I have been fairly quiet over the last six weeks, watching the political preliminaries to the invocation of Article 50 unfold and finding myself, despite being a committed democratic socialist, increasingly drawn to Theresa May's robust approach. The reality rather than the media-driven simulacrum of what is happening is a power struggle between a left-liberal 'radical centre' that is used to having its hegemony over information flows, culture and policy unchallenged and a rather moderate form of nationalism that is actually outward-looking and inter-nationalist and filled with potential for radical change if only the moment can be seized when it arrives.
The thrashing around of the tails of the Clintonist, Blairite and Liberal Democrat dinosaurs while challenged not, as they should have been, from the Left but from the Right - conservatives in the UK and populists and conservatives in alliance in the US - indicates a tragic failure of socialism since the fall of the Soviet Union. Instead of building a democratic eco-sustainable economicism, it has collapsed into a mish-mash, a soup of eco-conservatism, rights theory, liberal constitutionalism, cultural politics and identity nonsense.
Watching this unfold, my patience is at an end with the sight of an unelected House of Lords stuffed with creatures of the old liberal hegemony seeking to defy the essence of a simple national vote under conditions where the official 'Left' is clearly seeking to create the conditions for a reversal of a democratic mandate. Forty years of acting as foot soldiers for this failed system must come to an end at some stage. To take a Soviet analogy, fighting in the Great Patriotic War is one thing, loyally arguing for the sclerosis of Brezhnev is another. The liberal Left have become an artery-clogging part of the politically sick patient, resisting the surgical solution of Brexit.
For some weeks, I have been contributing to debates on Left Futures where I would say that the debates in the Labour Movement have been fairly represented, a majority clearly taking the Remain position at face value with a vocal minority wanting a programme of action almost indistinguishable from that of the Liberal Democrats. On the other side a robust minority making the solid arguments for a Left-Brexit which tend to be evaded and avoided as to their substance in favour of a rather woolly-minded aspirational idealism about a Socialist Europe. This is my reply to one of the stronger Remain advocates from that source:-
" ... I have agreed that the 'middle way' is probably the best that could be done under the circumstances for the party but it is not an adequate long term strategy.
" Take the votes in the House of Lords. The first amendment (EU citizens) is a matter of relative indifference. Although the Government is probably technically correct in terms of negotiating position, Labour 'values' do suggest that EU citizens should not be treated as hostages and there is an argument that middle class expats should not expect EU citizens creating wealth in-country to be pawns in their interest. That is a fair Labour fight.
"The second amendment (Parliamentary vote) is not what it seems (an issue of Parliamentary sovereignty) but is an obvious attempt by Remainers to create sufficient uncertainty that time can be bought for a reversal of position.
"This is not necessary because the matter has been decided, the negotiation is executive, the uncertainty advantages the other side in the negotiation (which is 'treachery' to a great degree) and Parliament will get full scrutiny of the Great Repeal Bill which is the point where resistance to the type of Brexit is best handled.
"The population, aided by the mid-market tabloids, is not stupid. It knows that a clique of radical centrists is conspiring to reverse a democratic vote. The only saving grace is that their Second Referendum was knocked out of the water.
"If and only if Labour in the Commons, using Parliamentary sovereignty as cover, supports the second amendment in the Commons, even if it loses, then many otherwise fully socialist and labour-supporting people who sincerely believe in the priority of democracy and of national sovereign power against neo-liberalism really do have to 'consider their position' with Labour on two grounds.
"The first ground is one of trust - by supporting the second amendment in the Lords, Labour has indicated to democrats that it cannot be trusted but by doing so in the Commons, it will demonstrate that it cannot be trusted to maintain democracy along the lines that the Chartists initiated so long ago.
"The second ground is that, even if it loses and especially if it wins, it will have indicated what it is not to be trusted on - that is, the attempted reversal of the democratic vote and, above all, the de facto attempt to reintegrate us into the neo-liberal European model in alliance with Tory business remainers and liberal democrats.
"This latter is a very serious matter that has not yet been fully understood by many activists. In effect, it sets up the condition for the splits that are now taking place across Europe in the socialist movement between socialists and liberals (on which I have written elsewhere) but where socialists are ready to associate with democracy and national sovereignty along traditionally British lines.
"The fissure will not happen over night but, with two years to prepare and many minor elections on the way, once Labour goes down the road of resistance to the 35% of its voters' wishes (and I share the acceptance of that number) then it is a road that it cannot go back from.
"Since its economics and defence policies are not trusted by many others and university students, wobbly middle class professionals in the south and public sector workers are not sufficient base for a national majority, Brexit will have done for Labour in the long run much as the First World War did for the Liberals.
"Personally, being in a minority of a minority, I shall be studying the conduct of the Leader and the PLP with great interest. My own Party membership extends to September but decisions on the future by me and others, and then others, will start to inform themselves on that conduct in the next few weeks.
"Since the issues are existential, any emergent force, oppositional to the ignorant populism of UKIP as much as to the weasel ways of the liberal centre, is not likely simply to be a withdrawal or a a slightly disassociated component of a liberal-led Labour. It is likely to become an intellectual implacable enemy and then gather around itself others with a similar commitment to radical democracy (neo-Chartist) and to socialism.
