The Swan interview was beyond belief, which, these days, is getting harder and harder to pull off. But the matter that really interests me -- and appalls me -- is the semi-turnabout that fearless leader made as regards mail-in voting. I say "semi" because it seems to apply only to Florida and other reliably "red" states (although FL is a…
The Swan interview was beyond belief, which, these days, is getting harder and harder to pull off. But the matter that really interests me -- and appalls me -- is the semi-turnabout that fearless leader made as regards mail-in voting. I say "semi" because it seems to apply only to Florida and other reliably "red" states (although FL is actually purple, and fast becoming a bluish-purple). While this is partly a move on Trump's part to retain power at all costs, it also reveals something disturbing about the Republican mindset as it currently exists.
For a Liberal Republican Democracy to persist, all sides must view the parties out of power to be "the loyal opposition." Disagreements about policy can (and should) be vehement, but those who do disagree must be acknowledged as fellow participants in a common legislative and administrative project. Otherwise you have civil war by other means: each side views the other as ILLEGITIMATE, and seeks to advance the political vision of THEIR side and its "people" only.
This was the view of the right-wing German political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888 -- 1985), who provided a neat rationale for the Nazis. For Schmitt, politics is NOT about cooperative inquiry and rational debate. It is about winning and losing, friends and enemies, and ONLY about that. It does not only permit but REQUIRES contempt for one's political opposition's legitimacy to hold and wield power. There's no sharing: it's a zero-sum, transactional game. (Essentially the ethos of the entire Trump family, excepting Mary.) What we see now is the outcome of the "Republican Revolution" of Gingrich's 1994 Congress -- a revolution of the PARTY into an ideological orthodoxy that required of its members that they fall in line, or else. We're reaping that whirlwind right now.
Trump is the perfect "politician" for these Schmittian times, regardless of his imbecility. The clearest sign of this is his (and Kushner's) abandonment of any national COVID-19 strategy when they concluded -- wrongly -- that the epidemic would be consigned to blue states. Who cares about them? They're not "our people".....
My question is: what does this do to the principle of Federalism? For New Yorkers like myself (and Californians, and Oregonians, and New Jerseyites, etc.) the Federal government has become less than useless: it is positively harmful to our health, both medical and economic. Trump and the Republicans have not only run roughshod over the Constitution and its rule of law: they've effectively undone the principle of Federalism -- that the United States not only "are" but the United States also "IS" -- and have come close to a repeat of Jefferson Davis. I am perplexed by this, and would like to know how true American Federalism can be revived, or if it is a dead letter. I am not hopeful.
Newt Gingrich must have read Carl Schmitt, because that is exactly the attitude he promoted as Speaker of the House. He even told him members not to bring their wives and families to DC, because, Heaven forbid, they might socialize together as in days gone by, and realize their opposition members were real people and not paper cut-outs.
Prior to his scorched earth policies, members often played bridge together, went to the same church services, had dinner parties that weren't limited to members of one party. He considered all that fraternizing with the enemy.
Now members sleep on their office couches, 'work' only 3 days a week, travel 'home' on weekends to raise more money.
The saddest, scariest part of all this is how few Americans these days have a clue about any of this. Another reason why it's vital to know and understand the history.
I am almost finished with "Burning Down the House," which is a history of Gingrich's storming into the House and beginning from day one his divisiveness. Today's dysfunction does appear to be on him.
The Republican party, whatever that is today, holds its power by owning the maps – the electoral district maps. I suspect Trump’s interference with the Census has some connection to this.
Taking control of State Legislatures and continuing to challenge grossly partisan gerrymandering should be of paramount concern and would, in my opinion, be a step in the direction of securing Federalism.
I would say that the foundational idea of the "loyal opposition" is seriously undermined by the assumption of "capitalism" as the center of the election process. As long as elections are a "consumer product" that invites the "selling" of a candidate---how many pleas for MORE money do we need to receive?!---the concept of democracy and all it implies is doomed. The expanding length of the election period, and the sensationalized "enemy" campaign ads, also need reform. Campaign finance reform, for starters.
I agree with the need what campaign finance reform. I see it as a foundational issue.
Who benefits financially from political campaigns? I would like to see journalists investigate this. However, since the corporations who employ them probably benefit the most because of campaign advertising, we are not likely to get such an investigation.
After reading the excellent "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," I became interested in the reign of Rafael Truillo, the U.S. installed dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic with incredible viciousness for many decades.
My reading emphasized that pre-Truillo, the D.R. was ripe for such a dictator. In the years before the U.S.-backed takeover by Truillo, the government frequently changed hands between "blue" and "red" parties (once four times in one year, I seem to recall) who, in turn, did everything they could to reward their friends, family, and supporters with money borrowed from European investors, and everything they could to kill, obstruct, and disenfranchise their opponents. There was no conception of the "common good;" the government wouldn't even build a road if there was a chance that their opponents would drive on it.
I thought of Truillo and the D.R. when I read the interview between Dr. Richardson and Bill Moyers, where she recounted her "wow" moment when she realized that the Republicans had not the slightest interested in the truth, but only in gaining advantage and assembling a narrative that supported their personal fortunes. For them, there is no longer a "common good," there is only what benefits themselves and their party. Even their supporters are expendable, so long as they believe the lies their told.
