On Mayday (Mayday! Mayday!) Walt passed along the opinion of Globe and Mail columnist Doug Saunders as to why Americans -- millions of them -- are voting for Donald Trump. Mr Saunders put it down to "racial nationalism", a nice turn of phrase which doesn't quite call Trumpeters "racists". But there are other reasons for supporting The Donald, as disclosed in a Public Religion Research Institute poll, the highlights of which you'll find in the same post.
Today I want to share the explanation given by Doug Casey, whose blog is called International Man. His take on the current crop of would-be presidents, and why he believes most Americans will vote for Mr Trump was originally posted on April 14th. Here's the conclusion of his analysis.
"America, which was much more a concept than a place, is long gone. What's left of the white middle class correctly feel they're losing what's left of the U.S. Their children are being both bankrupted and corrupted by politically correct schooling. To them, the society appears to have been captured by gender feminism, LGBT preferences, and racial quotas. And I'd say they're basically right.
"That's why, even if they won't admit it out loud, most Americans (hard-core Democrats excepted, of course), will vote for Trump."
Sounds right to me. In fact it sounds a lot like what Dr Hunter S. Thompson and Rick Perlstein predicted years and years ago.
Footnote about Doug Casey: Anyone who is an admirer of Ron Paul and quotes H.L. Mencken is OK in Walt's books!
Showing posts with label Rick Perlstein. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rick Perlstein. Show all posts
Friday, May 6, 2016
Thursday, May 5, 2016
US political pendulum swings... to the right!
For the last few days, Walt has referred several times to two books which, read together, offer a fine guide as to how to bet in the US elections due in November. The books are: Rick Perlstein's Nixonland (Scribner, 2008) and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail (Straight Arrow, 1973) by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (PBUH). The former owes a great debt (largely unacknowledged) to the latter, if for no other reason than its restatement of the "pendulum theory" of US politics, which Walt will elucidate forthwith.
In a nutshell, the pendulum theory posits that American "swing voters" -- those who are not lifelong Democrats or Republicans -- have, since 1945, swung back and forth between left and right, liberalism and conservatism, in cycles of about eight years. The liberal, statist Roosevelt era ended in 1952 with the election of Eisenhower. After eight years of McCarthyism, the Cold War and resurgent capitalism, the American public were beguiled by visions of Camelot, and elected a handsome young prince -- the Justin Trudeau of his day -- who promised sunny days and sunny ways.
What America got instead was eight years of what Mr Perlstein calls the "liberal consensus", described by Dr Thompson as "left-bent chaos". Lyndon B. Johnson, much reviled though he was, in fact pushed through more liberal "reforms" than any president since Abraham Lincoln -- federal control of education, integrated schools (complete with forced busing), the expansion of the welfare state, various and sundry "civil rights", etc etc.
What was the result? By 1968, Dr Thompson writes, "the Silent Majority was so deep in a behavioral sink that their only feeling for politics was a powerful sense of revulsion. All they wanted in the White House was a man who would leave them alone and do anything necessary to bring calmness back into their lives -- even if it meant turning the whole state of Nevada into a concentration camp for hippies, niggers, dope fiends, do-gooders, and anyone else who might threaten the status quo."
And so, through the great fissure in their society which developed in the hippy-dippy 60s, Americans entered "Nixonland". But, in Perlstein's view four decades on, the gap between liberals and conservatives, left and right, never closed. The pendulum kept swinging, although the feckless Carter presidency limited the leftward swing of 1976 to just four years. The ignominious defeat of Jimmy Carter lengthened the swing to the right by one administration, that of the almost-as-feckless George H.W. Bush, but since 1992 the eight-year cycle has been as predictable as peristalsis.
Eight years to the left (Clinton), eight years to the right (Dubya), eight years to the left (Barack Hussein Obama), and here we are in 2016, with the mood of the electorate much the same as that described by Hunter Thompson, quoted above. Except that we wouldn't use the N-word today, would we... Walt is certain (lifetime pct .988) that at least 45% of Americans are ready to vote against political correctness, pandering to minorities, a socialistic health care system that doesn't work, weak foreign policy, LGBT "rights" and the rest of the status quo (H. & B. Clinton, props.). Can Donald Trump pick up another 5% + 1? Stay tuned!
