Liberalism After Obama

With the Obama presidency coming to an end, much of the energy that might have been devoted to analyzing his legacy has been diverted by Donald Trump. But how can one make a fair analysis of a polarizing figure in American politics?

Speaking for myself, as someone of the left with libertarian tendencies, it’s difficult to have much sympathy to the man, however a lot of criticism coming from the GOP is sadly too partisan and unthoughtful. I think from the left the criticism is fairly more interesting, CounterPunch is an outlet that continuously had denounce Obama for his liberal interventionism, the bank bailout, the crony capitalism of the Export-Import Bank and even the corporatism of Obamacare. Recently progressive journalist Jeremy Scahill attacked Obama over drone killing. But one has to wonder where the progressive discontent with Obama comes from.

Allow me to suggest the hopes of the progressives were too high — but they were also misled. Back in 2008, Ralph Nader argued rightly that in a lot of issues John Edwards was actually more progressive than Obama, but the symbolism of the first black president trumped any real discussion of who Obama really was. Matt Gonzalez, a former Green Party councilman of San Francisco that was the vice presidential candidate for Ralph Nader argued that Obama was far from the pacifist some on both right and left try to portray.

On the right the thing is more complex. While some argue racism, the main reason is partisanship — liberals hated Bush every bit as much as conservatives hate Obama. Let me be clear, there were racists and white supremacists of different kinds that were against Obama from the get go but in general the reaction was more than just against Obama, it was against a country changing demographically — Obama was a symbol but not the cause.  

While the radical left and average conservative were fierce critics of Obama, the world seemed to like him more than Bush. Obama recovered the image of America but was far from being the new JFK. The Kennedy years gave American liberalism an identity, the Obama years failed to do so. A government that supposedly signified the victory of the McGovern coalition was closer to the neocon foreign policy than the thoughtful realism of the late South Dakota Senator.

The foreign policy of Obama enabled a Cheney-lite candidate like Hillary to have an easy time becoming the next candidate for the Democratic Party. He was less hawkish than Hillary but was far from being a dove, liberal interventionists and other warmongers were very influential in his government and are going to be even more if Hillary gets elected. Even Sanders who calls himself a socialist is very much a military Keynesian and even supports drone killing.

The popularity of socialism among the young makes one wonder what these could mean for the American left. Without major socialist figures, the next leaders of the Democratic Party will probably identify themselves as FDR Democrats embracing New Deal liberalism — plus identity politics, but nothing revolutionary.  

Obama would still be in high regard within the base of his party and is a useful tool for the party. A Hillary presidency would preserve his legacy in a better way, Trump would try to undo what he has done including his major foreign policy victory in the Iran deal. Sanders is still a mystery because if he is successful he would replace a lot of Obama’s major policies including Obamacare.

Back to the real question of what Obama means for liberalism: seems to be more a symbolic image than a revolutionary change, he represents the victory of identity politics. That being said Obama is by far one of the smartest politicians of the last time, a charismatic leader that gave hope to a generation. Liberalism after him could be more populist in the line of Sanders but at the same time more hawkish in the line of Hillary. I still wonder if Russ Feingold could run in the future for president, it seems like he will be re-elected to the Senate. His mix of civil libertarianism and foreign policy restraint seem to be ideal to form a broad coalition. Another thoughtful leader for the future could be Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard who bravely fought against the Clintonite establishment. Tim Canova who is running to unseat corporatist Debbie Wasserman Schultz represent the new generation of insurgents.

You can love him or hate him, Obama had marked a time of extreme polarization. He hasn’t shaped the Democratic Party in the way some thought he would and he had united the GOP against him. He knows that the future is unknown and that his legacy depends on the future, but he did his best. And while he didn’t exactly deliver the change people think he would bring, he changed the image of America in radical way.

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The importance of gatekeepers

Blogger Andrew Sullivan is back, and his latest offering in New York magazine is a doozy. Here’s a quick (and predictable) synopsis: Donald Trump is an existential threat to the American system of constitutional order.

Trump Derangement Syndrome gets tiring, even from a sharp guy like Sullivan. But T-Man Sully does get one thing right about the Donald and our fragile Republic. Citing Plato, he argues that the populist swell that propelled Trump to the GOP nomination is a real danger to something our country is losing supply of: legitimate authority.

I know what you’re thinking: Talk of “legitimate authority” usually comes from puritan witch-burners or Stalinists. It’s true that if taken too far, authority can corrupt. But as sociologist Philip Rieff wrote in his book The Triumph of the Therapeutic, the culture before our modern era “was embedded in a consensus of ‘shalt nots.’” The America of yesteryear had “creedal hedges” in place around “impulses of independence or autonomy” that detracted from “communal purpose.” Our country used to have a shared set of standards regarding sexuality, religion, race, and working life. It wasn’t perfect; but at least it kept grown men out of the little girls’ room.

Those informal limits are long gone. Explanations are legion for the collapse; yet one factor in particular stands out: A lack of gatekeepers on truth and knowledge.

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Their works will come to nothing

The anti-politics side of neoreaction is hard for people to grasp in our current context. People tend to think of good things as resulting from some kind of activist energy bringing it together. The opposite of this do-somethingism is neoreaction’s passivism, its belief in entropy:  things will inevitably flow a certain way if the foot is taken off the gas.

For example, subsidies for single mothers and no-fault divorce hold together the ~70 percent single motherhood rate in parts of Northeast DC, where I live. This is the closest thing to a smashed patriarchy we have – it’s dented at the very least.