"I tend to have a fairly good track record on predictions though things always happen more slowly than expected - but they do happen. By 2020, such a force might be only an irritant to a Labour that cannot break through and win an election.
"By 2025, it could be a mortal threat (the equivalent to the threat of UKIP to the cosy elite liberalism of the Tory Party) if Labour persists in being a pale version of a European Socialist Party seeking 'enosis' with a failed dream or prepared to act as a pseudo-socialist grunt provincial assistant to a European 'socialism' that is about as radical as Clinton's Democrat Party."
Position Reserved - amateur philosophical and political news and reflections ... "Qui non intelligit aut discat aut taceat"
Wednesday 8 March 2017
Tuesday 24 January 2017
Alternative Universes in American Politics?
The so-called mainstream media, obsessing about its own concerns
with 'what is truth?', seems to have given up on the job of reporting
what is actually happening in Washington as the Trump administration
gets into gear. One of the best short accounts comes from the personal
economics blog of John Maudlin and I refer you to that posting
as a starting point. Here I want to look at the 'what is truth?' debate
with as little rancour as possible towards a global media system that
is part infotainment and half partisan advocate for its own fixed
positions.
Looking at events from the United Kingdom, you get a distilled view of the situation in which the BBC offers snippets from American politicians - the classic 'sound bite' - and interviews with people who happen to be in town promoting a book or passing through. It is not a true picture of events. These can only be properly understood by someone in Washington with some access to Administration officials. Nevertheless, if I cannot comment as Maudlin comments, I can see how things are going pear-shaped on the cultural level. I listened to what Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway said about 'inauguration numbers' in their sound bites and then to Thomas Friedman promoting his book on BBC Radio 4 yesterday and came to some conclusions.
First, the Trump camp are surprisingly inarticulate under close questioning, seem appallingly ill-prepared (the incorrect facts that tumble out are gifts to their opponents who give no quarter) but not necessarily entirely wrong. Before he started throwing out ill-researched claims, Spicer was clearly referring to the global internet and broadcast viewing figures of the Inauguration rather than the numbers who actually turned out on the day in Washington. Partisan commentators refused to recognise that claim and decided to concentrate not on all the facts that might apply (that is, that global interest in the Trump Inauguration was probably unprecedented) but one set of fact - the lesser numbers on the ground at the Inauguration - in part because Spicer allowed himself to be moved on to that territory himself. The commentators were not actually interested in the interpretative wider truth which is that, while Trump had less people on the ground than Obama, there were fair reasons for that fact (which was a demonstrable fact) and internet and global media interest was probably higher than in any previous election. Commentators were only interested in weaponised facts where they had the advantage and in demonstrating that truth was to be defined only on their terms.
Something similar is going on in the UK with May's blunder over not revealing a failed missile test to Parliament before a vote on the extension of the nuclear deterrent. It was a fact that was inconvenient that she should have presented factually and then argued her case as to why this fact was not relevant to the decision before the House. Her opponents are now able to avoid a discussion on that decision and simply concentrate on a partisan piece of 'amour propre' because of her blunder and her continuing inability to admit the facts for entirely spurious 'national security reasons'. She dug a hole and keeps on digging as we write but that does not stop her opponents being self-serving partisans. Neither is actually interested in the truth and so it is with the American case.
When you consider that Washington is a City that lives off Government, that it has a large poor black community (possibly disproportionate to all other cities) and that Trump's support was largely based outside the East Coast and in States where significant cost and effort would be required to travel to Washington in the working week - especially for lower middle class and working class supporters - then it is reasonable that the numbers on the ground should be significantly different between the Obama and Trump administrations. Spicer was right that the media and elements in the administration were trying to use the 'fact' to delegitimise the President even if, like Prime Minister May, he blundered badly in his handling of the situation.
Spicer seemed unable to make his points clearly and articulately to the point where one really does have to ask whether he is the right person for the job and that is what is interesting, not so much which facts are true and which are not. Conway's contribution on TV was much the same - when she said 'alternative facts', she should have said (according to the articulacy standards of the mainstream media) 'alternative interpretation of the facts' (see above) or that there were facts (see above related to global reach) that the mainstream media wilfully ignored in order to offer an interpretation that suited its narrative (which would be true).
This is part of the frustration of the Trumpers. They are both wrong and not wrong. Things are more complicated than the attack dogs of the mainstream media allow. The mainstream media's methodology is to select facts but then fail to add further facts that would indicate complexity and suggest alternate interpretations. This creates a partisan and self-serving editorial narrative that is designed to de-legitimise what has now become an enemy, an enemy that they largely created for themselves in the second half of 2016. By systematically concentrating on specific 'facts', ignoring other facts and then expressing a partisan and manufactured outrage when inarticulate responses seem to question the facts they have decided to make significant, the mainstream media is often playing a sly game that is deeply embedded in their way of doing business.