Further reading: "Ten Reasons Why the Trump Train's Given the Cocky, Lazy, PC-crazed Washington Elite the Spanking it Deserves -- And Left Hillary Shaking in Her Goldman-Financed Boots", by Piers Moron [Ed., please check surname. May be "Morgan"], in the online Daily Mail (UK), 5/5/16.
In a nutshell, the pendulum theory posits that American "swing voters" -- those who are not lifelong Democrats or Republicans -- have, since 1945, swung back and forth between left and right, liberalism and conservatism, in cycles of about eight years. The liberal, statist Roosevelt era ended in 1952 with the election of Eisenhower. After eight years of McCarthyism, the Cold War and resurgent capitalism, the American public were beguiled by visions of Camelot, and elected a handsome young prince -- the Justin Trudeau of his day -- who promised sunny days and sunny ways.
What America got instead was eight years of what Mr Perlstein calls the "liberal consensus", described by Dr Thompson as "left-bent chaos". Lyndon B. Johnson, much reviled though he was, in fact pushed through more liberal "reforms" than any president since Abraham Lincoln -- federal control of education, integrated schools (complete with forced busing), the expansion of the welfare state, various and sundry "civil rights", etc etc.
What was the result? By 1968, Dr Thompson writes, "the Silent Majority was so deep in a behavioral sink that their only feeling for politics was a powerful sense of revulsion. All they wanted in the White House was a man who would leave them alone and do anything necessary to bring calmness back into their lives -- even if it meant turning the whole state of Nevada into a concentration camp for hippies, niggers, dope fiends, do-gooders, and anyone else who might threaten the status quo."
And so, through the great fissure in their society which developed in the hippy-dippy 60s, Americans entered "Nixonland". But, in Perlstein's view four decades on, the gap between liberals and conservatives, left and right, never closed. The pendulum kept swinging, although the feckless Carter presidency limited the leftward swing of 1976 to just four years. The ignominious defeat of Jimmy Carter lengthened the swing to the right by one administration, that of the almost-as-feckless George H.W. Bush, but since 1992 the eight-year cycle has been as predictable as peristalsis.
Eight years to the left (Clinton), eight years to the right (Dubya), eight years to the left (Barack Hussein Obama), and here we are in 2016, with the mood of the electorate much the same as that described by Hunter Thompson, quoted above. Except that we wouldn't use the N-word today, would we... Walt is certain (lifetime pct .988) that at least 45% of Americans are ready to vote against political correctness, pandering to minorities, a socialistic health care system that doesn't work, weak foreign policy, LGBT "rights" and the rest of the status quo (H. & B. Clinton, props.). Can Donald Trump pick up another 5% + 1? Stay tuned!
Further reading: "Ten Reasons Why the Trump Train's Given the Cocky, Lazy, PC-crazed Washington Elite the Spanking it Deserves -- And Left Hillary Shaking in Her Goldman-Financed Boots", by Piers Moron [Ed., please check surname. May be "Morgan"], in the online Daily Mail (UK), 5/5/16.
Monday, May 2, 2016
Why Republican insiders are deserting Trump
Sad. Very sad. Now that it appears almost certain that Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination, potential running mates are hastening to disclaim any interest in joining him on the ticket. The list of those saying they're going to sit this one out grows longer by the hour, as the GOP Establishment stampedes for the exits.
Let us ask ourselves why. Could it be that they're afraid The Donald will lose to Hellery Clinton? Could be, but trends suggest The First Lady in Waiting shouldn't be measuring the Oval Office for drapes quite yet. [She probably already knows the measurements from years of looking behind the drapes and under the desk for interns! Ed.] No, I think there's more to it than that. I believe the likes of JEB! are not just afraid that La Clinton will win, but hoping for that result!
What the "moderate Republicans" are hoping, I'd guess, is that Trump will turn out to be a latter-day Goldwater, and lead the party -- their own party -- to a defeat so disastrous that it will take four or possibly eight years to recover. They'll let the right-wing, populist Tea Partiers carry the ball, hoping for a QB sack, after which they'll come onto the field and move the team back to the centre. [That's enough metaphors. Ed.]
