United States Politics Thread 47

[malloc]

"Liberalism" was not running the country.

I was referring to liberalism in the sense used by political philosophers, as opposed to its idiosyncratic American definition. Certainly the US was operating under liberalism as opposed to other political paradigms like absolute monarchy, one-party communism, anarchism, or whatever else. But ok then, what would you call the political philosophy that Wikipedia calls liberalism?

[zompist]

I was referring to liberalism in the sense used by political philosophers, as opposed to its idiosyncratic American definition. Certainly the US was operating under liberalism as opposed to other political paradigms like absolute monarchy, one-party communism, anarchism, or whatever else. But ok then, what would you call the political philosophy that Wikipedia calls liberalism?

I wouldn't; it's not very useful to group together Adam Smith, Roosevelt, anarcho-capitalism, and neoliberalism as one political philosophy.

Your original statement makes no sense if you want to oppose Trump to what came before-- when what came before includes the declining progression from Nixon to Reagan to Bush II to Ted Cruz / Paul Ryan. The authoritarian streak in the GOP has been talked about since the 1990s. The chief innovation of Trump is an escalation of lies and corruption.

[malloc]

I wouldn't; it's not very useful to group together Adam Smith, Roosevelt, anarcho-capitalism, and neoliberalism as one political philosophy.

Sure but criteria like constitutional limits on state power and multi-party elections don't apply to anarcho-capitalism since it doesn't have a state. Meanwhile it's fair to say that Roosevelt, Reagan, and even the classical liberals all agreed on certain distinctive premises: the right to private property, freedom of speech and the press, rule of law, and so forth. Plenty of political philosophies reject one or all of those.

[Raphael]

malloc: If the problem was that too many people were sick of liberalism, then I don't see how Trump winning by telling anti-liberals "I hate liberals" somehow proves that he's a brilliant and skilled manipulator. You don't have to be an evil mastermind to win a student council election by running against homework.

Does anyone think it might be some kind of poignant commentary on the general sad state of affairs that Donald Trump is currently getting his ass handed to him by some of the few creatures on the planet which have even fewer functioning braincells than him?

[Raphael]

Anyone still interested in talking about the New York primary thing?

There've already been a lot of pixels spilled on what the assumed great triumph for Mamdani means, to which extent it's a good thing or a bad thing, and so on, blah blah blah. But relatively few people seem to have questioned to which extent it really is a great triumph for Mamdani. Let's look at the Democratic Party primaries in each of the US House of Representatives districts that are entirely within New York City.


District 6:

Grace Meng, incumbent - a bit above 56 percent

Chuck Park, left-leaning challenger - a bit above 42 percent


District 7:

Incumbent not running again.

Claire Valdez, main left-leaning candidate - about 56 percent

Antonio Reynoso, "establishment" candidate - a bit above 35 percent

others - rest of the votes


District 8:

No candidate qualified to get on the ballot other than incumbent Hakeem Jeffries, who wins by default.


District 9:

Yvette D. Clark, incumbent - a bit above 68 percent

two others and write-ins - rest of the votes


District 10:

Dan Goldman, incumbent - 34 percent

Brad Lander, left-leaning challenger - a bit above 65 percent


District 11:

Solidly Republican district, Democratic primary basically irrelevant


District 12:

Incumbent not running again.

Micah C. Lasher, effectively main "establishment" candidate - a bit above 39 percent

Alex Bores, perhaps a bit less "establishment", but still with a lot of support from other elected politicians - a bit above 34 percent

Jack Kennedy Schlossberg, some guy whose main claim to fame is being John F. Kennedy's grandson - a bit above 10 percent

others - rest of the votes


District 13:

Adriano Espaillat, incumbent - a bit above 45 percent

Darializa Avila Chevalier, very left-wing challenger - a bit above 49 percent

others - rest of the votes


District 14:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, incumbent who is usually seen as fairly left-wing - a bit above 86 percent

two guys who challenged her, I'm not sure whether from the left or from the right/center - almost all of the remaining votes


District 15:

Ritchie Torres, incumbent, generally seen as "establishment" by now, although he didn't start out there - a bit above 71 percent

Michael Blake, challenger, seen as left-leaning by now, although he's a former DNC official - a bit above 21 percent

Jose Vega, LaRouchite - a bit above 5 percent


So, as you can see, there were left-leaning or left-wing candidates running for the Democratic nomination in various districts, some of them won, and some of them lost. Why is this usually called a Mamdani "clean sweep", then?

Because, in the run-up to all this, Mamdani made some educated guesses about the likely outcomes of the various primaries, and then only endorsed those left-leaning or left-wing candidates where, as it turned out, rightly, he guessed they would win.