The Trumpers, meanwhile, are contesting the media interpretation and the lack of fair presentation of all facts as well as the obvious purpose behind the selection of facts. This is ground that cannot be conceded by the media in case it raises questions about their right to act as intermediaries between power and the people. This methodology on the part of the media is not specific to the Trump case: it is how the media works normally. Politicians before the populists arrived always understood this. They adapted with their own techniques in return and both parties (politician and journalist), in playing a confrontational game with rules accepted by both, created the widespread distrust that both professions suffer from today. Both sides fought over interpretation according to rules set by the media but where the media did not always inquire too deeply into the facts that underpinned the politicians' position. The partial politicisation of the executive has brought civil servants into the frame of distrust as well - the Rogers case in London earlier this month demonstrated this. In effect, the public was 'informed' with half truths in a contest of competing 'weasels' and its model of the world shaped by what 'weaseldom' decided was the shape of the world. Now that game is over.
A journalist guest commentator on British TV was (unusually) corrected by the BBC presenter last night when he referred to Trump as a 'monster', No one rational who disagreed with Trump has any justification for calling him a monster and yet the Twitter feeds of journalists and academics and the comment columns are filled with similar aggressive claims without real substance other than personal prejudice or arederived from particular ideological judgments that should have nothing to do with straight news gathering. One can disagree with a man without having to call him a monster and agree with him without deludedly expecting him to be a saint.
What we have here is the arrival of inarticulate populists in high office trained on 'heuristic' thinking where everything is connected. This is at its worst when poor connections are made so that conspiracy theory results but it is at its best in giving a more realistic picture of the complexity of the world to a person than he or she can get from theory of book-larnin'. They are facing off 'rational' intellectuals, all operating within a framework of pre-set rules that have the double effect of containing them within a social structure and allowing them privileged status within that structure. The intellectuals are actually highly selective and partisan in their fact collection procedures because they see the world in terms of competition between ideas and persons. They competed in order to get a position within the game and so they see those outside the game offensively as risks to their hegemony. Part of their mythos is that a 'fact is a fact' rather than a fact in relation to other facts. Friedman unintentionally grasped the problem this morning when he said that this was a matter of an 'alternative universe'.
Friedman certainly intended the notion of Trump's people being in an 'alternate universe' as an insult at their expense but the accusation could be turned on its head. We have two alternative universes neither of which is entirely real. One is based on complexity and life actually lived in which two incompatible thoughts are possible before breakfast because that is how the world actually works and where leadership is making judgments that parse dialectical tensions. It also happens to be anxious, occasionally paranoid and certainly defensive. It sees itself as protecting itself from the world.
The other universe is based on absolute and simple notions of fact and non-fact that fail to understand how facts are selected for interpretation, how inconvenient facts are omitted to effect change and how facts can offer us multiple interpretations. Facts are accumulated within unspoken paradigms where inconvenient facts can be sidelined until their insistent knocking at the door of reality forces them back into the game - by which time 'rationalisation' has found a way to incorporate them into the model without affecting the essential structure of reality - or rather what passes for real amongst those with the power to define reality. It is also a universe based on the 'logos', the connectedness of words rather the connectedness of experiences and things. It takes emotion or sentiment and rationalises these into strings of words that may be perfectly coherent but may well be a map that is not accurate to the territory. It sees itself as being co-terminous with the world.
This clash of universes is profound because it is a clash between the ways that minds work as profound as the difference between the ways men and women think. It is not a case of one being right or one being wrong but simply one of of difference. Men and women can get along just fine in the good society through norms that respect difference but, here too, recent political conditions have created conflict through confrontation and identity politics (also associated with 'logos'-type thinking). In the good society the 'heuristic' and intellectual approaches can also get along through the medium of the effective politician but Trump has arisen (as have other national populists) precisely because the intellectual has not only despised the heuristic but has demonstrated publicly that they despised the heuristic.
The national populists have thus not caused 'reaction', they have arisen as a reaction to the long term effects of having society run from a position of aggressive intellectualism. Why is this? The massive increase in the graduate class, in regulatory capitalism and in the scale and reach of government has created a mass base for the intellectual stance which never existed before. Until this period in history, intellectuals were either servitors of power or manipulators of the levers of power. They are now power itself - or thought they were until 2016. The loss of leverage (literally) has de-intellectualised the intellectuals and turned many of them into ravening wolves seeking the blood of those who unexpectedly removed them from hegemonic power whether democratically (UK) or merely constitutionally (US). The loss of control of democracy and of constitutional forms is part of the agony of this class.
Until the post-internet era, the 'logos' political system could command and control through relying on limited information and communications systems in society. The agents of information were of the same broad social origin. The adaptability of politicians in finding the right rhetoric could defuse the bomb of populist resentment. FDR and Reagan are perhaps the models of how the American political system found the right person at the right time to defuse political discontent by conceding just what was required to salvage the system. The arrival of the internet at the same time as the unresolved economic issues arising out of 2008 combined with the inability of the liberal side of the equation to 'get' what Bernie Sanders was perhaps trying to tell them - that the old politics was creating its own opposition, its own nemesis, through hubris. We should note here that Trump has been careful to invite labor union leaders to his first meeting on manufacturing today and that many trades unionists were not happy with the liberal espousal of NAFTA which Trump has vowed to renegotiate. A million marching women may find that the heuristics of increasing job security are as or more important than their cultural politics.
