Two things about Trump's Muslim video tweets:
Regardless, of what you think about their value, or Britain First, it's obvious that the man is just not going to stop. Y'all wasting your time. Why? Because he knows his supporters like it, and also are sick of politically correct garbage, when you are not allowed to open your mouth without being called an Islamophobes and have your legitimate concerns dismissed.
And populists take easy advantage of such grievances, and of course, take their new found freedom from PC all the way the other end. Don't like it? Start giving platforms to serious thinkers who can discuss Islamism without hysterics, and stop empowering the likes of Linda Sarsour. The more you attack Trump and ask him to stop, the more he will continue in the same vein just to piss people off, and the more his hardcore supporters will applaud him.
Second, the non-profits who are choosing to engage in Twitter wars with the President are not saving the country from White Supremacists. They are begging for money from their donors.
Start supporting people who are willing to discuss reasonable solutions, and you won't have room for demagogues, who have nothing to offer but bloviations that cater to emotions and fears.
But you won't see that happening, because non-profits need money and they can only get money if they fighting some grievance.
Showing posts with label populism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label populism. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Thursday, November 2, 2017
Is the Trump Administration All That Different?
Trump has been a politically polarizing politician, but policy-wise, his administration is not too different from George W. Bush's in many respects. And on some things, he basically continued with Obama's policies. The major difference between him and Obama are 1. conservative judges and 2. deregulation. However, many of these regulations only came into place under Obama, so there isn't actually a striking difference between the way life was under Bush and what it's like under Trump. So then, leaving aside, Trump's personal qualities, why is the reaction to his administration so hysterical, when there isn't actually all that much that has changed, much less negatively affected anyone in the US? (I have yet to see one person who lost medical coverage because of Trump). Three things:
1. The hysteria started under Bush with completely over the top reactions to Iraq war. Many of the people who expressed their differences over the war were so hateful in tone that I wonder to this day whether they knew who the real enemy was. The people who now fondly recall the Bush eras, tend to forget the utterly hateful rhetoric surrounding the war in Iraq and all the names Bush was called, and so forth. Bush himself was significantly more civil in tone. Trump supporters now call it weakness. I think there is a middle ground between allowing your adversaries to walk all over you and reacting impulsively to every single negative comment about you. Those who think that Trump comes out as strong and in control by lashing out are doing so because they are projecting their own wish to see someone respond to the annoying media and leftist loons.
And gratifying as it may be emotionally, it does absolutely nothing for Trump's image otherwise. No one except his most hardcore supporters actually believes he is a strong president due to that. That's not to say that people won't vote for him given no other Republican alternatives. Incumbents tend to win, and most people are doing ok for now, so there is no reason to believe that unless his policy ends up putting us on a crash course, history won't follow the examples of previous presidents who got reelected despite not being particularly outstanding on any one thing. But let's not kid ourselves about how Trump actually comes across. Or that someone less polarizing wouldn't have gotten the same share of attacks. Same people who "wanted" Jeb or Rubio would have turned to calling them fascist Islamophobes the moment they took office and shown opposition to the Iran deal or cracked down on terrorists (and they would have done exactly that).
2. Media - for all the talks about the failing media, there are now many more media outlets than under Bush. These echo chambers started mushrooming under Obama as a reaction to each other. On the part of the left, it was a deliberate strategy of amplifying the message, on the part of the right it was a reaction to a perceived bias in the MSM, and MSM's unwillingness to cover issues of concern to conservatives or give voice to conservative perspective. All of which is perfectly ok, of course, so long as people are still willing to examine the other side. But neither the journalists nor the readers were willing to do that, although there is a number of very fair minded conservative journalists who do excellent investigative work. But many of them are outright dismissed as political hacks by all of the left, regardless of what they say. Yes, there is bias and tunnel vision on both sides. But I would say that more conservatives are at least willing to hear what the other side says, if only to debunk it, than progressives who don't even read what conservatives have to say.