[zompist]

[Meanwhile it's fair to say that Roosevelt, Reagan, and even the classical liberals all agreed on certain distinctive premises: the right to private property, freedom of speech and the press, rule of law, and so forth. Plenty of political philosophies reject one or all of those.

Well, it's certainly concerning that the President did all these things:

* used the FBI against his political enemies
* prosecuted a stupid and murderous war for no gain
* filled his cabinet with lickspittles and criminals
* instigated a coup in a Latin American nation
* broke into an opponent's office to burglarize it, lied about it to the public
* used racism and fear of the "radical left" to build up popular support
* despite years of complaints about China, got along well with China's leader
* supplied arms to Israel as it went to war, ultimately producing an oil crisis
* was almost impeached

Sound familiar? I am of course describing Richard M. Nixon.

[zompist]

Because, in the run-up to all this, Mamdani made some educated guesses about the likely outcomes of the various primaries, and then only endorsed those left-leaning or left-wing candidates where, as it turned out, rightly, he guessed they would win.

I'm not sure what all that was aimed at... NYC politics are very different from the rest of the country's, but get outsized attention because so many journalists and pundits live there. But if Mamdani is fighting only battles he can win... good for him, that's always been a hard lesson for the left to learn.

[Raphael]

I'm not sure what all that was aimed at... NYC politics are very different from the rest of the country's, but get outsized attention because so many journalists and pundits live there. But if Mamdani is fighting only battles he can win... good for him, that's always been a hard lesson for the left to learn.

Not aimed at Mamdani. It's meant as a reality check reacting to various commentators who seem to say either "Yay Mambani is completely unstoppable now!" or "Oh no Mamdani is completely unstoppable now!"

[malloc]

Sound familiar? I am of course describing Richard M. Nixon.

Sure but Nixon was still operating under an essentially liberal political framework, one characterized by multi-party democracy, constitutional limits on state power, and so forth. When faced with the threat of impeachment, he didn't dissolve Congress and seize absolute power but rather resigned the presidency. Perhaps the term "liberal democracy" would better encompass what I am describing, not an abstract political philosophy but rather an extant political system.

[Torco]

I was referring to liberalism in the sense used by political philosophers, as opposed to its idiosyncratic American definition. Certainly the US was operating under liberalism as opposed to other political paradigms like absolute monarchy, one-party communism, anarchism, or whatever else. But ok then, what would you call the political philosophy that Wikipedia calls liberalism?

I wouldn't; it's not very useful to group together Adam Smith, Roosevelt, anarcho-capitalism, and neoliberalism as one political philosophy.

Your original statement makes no sense if you want to oppose Trump to what came before-- when what came before includes the declining progression from Nixon to Reagan to Bush II to Ted Cruz / Paul Ryan. The authoritarian streak in the GOP has been talked about since the 1990s. The chief innovation of Trump is an escalation of lies and corruption.

and, i think more chiefly, brazenness in rulebreaking. the law has never applied that much to ruling classes, be they capitalists or party cadres or feudal lords, but they used to try to keep up appearances. trump, and more broadly the... what to call it, orbanright? you know the kind, your kasts, your trumps, your lepens, your melonis, bolsonaros, mileis, abascales. anyway, your orbanites kind of don't ?

[Ares Land]

and, i think more chiefly, brazenness in rulebreaking. the law has never applied that much to ruling classes, be they capitalists or party cadres or feudal lords, but they used to try to keep up appearances. trump, and more broadly the... what to call it, orbanright? you know the kind, your kasts, your trumps, your lepens, your melonis, bolsonaros, mileis, abascales. anyway, your orbanites kind of don't ?

Yes, exactly. Let me pause for a minute to contemplate that we're actually saying that reactionaries aren't what they used to be.

But yes, reactionaries used to respect the rule of law, or at least to keep up appearances. The current fash don't work by these rules, are in fact are very openly saying they'd like to do away with it at the soonest opportunity.

[Torco]

More like keep up appearances. as zomp points out, they were always criminals even by the laws they put forward. I suppose it's got to do with social media and the fragmentation of the communications systems, right? like, in the early oughts we were concerned with information bubbles and polarization and so on? well, i think the orbanite fash have found a way to take advantage of that. like, they realized "we control the media that 50% of everyone watches, so why keep up appearances? we'll set up concentration camps, tell them they're for freedom and apple pie, and half of them will believe us.

rhymes with the first quarter of another century

[Ares Land]

More like keep up appearances. as zomp points out, they were always criminals even by the laws they put forward. I suppose it's got to do with social media and the fragmentation of the communications systems, right? like, in the early oughts we were concerned with information bubbles and polarization and so on? well, i think the orbanite fash have found a way to take advantage of that. like, they realized "we control the media that 50% of everyone watches, so why keep up appearances? we'll set up concentration camps, tell them they're for freedom and apple pie, and half of them will believe us.

rhymes with the first quarter of another century

Yes. Except I don't think they even claim it's about freedom and apple pie anymore. Freedom and apple pies are "woke", you know.