The heuristic approach does not rely on interconnected and carefully calibrated coalitional politics and the dumping of single issues into packages of measures demanding loyalty but tends to see life as a process of constant negotiation and even struggle. It also places much emphasis on promise keeping whereas the logocratic approach is not interested in promises but only in shared values and the law. Judicial activism is the final position of the logocrat just as the 'movement' is the final fall-back position of the heurist. Trump symbolically epitomised that sense of life as a set of deals just as Hillary Clinton symbolically epitomised the other form of thinking which has become culturally dominant - order being imposed through fiat by regulation based on theory. Her slight popular victory reflected that cultural dominance (ironically, the conservative desire for the maintenance of order) but Trump won the formal victory which was based on the carefully balanced prejudice for a form of heuristics implicit in the original but now perhaps partly dysfunctional Constitution.
Where does this lead us? Possibly to disaster? The absolute incompatibility of slave owner values and non-slaveowner values by 1860 did not lead to a civilised separation and a different form of struggle for freedom from slavery in the South but into a vicious war. Its lack of resolution gave us the current race problem that is America's most serious continuing internal crisis of social cohesion on which a lid is kept simply because black Americans are not a majority, are concentrated geographically and America has the rule of law to fall back on. The incompatibility of populist heuristics (shared in fact by many libertarian and advanced thinkers on the East Coast as well) with ideological rationalism built on the 'logos' is now absolute - as incompatible as the differences of opinion between states in 1860.
There is now no effective dialogue between the two universes. One represents vast and well paid special interests embedded in the State and the Academy as well as the Media. It certainly means well and has noble values but it did not deliver what it promised to many people while its own elite members got richer. It is important to note that the black American vote did not surge for Hillary and that this was not because she was not black. As many have pointed out, inequality between whites and blacks certainly did not improve and probably worsened under Obama, a mixed race wealthy (by their standards) lawyer.
The other universe of Trumpers, however, seems unable to develop a language for articulating its own complexity just as the first is blind to the limits of rationalism and the extremely weak philosophical base for its Kantian 'pragmatism'. There are palaeo-conservatives, libertarians, identitarians, Judaeo-Christian communitarians and all sorts of essentialist dreamer floating around the nether regions of the Trump movement but it really is a case of a 'thousand flowers blooming' with no clear core. This may be a good thing for a heuristic way of dealing with reality but it also means that we cannot expect coherence any time soon. The mainstream media (outside Fox and RT and sections of the British right-wing media) is wholly trapped within one universe and the centres of power in Washington, increasingly in London and possibly elsewhere later this year, are now either in or being drawn into the other universe by necessity.
The problem gets more difficult for the intelligent citizen who understands that the heuristic approach to the world is intellectually correct (though it need not come up with the analyses of Trump by any means) but that both universes are spinning towards a clash that will not result in war yet might well result in a collapse in internal cohesion, political violence and attempts to change the Constitution ... perhaps worse. At best, it may mean a cultural war in which one or other has to win or die, leaving the loser in a state of simmering resentment like the Confederacy after 1866.
This is an international problem not confined to the US by any means. Our putative intelligent citizen has a difficult choice whether to assist the heuristic universe to articulate its position more effectively (that is, to adopt the technology of the 'logos' without its ideology or special interest aspects) and so bring it to some sort of compromise with the rational - but will it or cannot listen? Alternatively, he or she could try to introduce a more informed heuristic understanding to the other universe, the one which has become self-serving in its use of the 'logos' to drive ideology. The inhabitants of the latter universe have already weaponised language and the Trump camp are right to see this weaponisation, making use of the mainstream media, as a threat for which they have developed little protection. Perhaps they feel like an insurgent liberation army facing a ramshackle but well armed state military that won't admit defeat after losing control of its capital and is now inclined to warlordism.
The protection that the Trump camp may employ (since human beings are adept at survival) is likely to be asymmetric and culturally subversive. The lack of respect for the new Presidency may become something that the 'educated' but not necessarily always 'intelligent' preceding elite may come to regret since the one thing that the incomers have which they do not command is the internet under the conditions of the First Amendment. The battle for control of the social media platforms comes next. Already, the German logocrats are trying to intervene to manage and control Facebook and other media in anticipation of their own trial of strength in the Autumn. The most probable outcome of all this, much further down the line, is a dialectical one in which both sides exhaust themselves into something new, perhaps a younger generation adopting heuristics as a way of life but directed towards more liberal ends and less intolerant of difference. Perhaps that is just wishful thinking. Perhaps history will look on 2017-2018 as America's bloodless (we hope) Cultural Civil War because that is what it is shaping up to be.
Looking at events from the United Kingdom, you get a distilled view of the situation in which the BBC offers snippets from American politicians - the classic 'sound bite' - and interviews with people who happen to be in town promoting a book or passing through. It is not a true picture of events. These can only be properly understood by someone in Washington with some access to Administration officials. Nevertheless, if I cannot comment as Maudlin comments, I can see how things are going pear-shaped on the cultural level. I listened to what Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway said about 'inauguration numbers' in their sound bites and then to Thomas Friedman promoting his book on BBC Radio 4 yesterday and came to some conclusions.