3. The rise of activist movements - BLM, Occupy Wall Street, and BDS movements have all contributed to the radicalization of the discourse on the left. And they are not really comparable to Tea Party, which had very specific economic goals, and moreover organized around electing more conservative politicians, rather than just having actions for the sake of actions, or changing culture, or infiltrating the academe. To some extent, I think it's the failing of the conservatives to utilize the Tea Party momentum to that end. But regardless of that, I think it's clear that the rise of radical activists galvanized the left, though not necessarily towards any helpful ends such as getting elected. It definitely influenced rhetoric and perceptions, so that even very mainstream, old-school Democrats found themselves having to move to the left in order to keep up with the party messaging and not be left out in the cold. You might say that Trumpism did the the same for conservatives, but ideologically that's not really the case, because Trumpism didn't make anyone (not one peson) more "conservative" in any traditional understanding.
It shifted the focus of conversation to particular concerns popular with the conservatives in recent years, but whereas the conservative platform had a broad spectrum of issues and perspectives, Trumpism was a nativist/populist focus on a few very narrow issues to the exclusion of discussion and understanding of anything else. To some extent, it's more a demagoguic exploitation of deeply personal fears and problems than any political movement that that affects the reasoning of the party about its platform. it's not cohesive, it's not based in any principles, it's reactionary, and unfortunately, it plays on emotions and poor understanding of economics and foreign policy for overwhelming majority of people, instead of addressing their concerns in a thoughtful way (which is the failing of conservatives - and that's how Trumpism took advantage of the vacuum). It's not that conservatism holds no answers, it's that a combination of corrupt or weak politicians, lack of access to broader discourse with the public, and failure to organize conservatives on a grassroots level made the public ripe for a quick takeover by loud over the top brash voices, which are perceived as strong, more confident, more decisive, and having solutions because they tell people what they want to hear.
No one really wants to discuss the downsides of these "solutions". That's old school. That failed. That's out the door.
So at the end of the day, left wing activist movements took the Democratic party through the triumph of cultural rhetoric and socialist economic appeal, while the right has been largely abducted by populist nativism, which actually has very little to do with "nationalism" as most people view it. It's more like the combination of 1920s nativism/Know NOthing party and early post-revolutionary Soviet Union, with the focus on taking down the corrupt economic elites and installing the Peope who surely knew how to address their own needs. That was actually the underlying political premise of the first years of Bolshevism. Though Trumpism doesn't embrace communism, it actually has a lot more of socialism in it than anyone would care to admit, and anyone who compares it to Italian fascism or German Nazism is sorely deluded. The underlying premise is actually very particular to early Soviet populism, minus the violence. That Trumpism and left wing cultural activism both rely on Alinsky tactics to carry out their agendas, makes them both more alike than they are different. That's not to say that Trumpism is practically useless, and that someone who embraces it, cannot execute a policy successfully. But let's see who's actually executing some of the more successful Trump policies. Are they actual true believer populists? Or are they hardcore pragmatists, who'd be doing the same thing in any Republican administration? I actually think there are significantly fewer populists in the administration than people on either side of the aisle believe.
I think if Trump were to retire from politics, the movement will quick die down for lack of leadership, so long as more traditional conservatives get their act together and put forth a cohesive vision, which they had failed to do during the election. And I think, results will sooner or later speak for themselves. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but Trumpian isolationism is not consistent with the security demands of modern reality, nor with the economic demands of a colossal economy that we have in place today. All of that will fall by wayside, and Republicans will either feel betrayed once again, or others will emerge to take advantage of the things the administration did right and build on it in a more traditional and thought out manner. It remains to be seen what actually happens. But from the left, no matter who takes the mantle after Trump, expect nothing but more hatemongering, dismissal and Alinskyite tactics. To contrast with conservatism, they are forced to rely on the polar extreme, simply because of who their constituency is. I am not sure how the left can ever roll back the excesses of intersectionality given the generations of mindless drones it has produced. If they do try to do so, it may end badly.
1. The hysteria started under Bush with completely over the top reactions to Iraq war. Many of the people who expressed their differences over the war were so hateful in tone that I wonder to this day whether they knew who the real enemy was. The people who now fondly recall the Bush eras, tend to forget the utterly hateful rhetoric surrounding the war in Iraq and all the names Bush was called, and so forth. Bush himself was significantly more civil in tone. Trump supporters now call it weakness. I think there is a middle ground between allowing your adversaries to walk all over you and reacting impulsively to every single negative comment about you. Those who think that Trump comes out as strong and in control by lashing out are doing so because they are projecting their own wish to see someone respond to the annoying media and leftist loons.