(Gods, I hate being that insulting and negative, but by God, events seem to justify it.)
Thank you, Laura Nelson, for taking trump’s display of individual idiocy and malevolence to the macro level of the Movement Conservatives and oligarchs. That’s where the heartless brains are operating to build power and wealth—on the international playing field.
People do not think of Gingrich very often these days. That's a mistake. For all of Reagan's idiocy, I don't think he thought of Democrats as enemies to be crushed. (E.g., his friendship with Tip O'Neill.) Gingrich did. I think that his 1994 congress was the tipping point. Trump is not just a break with "normal"; he is just as much its logical, predictable outcome.
And so sorry, Laura, I was so involved in my own little diatribe that I forgot to praise your excellent post, where you rightly put so much of the blame for today's devolution on the decidedly-undemocratic tactics of Newt Gingrich. I used to live in Cobb County, Georgia, and one of the fruitless pleasures I had during that time was the opportunity to vote against that evil, evil man.
And the Carl Schmitt zero-sum transactional playbook was not just to get elected to a fun title, but to use the power of the state and its military to amass wealth by incrementally changing the laws. These laws opened the doors to appropriate the wealth, particularly of the Jews, and then to conscript and enslave labor on a massive, deadly scale for expansion of the state.
These laws also controlled the media and propaganda machine to reshape the ideology of the populace in support of the regime and against the Others. By the end of World War II, the Nazis had reared a new generation who had grown from Hitler Youth into trained soldiers brainwashed since childhood to fight to the death for the Führer.
Are you assuming that there is such a thing as a "Liberal Republican Democracy"? As far as I can see, the only people talking about a "Loyal Opposition" are the parliamentary democracies of Europe and the Commonwealth. It’s appearing (to me) more and more like the Republican Party is aiming for a one party state combining regressive social policy and an oligarchic plutocracy. Look to reading Robert Paxton’s "5 Stages Of Fascism" as a reference.
I bet most Republicans have not read Schmitt. But they have all read Ayn Rand and her! distorted zero-sum game philosophy based on her experience in the Soviet Union! They have turned Atlas Shrugged into their Bible and Objectivism into their religion. Add in some Frederick Buchanan & Milton Friedman who value property over people and capital over labor...and even customers, and you have today's mentality that is being promoted in Business and Law schools backed by Billionaires!! Feudalism is coming if we don't stop the republicans.... Conservatism is an organizational sickness.
The Swan interview was beyond belief, which, these days, is getting harder and harder to pull off. But the matter that really interests me -- and appalls me -- is the semi-turnabout that fearless leader made as regards mail-in voting. I say "semi" because it seems to apply only to Florida and other reliably "red" states (although FL is actually purple, and fast becoming a bluish-purple). While this is partly a move on Trump's part to retain power at all costs, it also reveals something disturbing about the Republican mindset as it currently exists.
For a Liberal Republican Democracy to persist, all sides must view the parties out of power to be "the loyal opposition." Disagreements about policy can (and should) be vehement, but those who do disagree must be acknowledged as fellow participants in a common legislative and administrative project. Otherwise you have civil war by other means: each side views the other as ILLEGITIMATE, and seeks to advance the political vision of THEIR side and its "people" only.
This was the view of the right-wing German political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888 -- 1985), who provided a neat rationale for the Nazis. For Schmitt, politics is NOT about cooperative inquiry and rational debate. It is about winning and losing, friends and enemies, and ONLY about that. It does not only permit but REQUIRES contempt for one's political opposition's legitimacy to hold and wield power. There's no sharing: it's a zero-sum, transactional game. (Essentially the ethos of the entire Trump family, excepting Mary.) What we see now is the outcome of the "Republican Revolution" of Gingrich's 1994 Congress -- a revolution of the PARTY into an ideological orthodoxy that required of its members that they fall in line, or else. We're reaping that whirlwind right now.
Trump is the perfect "politician" for these Schmittian times, regardless of his imbecility. The clearest sign of this is his (and Kushner's) abandonment of any national COVID-19 strategy when they concluded -- wrongly -- that the epidemic would be consigned to blue states. Who cares about them? They're not "our people".....
My question is: what does this do to the principle of Federalism? For New Yorkers like myself (and Californians, and Oregonians, and New Jerseyites, etc.) the Federal government has become less than useless: it is positively harmful to our health, both medical and economic. Trump and the Republicans have not only run roughshod over the Constitution and its rule of law: they've effectively undone the principle of Federalism -- that the United States not only "are" but the United States also "IS" -- and have come close to a repeat of Jefferson Davis. I am perplexed by this, and would like to know how true American Federalism can be revived, or if it is a dead letter. I am not hopeful.
Newt Gingrich must have read Carl Schmitt, because that is exactly the attitude he promoted as Speaker of the House. He even told him members not to bring their wives and families to DC, because, Heaven forbid, they might socialize together as in days gone by, and realize their opposition members were real people and not paper cut-outs.