First, the Trump camp are surprisingly inarticulate under close questioning, seem appallingly ill-prepared (the incorrect facts that tumble out are gifts to their opponents who give no quarter) but not necessarily entirely wrong. Before he started throwing out ill-researched claims, Spicer was clearly referring to the global internet and broadcast viewing figures of the Inauguration rather than the numbers who actually turned out on the day in Washington. Partisan commentators refused to recognise that claim and decided to concentrate not on all the facts that might apply (that is, that global interest in the Trump Inauguration was probably unprecedented) but one set of fact - the lesser numbers on the ground at the Inauguration - in part because Spicer allowed himself to be moved on to that territory himself. The commentators were not actually interested in the interpretative wider truth which is that, while Trump had less people on the ground than Obama, there were fair reasons for that fact (which was a demonstrable fact) and internet and global media interest was probably higher than in any previous election. Commentators were only interested in weaponised facts where they had the advantage and in demonstrating that truth was to be defined only on their terms.
Something similar is going on in the UK with May's blunder over not revealing a failed missile test to Parliament before a vote on the extension of the nuclear deterrent. It was a fact that was inconvenient that she should have presented factually and then argued her case as to why this fact was not relevant to the decision before the House. Her opponents are now able to avoid a discussion on that decision and simply concentrate on a partisan piece of 'amour propre' because of her blunder and her continuing inability to admit the facts for entirely spurious 'national security reasons'. She dug a hole and keeps on digging as we write but that does not stop her opponents being self-serving partisans. Neither is actually interested in the truth and so it is with the American case.
When you consider that Washington is a City that lives off Government, that it has a large poor black community (possibly disproportionate to all other cities) and that Trump's support was largely based outside the East Coast and in States where significant cost and effort would be required to travel to Washington in the working week - especially for lower middle class and working class supporters - then it is reasonable that the numbers on the ground should be significantly different between the Obama and Trump administrations. Spicer was right that the media and elements in the administration were trying to use the 'fact' to delegitimise the President even if, like Prime Minister May, he blundered badly in his handling of the situation.
Spicer seemed unable to make his points clearly and articulately to the point where one really does have to ask whether he is the right person for the job and that is what is interesting, not so much which facts are true and which are not. Conway's contribution on TV was much the same - when she said 'alternative facts', she should have said (according to the articulacy standards of the mainstream media) 'alternative interpretation of the facts' (see above) or that there were facts (see above related to global reach) that the mainstream media wilfully ignored in order to offer an interpretation that suited its narrative (which would be true).
This is part of the frustration of the Trumpers. They are both wrong and not wrong. Things are more complicated than the attack dogs of the mainstream media allow. The mainstream media's methodology is to select facts but then fail to add further facts that would indicate complexity and suggest alternate interpretations. This creates a partisan and self-serving editorial narrative that is designed to de-legitimise what has now become an enemy, an enemy that they largely created for themselves in the second half of 2016. By systematically concentrating on specific 'facts', ignoring other facts and then expressing a partisan and manufactured outrage when inarticulate responses seem to question the facts they have decided to make significant, the mainstream media is often playing a sly game that is deeply embedded in their way of doing business.
The Trumpers, meanwhile, are contesting the media interpretation and the lack of fair presentation of all facts as well as the obvious purpose behind the selection of facts. This is ground that cannot be conceded by the media in case it raises questions about their right to act as intermediaries between power and the people. This methodology on the part of the media is not specific to the Trump case: it is how the media works normally. Politicians before the populists arrived always understood this. They adapted with their own techniques in return and both parties (politician and journalist), in playing a confrontational game with rules accepted by both, created the widespread distrust that both professions suffer from today. Both sides fought over interpretation according to rules set by the media but where the media did not always inquire too deeply into the facts that underpinned the politicians' position. The partial politicisation of the executive has brought civil servants into the frame of distrust as well - the Rogers case in London earlier this month demonstrated this. In effect, the public was 'informed' with half truths in a contest of competing 'weasels' and its model of the world shaped by what 'weaseldom' decided was the shape of the world. Now that game is over.
A journalist guest commentator on British TV was (unusually) corrected by the BBC presenter last night when he referred to Trump as a 'monster', No one rational who disagreed with Trump has any justification for calling him a monster and yet the Twitter feeds of journalists and academics and the comment columns are filled with similar aggressive claims without real substance other than personal prejudice or arederived from particular ideological judgments that should have nothing to do with straight news gathering. One can disagree with a man without having to call him a monster and agree with him without deludedly expecting him to be a saint.
What we have here is the arrival of inarticulate populists in high office trained on 'heuristic' thinking where everything is connected. This is at its worst when poor connections are made so that conspiracy theory results but it is at its best in giving a more realistic picture of the complexity of the world to a person than he or she can get from theory of book-larnin'. They are facing off 'rational' intellectuals, all operating within a framework of pre-set rules that have the double effect of containing them within a social structure and allowing them privileged status within that structure. The intellectuals are actually highly selective and partisan in their fact collection procedures because they see the world in terms of competition between ideas and persons. They competed in order to get a position within the game and so they see those outside the game offensively as risks to their hegemony. Part of their mythos is that a 'fact is a fact' rather than a fact in relation to other facts. Friedman unintentionally grasped the problem this morning when he said that this was a matter of an 'alternative universe'.