In 2020 they'll bring back the old coaches and put in a new, young, NICE quarterback [Stop it! Ed.], like, say, Marco Rubio. It worked for the Republicans in 1968, as Rick Perlstein explains in Nixonland, recommended here a few days ago.
The regular machine Democrats tried the same thing when the "radical" George McGovern captured their nomination in 1972. His chances of beating the Evil Nixon weren't great to begin with, but according to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Straight Arrow Press, 1973), the Democratic Old Guard set Senator McGovern up to lose! That (the Dean of Gonzo Journalism says) is how he came to choose Thomas Eagleton as his running mate, in blissful ignorance of the Senator from Missouri's three sojourns in the Wet Sheet Hilton.
Walt cautions Mr Trump to be very, very careful in choosing the man (or woman) who could be only a heartbeat away from the presidency. Don't listen to the voices from inside the Beltway. Go for someone solid, someone with an independent mind and an abundance of common sense, someone who has a record of calling BS on the Establishment when they deserve it... someone with a name like... wait for it... Paul!
Let us ask ourselves why. Could it be that they're afraid The Donald will lose to Hellery Clinton? Could be, but trends suggest The First Lady in Waiting shouldn't be measuring the Oval Office for drapes quite yet. [She probably already knows the measurements from years of looking behind the drapes and under the desk for interns! Ed.] No, I think there's more to it than that. I believe the likes of JEB! are not just afraid that La Clinton will win, but hoping for that result!
What the "moderate Republicans" are hoping, I'd guess, is that Trump will turn out to be a latter-day Goldwater, and lead the party -- their own party -- to a defeat so disastrous that it will take four or possibly eight years to recover. They'll let the right-wing, populist Tea Partiers carry the ball, hoping for a QB sack, after which they'll come onto the field and move the team back to the centre. [That's enough metaphors. Ed.]
In 2020 they'll bring back the old coaches and put in a new, young, NICE quarterback [Stop it! Ed.], like, say, Marco Rubio. It worked for the Republicans in 1968, as Rick Perlstein explains in Nixonland, recommended here a few days ago.
The regular machine Democrats tried the same thing when the "radical" George McGovern captured their nomination in 1972. His chances of beating the Evil Nixon weren't great to begin with, but according to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Straight Arrow Press, 1973), the Democratic Old Guard set Senator McGovern up to lose! That (the Dean of Gonzo Journalism says) is how he came to choose Thomas Eagleton as his running mate, in blissful ignorance of the Senator from Missouri's three sojourns in the Wet Sheet Hilton.
Walt cautions Mr Trump to be very, very careful in choosing the man (or woman) who could be only a heartbeat away from the presidency. Don't listen to the voices from inside the Beltway. Go for someone solid, someone with an independent mind and an abundance of common sense, someone who has a record of calling BS on the Establishment when they deserve it... someone with a name like... wait for it... Paul!
Monday, April 25, 2016
Escalating the war in Syria: Has Obama learned nothing?
CNN politics reports today that President 0 is going to send another 250 American special ops forces to Syria in the coming weeks, in an effort to stem the influence and spread of ISIS. "Stem the influence and spread"? What happened to "degrade and destroy"? Even that got downgraded pretty quickly to "degrade and defeat". Now it's just "stem the influence and spread".
Here, according to CNN politics, are POTUS's actual words. "Just as I approved additional support for Iraqi forces against ISIL, I've decided to increase U.S. support for local forces fighting ISIL in Syria, a small number of special operations forces are already on the ground in Syria and their expertise has been critical as local forces have driven ISIL out of key areas. So given their success I've approved the deployment of up to 250 additional U.S. personnel in Syria including special forces to keep up this momentum."
"Given their success..." Pardon me while I fall down laughing. Whatever success the anti-ISIS forces have had lately has come largely through the efforts of Kurdish fighters and those of our once-but-no-longer enemy Basher Assad, ably assisted by the Russian Air Force. But don't worry. The Paranoid States of America is going to step up the fight against the murderous Muslims. Really. Obama means it, this time.
Yes indeed. If more American boots on the ground don't do the trick, the USAF will win the war from the air. At the end of February, Air Force Gen. Herbert Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, announced at the Air Force Association’s annual Air Warfare Symposium that they're going to send in the B52s! And Lt.-Gen. Charles Brown, in charge of the flying branch’s top headquarters for the Middle East, said he would help "bring B-52s to town", according to Air Force Magazine, quoted on The National Interest blogsite.