And gratifying as it may be emotionally, it does absolutely nothing for Trump's image otherwise. No one except his most hardcore supporters actually believes he is a strong president due to that. That's not to say that people won't vote for him given no other Republican alternatives. Incumbents tend to win, and most people are doing ok for now, so there is no reason to believe that unless his policy ends up putting us on a crash course, history won't follow the examples of previous presidents who got reelected despite not being particularly outstanding on any one thing. But let's not kid ourselves about how Trump actually comes across. Or that someone less polarizing wouldn't have gotten the same share of attacks. Same people who "wanted" Jeb or Rubio would have turned to calling them fascist Islamophobes the moment they took office and shown opposition to the Iran deal or cracked down on terrorists (and they would have done exactly that).
2. Media - for all the talks about the failing media, there are now many more media outlets than under Bush. These echo chambers started mushrooming under Obama as a reaction to each other. On the part of the left, it was a deliberate strategy of amplifying the message, on the part of the right it was a reaction to a perceived bias in the MSM, and MSM's unwillingness to cover issues of concern to conservatives or give voice to conservative perspective. All of which is perfectly ok, of course, so long as people are still willing to examine the other side. But neither the journalists nor the readers were willing to do that, although there is a number of very fair minded conservative journalists who do excellent investigative work. But many of them are outright dismissed as political hacks by all of the left, regardless of what they say. Yes, there is bias and tunnel vision on both sides. But I would say that more conservatives are at least willing to hear what the other side says, if only to debunk it, than progressives who don't even read what conservatives have to say.
3. The rise of activist movements - BLM, Occupy Wall Street, and BDS movements have all contributed to the radicalization of the discourse on the left. And they are not really comparable to Tea Party, which had very specific economic goals, and moreover organized around electing more conservative politicians, rather than just having actions for the sake of actions, or changing culture, or infiltrating the academe. To some extent, I think it's the failing of the conservatives to utilize the Tea Party momentum to that end. But regardless of that, I think it's clear that the rise of radical activists galvanized the left, though not necessarily towards any helpful ends such as getting elected. It definitely influenced rhetoric and perceptions, so that even very mainstream, old-school Democrats found themselves having to move to the left in order to keep up with the party messaging and not be left out in the cold. You might say that Trumpism did the the same for conservatives, but ideologically that's not really the case, because Trumpism didn't make anyone (not one peson) more "conservative" in any traditional understanding.
It shifted the focus of conversation to particular concerns popular with the conservatives in recent years, but whereas the conservative platform had a broad spectrum of issues and perspectives, Trumpism was a nativist/populist focus on a few very narrow issues to the exclusion of discussion and understanding of anything else. To some extent, it's more a demagoguic exploitation of deeply personal fears and problems than any political movement that that affects the reasoning of the party about its platform. it's not cohesive, it's not based in any principles, it's reactionary, and unfortunately, it plays on emotions and poor understanding of economics and foreign policy for overwhelming majority of people, instead of addressing their concerns in a thoughtful way (which is the failing of conservatives - and that's how Trumpism took advantage of the vacuum). It's not that conservatism holds no answers, it's that a combination of corrupt or weak politicians, lack of access to broader discourse with the public, and failure to organize conservatives on a grassroots level made the public ripe for a quick takeover by loud over the top brash voices, which are perceived as strong, more confident, more decisive, and having solutions because they tell people what they want to hear.
No one really wants to discuss the downsides of these "solutions". That's old school. That failed. That's out the door.
So at the end of the day, left wing activist movements took the Democratic party through the triumph of cultural rhetoric and socialist economic appeal, while the right has been largely abducted by populist nativism, which actually has very little to do with "nationalism" as most people view it. It's more like the combination of 1920s nativism/Know NOthing party and early post-revolutionary Soviet Union, with the focus on taking down the corrupt economic elites and installing the Peope who surely knew how to address their own needs. That was actually the underlying political premise of the first years of Bolshevism. Though Trumpism doesn't embrace communism, it actually has a lot more of socialism in it than anyone would care to admit, and anyone who compares it to Italian fascism or German Nazism is sorely deluded. The underlying premise is actually very particular to early Soviet populism, minus the violence. That Trumpism and left wing cultural activism both rely on Alinsky tactics to carry out their agendas, makes them both more alike than they are different. That's not to say that Trumpism is practically useless, and that someone who embraces it, cannot execute a policy successfully. But let's see who's actually executing some of the more successful Trump policies. Are they actual true believer populists? Or are they hardcore pragmatists, who'd be doing the same thing in any Republican administration? I actually think there are significantly fewer populists in the administration than people on either side of the aisle believe.