Friedman certainly intended the notion of Trump's people being in an 'alternate universe' as an insult at their expense but the accusation could be turned on its head. We have two alternative universes neither of which is entirely real. One is based on complexity and life actually lived in which two incompatible thoughts are possible before breakfast because that is how the world actually works and where leadership is making judgments that parse dialectical tensions. It also happens to be anxious, occasionally paranoid and certainly defensive. It sees itself as protecting itself from the world.
The other universe is based on absolute and simple notions of fact and non-fact that fail to understand how facts are selected for interpretation, how inconvenient facts are omitted to effect change and how facts can offer us multiple interpretations. Facts are accumulated within unspoken paradigms where inconvenient facts can be sidelined until their insistent knocking at the door of reality forces them back into the game - by which time 'rationalisation' has found a way to incorporate them into the model without affecting the essential structure of reality - or rather what passes for real amongst those with the power to define reality. It is also a universe based on the 'logos', the connectedness of words rather the connectedness of experiences and things. It takes emotion or sentiment and rationalises these into strings of words that may be perfectly coherent but may well be a map that is not accurate to the territory. It sees itself as being co-terminous with the world.
This clash of universes is profound because it is a clash between the ways that minds work as profound as the difference between the ways men and women think. It is not a case of one being right or one being wrong but simply one of of difference. Men and women can get along just fine in the good society through norms that respect difference but, here too, recent political conditions have created conflict through confrontation and identity politics (also associated with 'logos'-type thinking). In the good society the 'heuristic' and intellectual approaches can also get along through the medium of the effective politician but Trump has arisen (as have other national populists) precisely because the intellectual has not only despised the heuristic but has demonstrated publicly that they despised the heuristic.
The national populists have thus not caused 'reaction', they have arisen as a reaction to the long term effects of having society run from a position of aggressive intellectualism. Why is this? The massive increase in the graduate class, in regulatory capitalism and in the scale and reach of government has created a mass base for the intellectual stance which never existed before. Until this period in history, intellectuals were either servitors of power or manipulators of the levers of power. They are now power itself - or thought they were until 2016. The loss of leverage (literally) has de-intellectualised the intellectuals and turned many of them into ravening wolves seeking the blood of those who unexpectedly removed them from hegemonic power whether democratically (UK) or merely constitutionally (US). The loss of control of democracy and of constitutional forms is part of the agony of this class.
Until the post-internet era, the 'logos' political system could command and control through relying on limited information and communications systems in society. The agents of information were of the same broad social origin. The adaptability of politicians in finding the right rhetoric could defuse the bomb of populist resentment. FDR and Reagan are perhaps the models of how the American political system found the right person at the right time to defuse political discontent by conceding just what was required to salvage the system. The arrival of the internet at the same time as the unresolved economic issues arising out of 2008 combined with the inability of the liberal side of the equation to 'get' what Bernie Sanders was perhaps trying to tell them - that the old politics was creating its own opposition, its own nemesis, through hubris. We should note here that Trump has been careful to invite labor union leaders to his first meeting on manufacturing today and that many trades unionists were not happy with the liberal espousal of NAFTA which Trump has vowed to renegotiate. A million marching women may find that the heuristics of increasing job security are as or more important than their cultural politics.
The heuristic approach does not rely on interconnected and carefully calibrated coalitional politics and the dumping of single issues into packages of measures demanding loyalty but tends to see life as a process of constant negotiation and even struggle. It also places much emphasis on promise keeping whereas the logocratic approach is not interested in promises but only in shared values and the law. Judicial activism is the final position of the logocrat just as the 'movement' is the final fall-back position of the heurist. Trump symbolically epitomised that sense of life as a set of deals just as Hillary Clinton symbolically epitomised the other form of thinking which has become culturally dominant - order being imposed through fiat by regulation based on theory. Her slight popular victory reflected that cultural dominance (ironically, the conservative desire for the maintenance of order) but Trump won the formal victory which was based on the carefully balanced prejudice for a form of heuristics implicit in the original but now perhaps partly dysfunctional Constitution.
Where does this lead us? Possibly to disaster? The absolute incompatibility of slave owner values and non-slaveowner values by 1860 did not lead to a civilised separation and a different form of struggle for freedom from slavery in the South but into a vicious war. Its lack of resolution gave us the current race problem that is America's most serious continuing internal crisis of social cohesion on which a lid is kept simply because black Americans are not a majority, are concentrated geographically and America has the rule of law to fall back on. The incompatibility of populist heuristics (shared in fact by many libertarian and advanced thinkers on the East Coast as well) with ideological rationalism built on the 'logos' is now absolute - as incompatible as the differences of opinion between states in 1860.
There is now no effective dialogue between the two universes. One represents vast and well paid special interests embedded in the State and the Academy as well as the Media. It certainly means well and has noble values but it did not deliver what it promised to many people while its own elite members got richer. It is important to note that the black American vote did not surge for Hillary and that this was not because she was not black. As many have pointed out, inequality between whites and blacks certainly did not improve and probably worsened under Obama, a mixed race wealthy (by their standards) lawyer.