Send in the B52s to bomb whatever rubble is left. What an amazing idea. But hang on! Haven't we seen this movie before? Back in the early 70s? Didn't USAF B52s engage in carpet-bombing of not just Vietnam but Laos and Cambodia? How did that work out? [That was in a movie -- The Killing Fields. It didn't really happen! Ed.]
Sorry, Ed., but it did happen! It was part of the Johnson-Nixon grand strategy to end the war! Remember? Anyway, here's a quote from Rick Perlstein's Nixonland (Scribner 2008), recommended here a few days ago. "On April 16 [1972], five behemoth B-52s pounded Hanoi and North Vietnam's lifeline port, Haiphong Harbor....
"Then, the night of April 26, [Nixon] went on TV to make his latest Vietnam pitch: "...we have offered the most generous peace terms.... The South Vietnamese are fighting courageously and well in their self-defense.
'...I say to you tonight, let us bring our men home from Vietnam; let us end the war in Vietnam. But let us end it in such a way that the younger brothers and the sons of the brave men who have fought in Vietnam will not have to fight again in some other Vietnam at some time in the future....
'My fellow Americans, let us therefore unite as a nation in a firm and wise policy of real peace -- not the peace of surrender, but peace with honor, not just peace in our time, but peace for generations to come.'"
And how did that work out? Walt asks... again... how it can be that the leaders of the USA have learned nothing, nothing from the American experience in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, and (so far) in Syria? How can it be?!
Footnote regarding Nixonland: A reader has confessed to some puzzlement over Walt's recommendation of Nixonland. Isn't that book [he asks] nothing more than a hatchet job on RMN, published to discredit the Republicans ahead of the 2008 presidential election? Well, yes. Mr. Perlstein paints a picture of President Nixon as a scurrilous bounder and then some. But that the picture is unflattering doesn't make it unreal. And Mr. Perlstein shows no love for the Democrats or President Johnson either. About the only pols who come off at all well in the book are Messrs McCarthy and McGovern.
But that's beside the point. The main point of Nixonland, as far as I'm concerned, is that the liberal consensus of the 60s evaporated or was destroyed in 1968, and that the polarization of politics of the Nixon years is even more acute today. To paraphrase Mr. Perlstein, the majority of Americans are embittered, cynical, and resentful of the Establishment. They are ready to vote for anyone who can credibly pledge to tear down the Washington power structure. And that, dear readers, explains the popularity of Messrs Sanders, Cruz, and... of course... Trump.
Further reading:
Can America ever be united again?, WWW 12/4/16.
"Donald Trump taps into anger about U.S. misadventures in the world", CBC News 28/4/16
Here, according to CNN politics, are POTUS's actual words. "Just as I approved additional support for Iraqi forces against ISIL, I've decided to increase U.S. support for local forces fighting ISIL in Syria, a small number of special operations forces are already on the ground in Syria and their expertise has been critical as local forces have driven ISIL out of key areas. So given their success I've approved the deployment of up to 250 additional U.S. personnel in Syria including special forces to keep up this momentum."
"Given their success..." Pardon me while I fall down laughing. Whatever success the anti-ISIS forces have had lately has come largely through the efforts of Kurdish fighters and those of our once-but-no-longer enemy Basher Assad, ably assisted by the Russian Air Force. But don't worry. The Paranoid States of America is going to step up the fight against the murderous Muslims. Really. Obama means it, this time.
Yes indeed. If more American boots on the ground don't do the trick, the USAF will win the war from the air. At the end of February, Air Force Gen. Herbert Carlisle, head of Air Combat Command, announced at the Air Force Association’s annual Air Warfare Symposium that they're going to send in the B52s! And Lt.-Gen. Charles Brown, in charge of the flying branch’s top headquarters for the Middle East, said he would help "bring B-52s to town", according to Air Force Magazine, quoted on The National Interest blogsite.
Send in the B52s to bomb whatever rubble is left. What an amazing idea. But hang on! Haven't we seen this movie before? Back in the early 70s? Didn't USAF B52s engage in carpet-bombing of not just Vietnam but Laos and Cambodia? How did that work out? [That was in a movie -- The Killing Fields. It didn't really happen! Ed.]