Without such political energy, as well as the not-strictly-political but still irrational cultural trends like alternative family structures being fashionable, this all falls apart. Reality comes crashing, and people are forced to rediscover healthy family structures. The fact remains, however: social entropy can’t be beaten. A return to patriarchy only requires a relief from politics and the (probably painful) correction that follows.

White males have high-paid Silicon Valley jobs in the absence of this kind of energy. All they had to do was be smart, be productive and mind their own business. This naturally makes the blood of New York Magazine types boil, so now we have the #WomenInTech meme to try to remedy this supposedly horrible state of affairs.

“Diversity consultant” is a thing, by the way. But the tech industry was booming before we had people who supplicate the equality spirits for a living, and it will probably continue to boom when they’re gone. Rule of thumb: if your need a hashtag to continue your existence, you aren’t going to exist for long. Capitalists like bragging to their friends about their investments supporting the things we’re supposed to be down with, but even more than that they like their investments making money. The folly of this line of attack can be generalized to all activism:  it’s just an appeal to the sentiments of the powerful.

Few of them will admit it, but the social order that left-wingers prefer is held together by smashy energy that is fighting a Sisyphean uphill battle.

We can see a pretty successful attempt to smash capitalism in Venezuela – we know it’s successful because the government has smashed capitalism so thoroughly that it can’t even supply toilet paper to their citizens. They even tried extending their smashing to the subsequent breadlines by pulling people out of them based on numbers on their ID cards.

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Mother

Louanne Miller obit picture_smallOn Mother’s Day, I’m honoring Mom, who died two months ago – and you should honor yours, too

My mother, Louanne Vorba Miller of Middletown, took her last breaths on Friday, March 11, in Room 2044 of the intensive-care unit at Penn State Hershey Medical Center. It’s unreal watching your parent, especially your mother, die in front of your eyes.

Within a 10-minute span, everything went from OK to terminal. It was impossible to register what was happening: The woman who created, nurtured and cared for me for 28 years (mothers never stop looking after your well-being) suddenly ceased to be.
No more holiday visits. No more check-in phone calls. No more walking in the door, seeing her reading in her favorite recliner. No more arguing about politics over e-mail.

Those moments are gone. They live on only in memory. As Sir Henry Harcourt-Reilly said in T.S. Eliot’s play, “The Cocktail Party,” “We die to each other daily. What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them.” Mom, being an English major in college, would appreciate the literary reference.

Eliot’s truth never left my mind in the weeks following my mother’s untimely death. Her passing helped me realize just how precious our relations to others are. During our lives, we leave an indelible mark on those around us. We create ripples in life’s ocean that spread out, touch and interact with others, creating a web of connection that binds us, turning us from selfish creatures into beings capable of love and compassion.

Whether they be our friends, family, coworkers, or complete strangers, our essence is made whole by the people we bond with in our short time here.

Louanne Miller lived a simple life. But she, too, left an impression on those closest to her. Here are a few particularities I’ll remember her by:

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America’s Thinning Cohesion

If someone says that America is the one nation based on an idea and not an identity one more time, I swear I’ll…..

Eh, probably complain about it online before moving on to more practical matters. Anyway, here’s my latest Taki’s Mag piece about why Mexican immigrants need to assimilate or go home. An excerpt:

I can’t think of a better example of the “propositional nation” concept so enjoyed by the left. Liberals love to crow about America being an open, welcoming society for all. Mainstream conservatives, who wet the bed over the possibility of being called xenophobic or hateful, have foolishly given in to this abstraction. In a recent address to a group of congressional interns (read: a publicity stunt), Speaker of the House Paul Ryan contended that “America is the only nation founded on an idea—not an identity.”

Not by a mile, Mr. Amnesty.

The late Harvard professor Samuel Huntington has covered this ground before, but let’s recap: America is a country founded by men of English descent, informed by Protestant theology and Enlightenment ethics. The founders didn’t create a country and system of government that was meant for pygmy hut-dwellers. It was made for what John Jay called in Federalist No. 2 “a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs.” These “people” just so happen to be predominantly Anglo-Protestant. Over time, other creeds and ethnicities have adopted, sometimes imperfectly, the American identity, including Germans and Catholics. But we still remain a weird breed compared with, say, the goat-lovers in Syria.

So why is Ramirez so clueless about the historical roots of the country he was born in?

Read the rest here. And please, don’t put guacamole on your burger, unless you truly want to see America die.

Chopping Down Old Hickory

Contra my man Rob, I think ol’ Andy Jackson should stay put on the Twenty. I make my case in Taki’s Mag today. An excerpt:

The anti-Jackson bromides are not only wrongheaded but ignorant of the president’s impact on American democracy. Jackson was a man of ferocious ambition, of unworldly perseverance, and of seemingly unbreakable grit. He went from orphaned teenager to the highest office in the land, battling enemies far more powerful than himself along the way. His honor-driven frontiersman style is an American motif that has popped up periodically through our history. His effect on how we view government is reason enough to keep his saber-scarred face on our money.

The first time Jackson ran for president he won the popular vote but was denied the office by backdoor finagling between John Quincy Adams and then-Speaker Henry Clay. The corrupt bargain ignited a defiant spark in Jackson, who ran a populist campaign the next go-around, formally ushering in a democratic shift the founders warned against. He derided the political class as corrupt and in the pocket of elite interests (sound familiar?). He gave a voice to the farmers and laborers who had yet to experience political influence in the short history of the republic. The campaign was an incredible success. Jackson won a landslide victory with the backing of poor, newly enfranchised whites.

Read the whole defense here. The story of Andrew Jackson should be embraced, warts and all. Was he a dick? Of course. But, like Donald Trump, he was a dick to the right kind of people. And that’s good enough for me.

Oh, and why do you hate America so much, Rob?