I think if Trump were to retire from politics, the movement will quick die down for lack of leadership, so long as more traditional conservatives get their act together and put forth a cohesive vision, which they had failed to do during the election. And I think, results will sooner or later speak for themselves. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but Trumpian isolationism is not consistent with the security demands of modern reality, nor with the economic demands of a colossal economy that we have in place today. All of that will fall by wayside, and Republicans will either feel betrayed once again, or others will emerge to take advantage of the things the administration did right and build on it in a more traditional and thought out manner. It remains to be seen what actually happens. But from the left, no matter who takes the mantle after Trump, expect nothing but more hatemongering, dismissal and Alinskyite tactics. To contrast with conservatism, they are forced to rely on the polar extreme, simply because of who their constituency is. I am not sure how the left can ever roll back the excesses of intersectionality given the generations of mindless drones it has produced. If they do try to do so, it may end badly.
Monday, October 16, 2017
Let's Not Become Like Russia
This morning, I had an opportunity to hear an interview with a Russion historian Leonid Melchin.
He brought up several salient points about contemporary Russia and its foreign and domestic policy:
First, he said, it's always much easier to look for big external enemies to shift blame for your internal problems and to justify doing nothing to address the smaller quality-of-life issues in your back yard. It's much more glamorous to fight with NATO than to go rebuild your failing infrastructure or take care of your ailing neighbor.
Second, Russia's culture has been in ruins for several generations starting with the elimination of the farmers and the expulsion of intelligentsia after the Revolution. The Civil War actually caused millions of people to flee, and millions of others to die or to lose everything, including social influence, resulting in largely uneducated, uncouth people being next in line to take over the country right after the middle class revolutionary leaders, many of whom themselves later perished in purges. That ruined the ethical underpinnings of the society resulting in country being ruled by thugs for many decades, and adopting a largely criminal based form of governance and life philosophy.
Finally, perennial apathy and laziness are preventing people from assuming any level of responsibility on an individual level. For instance, Russia's peripheral regions are doing nothing to engage in self-improvements, largely relying on the non-existent and corrupt system of subsidies from Moscow, under the excuses that the Chinese are eventually going to take over everything anyway, so there is no reason to put any effort into improving one's own life. Melchin, however, argues that it's patently untrue. The influence of the Chinese is greatly exaggerated, and to some extent, failure to address existing economic and social issues creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of these regions becoming depleted of human resources and ripe for take over by migrant populations.
Moreover, it's nonsense to believe the fatalistic refrain that sooner or later, Russia will fall apart and become at best a federation of weak autonomies. The federal system, he says, is very strong, and no one is going anywhere. Nor is Russia going to die out due to low demographics, aging population, alcoholism and so forth. All these are significant problems, but Russia has gone through a great deal of turmoil over the centuries, including persistent economic issues such as poor economy and lack of viable infrastructure, and yet here we are, with Russia still boasting a high population and significant involvement in international affairs. However, the course it's pursuing is less North-Korea bound, than completely irrelevance and inaction on all fronts.
Why should this be of any interest to the United States? Because the same populist claims and excuses are reverberating both on the left and on the right of the US society, creating the danger that despite the strong economy and other achievements we have accomplished through the history of good work ethic and dedication to upward mobility, defeatist philosophy that seeks to blame our internal weaknesses on outward forces, such as immigrants, "the Establishment", corporations, the left, the right, and frankly, anyone but the weakening local cultures and lack of consistent education to growth, education, and self-improvement is putting us on the same deteriorating path as Russia, our foil for endless excuse-making regarding the internal weaknesses resulting from bad decisionmaking of the Obama administration, and various private and public actors.
Populist nationalism (as opposed to healthy, growth-oriented nationalism) is the last result of the excuse seekers, who seek to shift the blame elsewhere rather than to actually find and implement solutions that will address existing problems internally. Bannonism philosophy sounds appealing to patriots starved for a healthy national self-image, but in reality it provides little relief who those genuinely dedicated to greatness. Instead, it's a distraction from a necessary conversation about the improvement in education, ethics, social values, and the strengthening of our communities that we should be having as a permanent long-term solution to the various problems assailing our culture. Indeed, a reactionary mindset of trying to provide quick fixes to external attacks ignores the structural internal weakness that help view all such developments as attacks and downsides rather than opportunities.