Sorry, Ed., but it did happen! It was part of the Johnson-Nixon grand strategy to end the war! Remember? Anyway, here's a quote from Rick Perlstein's Nixonland (Scribner 2008), recommended here a few days ago. "On April 16 [1972], five behemoth B-52s pounded Hanoi and North Vietnam's lifeline port, Haiphong Harbor....
"Then, the night of April 26, [Nixon] went on TV to make his latest Vietnam pitch: "...we have offered the most generous peace terms.... The South Vietnamese are fighting courageously and well in their self-defense.
'...I say to you tonight, let us bring our men home from Vietnam; let us end the war in Vietnam. But let us end it in such a way that the younger brothers and the sons of the brave men who have fought in Vietnam will not have to fight again in some other Vietnam at some time in the future....
'My fellow Americans, let us therefore unite as a nation in a firm and wise policy of real peace -- not the peace of surrender, but peace with honor, not just peace in our time, but peace for generations to come.'"
And how did that work out? Walt asks... again... how it can be that the leaders of the USA have learned nothing, nothing from the American experience in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Libya, and (so far) in Syria? How can it be?!
Footnote regarding Nixonland: A reader has confessed to some puzzlement over Walt's recommendation of Nixonland. Isn't that book [he asks] nothing more than a hatchet job on RMN, published to discredit the Republicans ahead of the 2008 presidential election? Well, yes. Mr. Perlstein paints a picture of President Nixon as a scurrilous bounder and then some. But that the picture is unflattering doesn't make it unreal. And Mr. Perlstein shows no love for the Democrats or President Johnson either. About the only pols who come off at all well in the book are Messrs McCarthy and McGovern.
But that's beside the point. The main point of Nixonland, as far as I'm concerned, is that the liberal consensus of the 60s evaporated or was destroyed in 1968, and that the polarization of politics of the Nixon years is even more acute today. To paraphrase Mr. Perlstein, the majority of Americans are embittered, cynical, and resentful of the Establishment. They are ready to vote for anyone who can credibly pledge to tear down the Washington power structure. And that, dear readers, explains the popularity of Messrs Sanders, Cruz, and... of course... Trump.
Further reading:
Can America ever be united again?, WWW 12/4/16.
"Donald Trump taps into anger about U.S. misadventures in the world", CBC News 28/4/16
Tuesday, April 12, 2016
Can America ever be united again?
The Glorious War of the Secession (aka the War Between the States or the Civil War) ended 151 years ago, at which time America was proclaimed once again to be the United States. Now, in the twilight of the Obama presidency, which was supposed to bring all Americans together at last, regardless of race, colour, etc etc, the people of America (if not the states) find themselves more disunited than at any time in the last century-and-a-half.
That is the theme of Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, recommended here on Sunday. Mr. Perlstein dates the present polarization American culture and politics from the hippy-dippy 60s, which saw the disintegration of the liberal consensus of the Kennedy-Johnson years and the division of the "United" States into two mutually antagonistic nations -- the Red Nation and the Blue Nation. That division is not just geographic. There are plenty of "Reds" (not the Communist variety) to be found in Massachusetts and California, and "Blues" in Kansas and -- dare I say it -- Texas.
Hellery Clinton claims that she is the one and only candidate for POTUS who can bring the country together again, and make the American states and people united. This is laughable. About the only thing that unites the Reds (and large numbers of Blues) is the belief that Ms Clinton is a phony and a crook. Even if Hellery were sincere and (God forbid) elected, the task of uniting the country is beyond the power of any more mortal. Here's what Mr. Perlstein says in the closing paragraphs of his book:
What Richard Nixon left behind was the very terms of our national self-image: a notion that there are two kinds of Americans. On the one side, that "Silent Majority", the "nonshouters". The middle-class, middle American, suburban, exurban, and rural coalition who call themselves, now, "values voters", "people of faith", "patriots", or even, simply, "Republicans" -- and who feel themselves condescended to by snobby opinion-making elites, and who rage about un-Americans, anti-Christians, amoralists, aliens.