The other universe of Trumpers, however, seems unable to develop a language for articulating its own complexity just as the first is blind to the limits of rationalism and the extremely weak philosophical base for its Kantian 'pragmatism'. There are palaeo-conservatives, libertarians, identitarians, Judaeo-Christian communitarians and all sorts of essentialist dreamer floating around the nether regions of the Trump movement but it really is a case of a 'thousand flowers blooming' with no clear core. This may be a good thing for a heuristic way of dealing with reality but it also means that we cannot expect coherence any time soon. The mainstream media (outside Fox and RT and sections of the British right-wing media) is wholly trapped within one universe and the centres of power in Washington, increasingly in London and possibly elsewhere later this year, are now either in or being drawn into the other universe by necessity.
The problem gets more difficult for the intelligent citizen who understands that the heuristic approach to the world is intellectually correct (though it need not come up with the analyses of Trump by any means) but that both universes are spinning towards a clash that will not result in war yet might well result in a collapse in internal cohesion, political violence and attempts to change the Constitution ... perhaps worse. At best, it may mean a cultural war in which one or other has to win or die, leaving the loser in a state of simmering resentment like the Confederacy after 1866.
This is an international problem not confined to the US by any means. Our putative intelligent citizen has a difficult choice whether to assist the heuristic universe to articulate its position more effectively (that is, to adopt the technology of the 'logos' without its ideology or special interest aspects) and so bring it to some sort of compromise with the rational - but will it or cannot listen? Alternatively, he or she could try to introduce a more informed heuristic understanding to the other universe, the one which has become self-serving in its use of the 'logos' to drive ideology. The inhabitants of the latter universe have already weaponised language and the Trump camp are right to see this weaponisation, making use of the mainstream media, as a threat for which they have developed little protection. Perhaps they feel like an insurgent liberation army facing a ramshackle but well armed state military that won't admit defeat after losing control of its capital and is now inclined to warlordism.
The protection that the Trump camp may employ (since human beings are adept at survival) is likely to be asymmetric and culturally subversive. The lack of respect for the new Presidency may become something that the 'educated' but not necessarily always 'intelligent' preceding elite may come to regret since the one thing that the incomers have which they do not command is the internet under the conditions of the First Amendment. The battle for control of the social media platforms comes next. Already, the German logocrats are trying to intervene to manage and control Facebook and other media in anticipation of their own trial of strength in the Autumn. The most probable outcome of all this, much further down the line, is a dialectical one in which both sides exhaust themselves into something new, perhaps a younger generation adopting heuristics as a way of life but directed towards more liberal ends and less intolerant of difference. Perhaps that is just wishful thinking. Perhaps history will look on 2017-2018 as America's bloodless (we hope) Cultural Civil War because that is what it is shaping up to be.
Saturday 3 December 2016
Narrating The Current Crisis - What Trump May Mean
The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States is a fact on the ground. Even if Jill Stein somehow succeeded in overturning the result through recounts, it is to be doubted that the populist movement would accept the revision. A Hillary Clinton Presidency would be a wounded beast, facing an angry Republican Congress and probable civil strife and under vicious and continuous internet attack. The world beyond the United States, having congratulated Trump once, will be embarrassed to have to become partisan by subsequently congratulating Clinton. The deeper truth is that Trump has won even if he loses a recount. He has destabilised liberal America and mobilised populist America. That clock cannot be turned back. Nor is Trump's victory is an isolated event. A number of similar political events across the West suggest that a radical change affecting international relations is under way and that the process has not yet concluded. Let us provide a new narrative of contemporary history and see where it leads us.
We can start by saying that the neo-liberal model and its ameliorative liberal internationalist and post-Cold War international socialist variants have improved conditions for many millions outside the West but they have arguably also enriched up to half of domestic Western populations at the expense of the condition, security and identity of the other half as well as created oligarchical minorities elsewhere. Neo-liberalism and its variants have also not brought peace. On the contrary, a forward expansion of liberal values by force has destabilised many countries, leading to mass movement of peoples (which brings free movement of peoples into disrepute amongst those who have not benefited from globalisation), has created new security threats, has forced non-Western sovereign states into defensive militaristic postures and has even recreated the conditions for superpower competition and confrontation only a quarter of a century after the ending of the Cold War.
There have been benefits from quasi-socialist and liberal ameliorative strategies operating at a global level, especially in terms of the mobilisation of progressive forces outside the West and the engagement of young activists in progressive politics within it but regulatory regimes have tended to pay only lip service to democracy and to have preferred corporatist structures in which activist minorities collaborate with corporate CSR departments and government agencies to impose legal and regulatory solutions to global problems without consultation with or the political education of those in the West left behind. They also tend to treat emerging country populations as ‘subjects’ of action rather than as independent actors engaged in their own liberatory struggle.