Our national conversation has become excessively focused on symptoms, rather than causes. And while we are busy playing wack-a-mole with cultural and social issues, the causes persist, affecting even those who claim to stand against all that is harmful and in favor of all that is beneficial. Pausing for a bit of self-reflection as to how we came to be in a place when identity politics and finger=pointing dominate discussion on both sides of the aisle when that was exactly the sort of thing that conservatives claimed to stand against to begin with might do us some good.
He brought up several salient points about contemporary Russia and its foreign and domestic policy:
First, he said, it's always much easier to look for big external enemies to shift blame for your internal problems and to justify doing nothing to address the smaller quality-of-life issues in your back yard. It's much more glamorous to fight with NATO than to go rebuild your failing infrastructure or take care of your ailing neighbor.
Second, Russia's culture has been in ruins for several generations starting with the elimination of the farmers and the expulsion of intelligentsia after the Revolution. The Civil War actually caused millions of people to flee, and millions of others to die or to lose everything, including social influence, resulting in largely uneducated, uncouth people being next in line to take over the country right after the middle class revolutionary leaders, many of whom themselves later perished in purges. That ruined the ethical underpinnings of the society resulting in country being ruled by thugs for many decades, and adopting a largely criminal based form of governance and life philosophy.
Finally, perennial apathy and laziness are preventing people from assuming any level of responsibility on an individual level. For instance, Russia's peripheral regions are doing nothing to engage in self-improvements, largely relying on the non-existent and corrupt system of subsidies from Moscow, under the excuses that the Chinese are eventually going to take over everything anyway, so there is no reason to put any effort into improving one's own life. Melchin, however, argues that it's patently untrue. The influence of the Chinese is greatly exaggerated, and to some extent, failure to address existing economic and social issues creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of these regions becoming depleted of human resources and ripe for take over by migrant populations.
Moreover, it's nonsense to believe the fatalistic refrain that sooner or later, Russia will fall apart and become at best a federation of weak autonomies. The federal system, he says, is very strong, and no one is going anywhere. Nor is Russia going to die out due to low demographics, aging population, alcoholism and so forth. All these are significant problems, but Russia has gone through a great deal of turmoil over the centuries, including persistent economic issues such as poor economy and lack of viable infrastructure, and yet here we are, with Russia still boasting a high population and significant involvement in international affairs. However, the course it's pursuing is less North-Korea bound, than completely irrelevance and inaction on all fronts.
Why should this be of any interest to the United States? Because the same populist claims and excuses are reverberating both on the left and on the right of the US society, creating the danger that despite the strong economy and other achievements we have accomplished through the history of good work ethic and dedication to upward mobility, defeatist philosophy that seeks to blame our internal weaknesses on outward forces, such as immigrants, "the Establishment", corporations, the left, the right, and frankly, anyone but the weakening local cultures and lack of consistent education to growth, education, and self-improvement is putting us on the same deteriorating path as Russia, our foil for endless excuse-making regarding the internal weaknesses resulting from bad decisionmaking of the Obama administration, and various private and public actors.
Populist nationalism (as opposed to healthy, growth-oriented nationalism) is the last result of the excuse seekers, who seek to shift the blame elsewhere rather than to actually find and implement solutions that will address existing problems internally. Bannonism philosophy sounds appealing to patriots starved for a healthy national self-image, but in reality it provides little relief who those genuinely dedicated to greatness. Instead, it's a distraction from a necessary conversation about the improvement in education, ethics, social values, and the strengthening of our communities that we should be having as a permanent long-term solution to the various problems assailing our culture. Indeed, a reactionary mindset of trying to provide quick fixes to external attacks ignores the structural internal weakness that help view all such developments as attacks and downsides rather than opportunities.
Our national conversation has become excessively focused on symptoms, rather than causes. And while we are busy playing wack-a-mole with cultural and social issues, the causes persist, affecting even those who claim to stand against all that is harmful and in favor of all that is beneficial. Pausing for a bit of self-reflection as to how we came to be in a place when identity politics and finger=pointing dominate discussion on both sides of the aisle when that was exactly the sort of thing that conservatives claimed to stand against to begin with might do us some good.
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