On the other side are the "liberals", the "cosmopolitans", the "intellectuals", the "professionals" -- "Democrats". Who say they see shouting in opposition to injustice as a higher form of patriotism. Or say "live and let live." Who believe that to have "values" has more to do with a willingness to extend aid to the downtrodden than where, or if, you happen to worship -- but who look down on the first category as unwitting dupes of feckless elites who exploit sentimental pieties to aggrandize their wealth, start wars, ruin lives.
Both populations -- to speak in ideal types -- are equally, essentially, tragically American. And both have learned to consider the other not quite American at all. The argument over Richard Nixon, pro and con, gave us the language for this war.
Do Americans not hate each other enough to fantasize about killing one another, in cold blood, over political and cultural disagreements? It would be hard to argue that they do not. How did Nixonland end? It has not ended yet.
A reader has objected that Rick Perlstein wrote those words in 2008, before the election of Barack Hussein Obama, the first black (or African-American, whatever) President, the one who has healed America and brought all Americans together. Has the Prez himself not said that race relations in the USA are better now than at any time in history? Well yes, that's what he said, but the claim that the war of which Mr. Perlstein writes ended somewhere between 2008 and 2016 is nonsense. If anything, the cracks in the American body politic have widened, and the war has intensified.
The 2015 American Values Survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, is titled "Anxiety, Nostalgia, and Mistrust". It found that about three-quarters of Republicans believe that the federal government looks out for the interests of blacks, Hispanics, gays and women. But not quite half of Republicans think that the government looks out for Christians or middle-class people. Democrats, on the other hand, overwhelmingly think that the federal government looks out for the rich and big business.
Writing in the Economist this week, "Lexington" asserts that the distrust between groups exposed in the survey means that "it is not useful to say that most Americans support policy X or Y. The real question fo ask voters is: Do you think this policy helps or hurts 'people like you'? The query reliably exposes deep gulfs between different races, generations and parties." Which is just what Mr. Perlstein said, eight years ago.
Footnote and caveat: When I recommended Nixonland, I should have included a warning that Mr. Perlstein is badly in need of an editor/proofreader. [Does anyone, anywhere, employ proofreaders any more? What's wrong with Spiel-Chequer? Ed.] His book runs to 748 pages of fairly dense type, and that's not counting the endnotes. And where, I wonder, does the author get words like "inspirit" (for "inspire", I guess)? If you want to finish Nixonland before you vote, start now.
That is the theme of Rick Perlstein's Nixonland, recommended here on Sunday. Mr. Perlstein dates the present polarization American culture and politics from the hippy-dippy 60s, which saw the disintegration of the liberal consensus of the Kennedy-Johnson years and the division of the "United" States into two mutually antagonistic nations -- the Red Nation and the Blue Nation. That division is not just geographic. There are plenty of "Reds" (not the Communist variety) to be found in Massachusetts and California, and "Blues" in Kansas and -- dare I say it -- Texas.
Hellery Clinton claims that she is the one and only candidate for POTUS who can bring the country together again, and make the American states and people united. This is laughable. About the only thing that unites the Reds (and large numbers of Blues) is the belief that Ms Clinton is a phony and a crook. Even if Hellery were sincere and (God forbid) elected, the task of uniting the country is beyond the power of any more mortal. Here's what Mr. Perlstein says in the closing paragraphs of his book:
What Richard Nixon left behind was the very terms of our national self-image: a notion that there are two kinds of Americans. On the one side, that "Silent Majority", the "nonshouters". The middle-class, middle American, suburban, exurban, and rural coalition who call themselves, now, "values voters", "people of faith", "patriots", or even, simply, "Republicans" -- and who feel themselves condescended to by snobby opinion-making elites, and who rage about un-Americans, anti-Christians, amoralists, aliens.
On the other side are the "liberals", the "cosmopolitans", the "intellectuals", the "professionals" -- "Democrats". Who say they see shouting in opposition to injustice as a higher form of patriotism. Or say "live and let live." Who believe that to have "values" has more to do with a willingness to extend aid to the downtrodden than where, or if, you happen to worship -- but who look down on the first category as unwitting dupes of feckless elites who exploit sentimental pieties to aggrandize their wealth, start wars, ruin lives.
Both populations -- to speak in ideal types -- are equally, essentially, tragically American. And both have learned to consider the other not quite American at all. The argument over Richard Nixon, pro and con, gave us the language for this war.