[malloc]

Whatever your preferred terminology, my point remains the same. Zompist maintains that the political system (whatever its label) that has historically characterized Western countries like the US works remarkably well, providing both general prosperity and personal freedom unparalleled by alternatives. Despite that, people have soured dramatically on it and enthusiastically embraced authoritarian and reactionary alternatives. It seems to me this phenomenon has only two plausible explanations: either the system does not work after all or Trump and other reactionaries are genuinely quite good at manufacturing discontent out of thin air.

[Travis B.]

Whatever your preferred terminology, my point remains the same. Zompist maintains that the political system (whatever its label) that has historically characterized Western countries like the US works remarkably well, providing both general prosperity and personal freedom unparalleled by alternatives. Despite that, people have soured dramatically on it and enthusiastically embraced authoritarian and reactionary alternatives. It seems to me this phenomenon has only two plausible explanations: either the system does not work after all or Trump and other reactionaries are genuinely quite good at manufacturing discontent out of thin air.

Or... capitalist liberal democracy works better than most other systems that have been tried and which have not been quickly crushed, but is not perfect, especially in this age of plutocracy, and fascists have turned out to be very good at exploiting the resulting discontent to get into power (but not good at all at actually governing once in power).

[Ares Land]

Whatever your preferred terminology, my point remains the same. Zompist maintains that the political system (whatever its label) that has historically characterized Western countries like the US works remarkably well, providing both general prosperity and personal freedom unparalleled by alternatives. Despite that, people have soured dramatically on it and enthusiastically embraced authoritarian and reactionary alternatives. It seems to me this phenomenon has only two plausible explanations: either the system does not work after all or Trump and other reactionaries are genuinely quite good at manufacturing discontent out of thin air.

The far right collectively figured out how to make itself popular again and went at it with much enthusiasm.

I think Trump is a pretty good showman and manipulator (or was?) - all in all pretty close to a carnival barker. This actually helps in an election, especially in the US system which strongly favors conservatives anyway. I do think there's a real talent there and that he's probably smarter than he sounds (but talent and smarts really aren't enough to make a decent ruler.)
But the far-right wave is a collective effort. Anyone of the far-right trolls at work on the Internet deservers as much blame.
Let's not forget Putin either, who certainly plays a part in this. I don't know how big a part, but there sure are a lot of FSB troll farms around.

Some credit is due to the Le Pens, also to Berlusconi and Nigel Farage, who did work out a lot of the early issues and paved the way for the others.

Also money helps a lot; it's in the billionaire's interest to have the far right as strong as possible (for reasons that already have been covered in detail)

I believe the only proper answer is to nip fascism in the bud. But what's the incentive to do so? In a democracy it helps if your opponent is a raving Nazi loon.

[Raphael]

I just got an email alert that in Ireland, there's an "orange thunderstorm warning in place in three counties". Make of that what you want.

[Ares Land]

Not to say it's hopeless either. On the news we hear a lot about the damage Trump is dealing, but also a lot on what he fails at (there's quite a list.) His approval rating isn't terribly high, either, and constantly falling.

I'm a little worried about what I hear about the Democrats -- the recent news about what's his name with the Nazi tattoo isn't entirely reassuring. I'm not sure they've realized yet that they have to make an effort and nominate their best and brightest.

[alice]

I just got an email alert that in Ireland, there's an "orange thunderstorm warning in place in three counties". Make of that what you want.

That's specifically in Northern Ireland, where the word "orange" has all kinds of unexpected connotations. (Which is precisely your point, of course.)

[zompist]

Whatever your preferred terminology, my point remains the same. Zompist maintains that the political system (whatever its label) that has historically characterized Western countries like the US works remarkably well, providing both general prosperity and personal freedom unparalleled by alternatives.

This is where the terminology actually becomes important. By your definition, nothing changed in the 1930s or the 1980s— we had the same system. But Roosevelt made a huge change, from laissez-faire to liberalism (or social democracy). And Reagan made a huge change, from liberalism to plutocracy. Trump is attempting to make a further change, to crony capitalism. By missing these transitions, you cannot analyze them, or resist the bad ones.

What you never seem to understand is that it has always been a struggle. There have always been reactionary forces, some merely conservative, some outright fascist. Every progressive step has required protest, heroism, and sometimes literal fighting.