Prior to his scorched earth policies, members often played bridge together, went to the same church services, had dinner parties that weren't limited to members of one party. He considered all that fraternizing with the enemy.
Now members sleep on their office couches, 'work' only 3 days a week, travel 'home' on weekends to raise more money.
The saddest, scariest part of all this is how few Americans these days have a clue about any of this. Another reason why it's vital to know and understand the history.
I am almost finished with "Burning Down the House," which is a history of Gingrich's storming into the House and beginning from day one his divisiveness. Today's dysfunction does appear to be on him.
The Republican party, whatever that is today, holds its power by owning the maps – the electoral district maps. I suspect Trump’s interference with the Census has some connection to this.
Taking control of State Legislatures and continuing to challenge grossly partisan gerrymandering should be of paramount concern and would, in my opinion, be a step in the direction of securing Federalism.
I would say that the foundational idea of the "loyal opposition" is seriously undermined by the assumption of "capitalism" as the center of the election process. As long as elections are a "consumer product" that invites the "selling" of a candidate---how many pleas for MORE money do we need to receive?!---the concept of democracy and all it implies is doomed. The expanding length of the election period, and the sensationalized "enemy" campaign ads, also need reform. Campaign finance reform, for starters.
I agree with the need what campaign finance reform. I see it as a foundational issue.
Who benefits financially from political campaigns? I would like to see journalists investigate this. However, since the corporations who employ them probably benefit the most because of campaign advertising, we are not likely to get such an investigation.
After reading the excellent "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao," I became interested in the reign of Rafael Truillo, the U.S. installed dictator who ruled the Dominican Republic with incredible viciousness for many decades.
My reading emphasized that pre-Truillo, the D.R. was ripe for such a dictator. In the years before the U.S.-backed takeover by Truillo, the government frequently changed hands between "blue" and "red" parties (once four times in one year, I seem to recall) who, in turn, did everything they could to reward their friends, family, and supporters with money borrowed from European investors, and everything they could to kill, obstruct, and disenfranchise their opponents. There was no conception of the "common good;" the government wouldn't even build a road if there was a chance that their opponents would drive on it.
I thought of Truillo and the D.R. when I read the interview between Dr. Richardson and Bill Moyers, where she recounted her "wow" moment when she realized that the Republicans had not the slightest interested in the truth, but only in gaining advantage and assembling a narrative that supported their personal fortunes. For them, there is no longer a "common good," there is only what benefits themselves and their party. Even their supporters are expendable, so long as they believe the lies their told.
(Gods, I hate being that insulting and negative, but by God, events seem to justify it.)
Thank you, Laura Nelson, for taking trump’s display of individual idiocy and malevolence to the macro level of the Movement Conservatives and oligarchs. That’s where the heartless brains are operating to build power and wealth—on the international playing field.
People do not think of Gingrich very often these days. That's a mistake. For all of Reagan's idiocy, I don't think he thought of Democrats as enemies to be crushed. (E.g., his friendship with Tip O'Neill.) Gingrich did. I think that his 1994 congress was the tipping point. Trump is not just a break with "normal"; he is just as much its logical, predictable outcome.
I agree!
These really aren't Trump-policies and attitudes - he's just normalizing what the GOP-base wants and feels.
The GOP is an anathema to democracy.
And so sorry, Laura, I was so involved in my own little diatribe that I forgot to praise your excellent post, where you rightly put so much of the blame for today's devolution on the decidedly-undemocratic tactics of Newt Gingrich. I used to live in Cobb County, Georgia, and one of the fruitless pleasures I had during that time was the opportunity to vote against that evil, evil man.
And the Carl Schmitt zero-sum transactional playbook was not just to get elected to a fun title, but to use the power of the state and its military to amass wealth by incrementally changing the laws. These laws opened the doors to appropriate the wealth, particularly of the Jews, and then to conscript and enslave labor on a massive, deadly scale for expansion of the state.
These laws also controlled the media and propaganda machine to reshape the ideology of the populace in support of the regime and against the Others. By the end of World War II, the Nazis had reared a new generation who had grown from Hitler Youth into trained soldiers brainwashed since childhood to fight to the death for the Führer.
Are you assuming that there is such a thing as a "Liberal Republican Democracy"? As far as I can see, the only people talking about a "Loyal Opposition" are the parliamentary democracies of Europe and the Commonwealth. It’s appearing (to me) more and more like the Republican Party is aiming for a one party state combining regressive social policy and an oligarchic plutocracy. Look to reading Robert Paxton’s "5 Stages Of Fascism" as a reference.
That was, indeed, Gingrich’s promise to Republicans in 1994: to make the GOP a “permanent majority”.
I bet most Republicans have not read Schmitt. But they have all read Ayn Rand and her! distorted zero-sum game philosophy based on her experience in the Soviet Union! They have turned Atlas Shrugged into their Bible and Objectivism into their religion. Add in some Frederick Buchanan & Milton Friedman who value property over people and capital over labor...and even customers, and you have today's mentality that is being promoted in Business and Law schools backed by Billionaires!! Feudalism is coming if we don't stop the republicans.... Conservatism is an organizational sickness.