Do Americans not hate each other enough to fantasize about killing one another, in cold blood, over political and cultural disagreements? It would be hard to argue that they do not. How did Nixonland end? It has not ended yet.
A reader has objected that Rick Perlstein wrote those words in 2008, before the election of Barack Hussein Obama, the first black (or African-American, whatever) President, the one who has healed America and brought all Americans together. Has the Prez himself not said that race relations in the USA are better now than at any time in history? Well yes, that's what he said, but the claim that the war of which Mr. Perlstein writes ended somewhere between 2008 and 2016 is nonsense. If anything, the cracks in the American body politic have widened, and the war has intensified.
The 2015 American Values Survey, conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, is titled "Anxiety, Nostalgia, and Mistrust". It found that about three-quarters of Republicans believe that the federal government looks out for the interests of blacks, Hispanics, gays and women. But not quite half of Republicans think that the government looks out for Christians or middle-class people. Democrats, on the other hand, overwhelmingly think that the federal government looks out for the rich and big business.
Writing in the Economist this week, "Lexington" asserts that the distrust between groups exposed in the survey means that "it is not useful to say that most Americans support policy X or Y. The real question fo ask voters is: Do you think this policy helps or hurts 'people like you'? The query reliably exposes deep gulfs between different races, generations and parties." Which is just what Mr. Perlstein said, eight years ago.
Footnote and caveat: When I recommended Nixonland, I should have included a warning that Mr. Perlstein is badly in need of an editor/proofreader. [Does anyone, anywhere, employ proofreaders any more? What's wrong with Spiel-Chequer? Ed.] His book runs to 748 pages of fairly dense type, and that's not counting the endnotes. And where, I wonder, does the author get words like "inspirit" (for "inspire", I guess)? If you want to finish Nixonland before you vote, start now.
Sunday, April 10, 2016
America is still "Nixonland" (book recommendation)
A kindly old lady from Whittier CA had this to say about a Republican candidate. "I know it's against religion to hate anybody, but I just can't help hating that man." To whom was she referring? Not Donald Trump, not Ted Cruz, but... wait for it... Richard Nixon. The quote is taken from the opening pages of Rick Perlstein's monumental book Nixonland (Scribner, 2008), which Walt commends to anyone trying to make sense of this year's campaign.Mr. Perlstein chose to write about Nixon and his times in 2008, 40 years after he was elected President, because (as the cliché goes) history repeats itself. Over and over again. The book, you see, is not really about Mr. Nixon so much as the disintegration of the liberal consensus of the Kennedy-Johnson years and the polarization of American politics. The 1968 election pitted the friends of Nixon against the enemies of Nixon. The author writes:
Nixonland...is the America where two separate and irreconcilable sets of apocalyptic fears coexist in the minds of two separate and irreconcilable groups of Americans. The first group, enemies of Richard Nixon, are the spiritual heirs of [Adlai] Stevenson and [John Kenneth] Galbraith. They take it as an axiom that if Richard Nixon and the values associated with him triumph, America itself might end.
The second group are the people who...believe, as did Nixon [himself] that if the enemies of Nixon triumph -- the Alger Hisses and Helen Gahagan Douglases, the Herblocks and hippies, the George McGoverns and all the rest -- America might end.
The [Democratic National Committee] was right: an amazingly large segment of the population disliked and mistrusted Richard Nixon instinctively. What they did not acknowledge was that an amazingly large segment of the population also trusted him as their savior. "Nixonland> is what happens when these two groups try to occupy a country together. By the end of the 1960s, Nixonland came to encompass the entire political culture of the United States. It would define it, in fact, for the next fifty years.
Let's see. 1968 plus 50 years brings us to... 2018. Who will be POTUS and Leader of the Free World then? Whether the Republicans pick Mr Trump or Senator Cruz, or the Democrats pick Senator Sanders or Secretary Clinton, is immaterial. In November supporters of both candidates, red and blue, will be utterly convinced that if their enemies win, America will end.
Talk of uniting the nation is rubbish. The cracks in American society and politics which appeared with the Watts race riots of 1965, have grown wider and deeper. The nation needs a catharsis. But will it get one? That's up to the voters, who, Mr. Perlstein says, are the real heroes of his book. Read it.
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