are not the most extreme possible form, a pure democracy, that does not mean we are not a democracy. You will see you again and again that extremists insist that if you live on earth you have two choices. You must occupy the North Pole or the South Pole. They pick these two tiny extremes and ignore the vast majority of the planet which lies between them.
So what’s the danger of this seemingly simple misunderstanding by conservatives? It is insidious because it attacks the very concept that we are a democracy. The people saying it generally do not realize the danger in their words. They think they are being clever while actually they are exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect. They do not see that if we are not a democracy but a republic, it follows that the leaders of the republic get to make the decisions, not the people. It’s not those who repeat this nonsensical meme who intend harm, it is those who originated it and spread it. They wish to create an attitude among significant proportion of Americans that democracy is not really a thing. At least not in America. Who needs democracy? We’ve got a republic.
I hope I don’t need to expound any further on this point to make the dangers of this position clear. The right wing makers of public opinion play the long game. They plant seeds today which may not be a fruit for decades. No, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. The right wing extremists have made their plans to seize control of America with complete candor and openness. It goes back to Newt Gingrich. It goes back to the open declaration by the Republican Party that their long term goal is to make themselves a “permanent majority party”. That translates as one party rule.
So how much danger are we in? Let me again note that forty years ago I was right. Democracy was being put in serious danger by the way conservatism had veered toward radicalism. Yes, I was right about that.
I also said at the time that inevitably this movement would fail because, if nothing else, simple demographics would wipe it out. The White majority will become just another minority, the largest minority, to be sure, but nevertheless a minority. Also, the young people are much more open minded, less frightened, less willing to be blinded by fear and panicked into hatred. The extremists will lose power, I said. The only question was how much damage they would do before they finally did so. On this point, I was only half right. I knew they would do a lot of damage. I had no idea they could do this much damage. I never would have predicted this. If fact, I don’t think I can justly claim to be even half right on this point, I think I have to say on this one, I was wrong.
Nevertheless, I still believe that democracy in America will survive and recover from its time in intensive care. My generation has cleaned up the mess left to us by our parents, to some extent. In the process we have created a mess for the next generation. In defense of we Boomers, I can only say:
We didn’t start the fire.
It’s been always burning
Since the worlds been turning.
On the other hand, while we put out some parts of the fire, we set some new areas ablaze.
Not all of us from my time have joined the mob in flocking to Fox News and other right wing propaganda machines. Not all of us are frightened of immigrants,or change, or young people. I have fought the good fight. Like a certain boxer, I carry:
...the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down or cut him
'Til he cried out in his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving", but the fighter still remains
I haven’t given up. I’ll keep on fighting. I care too much not to, but I am old and battered and not so very well. Instead of passing the torch, I’ll ask others to join in accomplishing the mission.
Let me end with a message to my children, my grandchildren, and my great grandchildren. Let this be your cry:
We’re coming to the edge,
Running on the water,
Coming through the fog,
Your sons and daughters.
Let the river run,
Let all the dreamers
Wake the nation.
Come, the New Jerusalem.
(Oh...and please hurry!)