The role of the United States has been ambiguous. The promotion of a progressive liberal agenda has often operated alongside a militaristic and expansionist agenda. This has created a class of international NGO activists ‘who mean well’ but it has also created alliances with faith-based obscurantists who feign democracy and, in turn, also created its own obscurantist and reactionary oppositionism prepared to engage in armed struggle to defend identity against what they see as cultural imperialism. National liberation has moved from the progressive Left to the reactionary Right, the United Nations has been diminished and, at its worst, the reaction to Western ideological expansionism has created cause for new threats of asymmetric warfare operated by terrorists allied with organised crime.
Globalisation, in collapsing borders, has also permitted massive capital accumulation by organised crime, free riding the increase in international trade, in facilitating illegal economic migration (often willing but sometimes enslaved), piracy, online fraud and the trade in narcotics and banned substances as well as in armaments and illicit untaxed funds. The liberal internationalist regulatory strategy has scarcely made a dent in this expansion of non-state activity which may be classed as criminal by state moralists but, in some areas, represents the developing world’s own rational exploitation of globalisation.
The negative response to this situation was originally restricted to two distinct movements. The first was the rise of a domestic Western anti-war movement which split progressive forces into those who supported liberal values expansion and those who saw it as imperialistic. The second saw the co-emergence of neo-nationalist resistance to the claims of the West. Both appeared in the wake of Western intervention in Central Asia and the Middle East. During this period, the Liberal Establishment of the West was in a strong enough position to ignore the anti-war movements and to place continued pressure on non-Western nations, not excluding attempts at regime change by stealth, often indirect through 'Foundations'. The prospect of a global hegemony for the West, based on market economics, oligarchical democracy and rights ideology, was considered real by the liberal’ hawks’. At this time, right wing national populist forces in the West were largely marginal.
In 2008, a major economic crisis transformed the situation. The capitalist system teetered briefly on the edge but proved resilient. However, its resilience was purchased at the price of a strategy of domestic austerity which continues to this day. This coincided with growing acceptance that liberal interventionism using force had been a disaster that had not achieved its ends although the full fruits of that disaster would still not be seen for some time (exemplified by the Syrian tragedy). Confidence in the elite was shaken but the solution of the voters was, at this stage, to grumble but change the captains of the fleet, not the direction of the navy.
The Coalition Government of 2010 in the UK and the Obama Administration which came to office as the recession of 2008’s effects were unfolding continued governance much as before but a series of developments shook confidence in the elite: above all, the economic crisis itself and the associated fact that, though economies were stabilised, growth did not return. The self-identifying middle classes (actually the middling and lower middle classes and upper working class) were disproportionately hit by the consequences. The rich appeared to get richer. Austerity measures were increasingly judged to be applied unfairly to keep elected officials in power by appealing to the half of the population fearful of taxation. Elected officials were increasingly seen as self-interested and even corrupt or certainly beholden to the economic interests who had caused the crash. In foreign affairs, incapable of winning wars, democratic states proved perfectly capable of war crimes and out of touch with public distaste for foreign adventurism. Since progressive governments had either presided over the conditions that led to the crash or were presiding over the failure to deal with the consequence of the crash, public discontent tended to move to the right rather than the left (although populist movements appeared of both types). This was compounded by a new factor - the pressure of mass migration as 'free movement of peoples' turned from a dream into a nightmare that liberal ideologues failed to recognise as such.
The failure of the Arab Spring and other democracy movements saw a hardening of state power across the emerging world and in the communist and former communist states. These latter states also took a more neo-nationalist stance, fully aware of the role of Western elites in attempted regime destabilisation. Noting Russia’s successful incursion into Georgia, they began the process of resisting liberal Western incursion and then turning back the tide of Western expansion, a process in which Russia took the lead with its acquisition of Crimea and its own intervention in defence of the existing order in Syria. If the liberal internationalists continued to pursue their strategy either directly or indirectly through ‘philanthropic’ foundations, these not only made little headway but created further instabilities which neo-nationalists could exploit. A huge class, an 'industry', of otherwise unemployable graduates created a special interest bloc in the West of 'activists' and 'campaigners', appealing to that part of the electorate with a deontological view of international affairs where the exclamation of a 'should' would be sufficient to demand an action that would then become an 'is' - life is rarely so simple! This was faith-based and not evidence-based politics. While the Left began to split into its liberal left and socialist components with increasingly bitter recriminations between the two over austerity, identity politics, liberal economics and foreign policy, the real beneficiary of this break down in the liberal Western paradigm was the neo-nationalist and populist Right which now began to grow rapidly within the West.
The negative populist reaction to liberal elite failure was both a Left and a Right phenomenon but it was the Right that was enabled to remain united in its opposition. Most of the establishment Left were implicated in the failures and errors of the current regime. This has been symbolised well in the last week by the unprecedented decision of an incumbent French Socialist President of France not to put himself forward as the candidate of his Party in next year's Presidential Election. Liberal elements on the Left had refused to compromise with public anger because of liberal ideology and so saw their side split into factions and their acceptability diminish except among special interest groups who had nowhere else to go (such as public sector white collar employees and NGO workers). Meanwhile the populist Right, taking overt inspiration from the effective opposition to liberal hegemony of Putin (Russia), created an alliance of the lower middle class with national trading and financial interests and discontented working class people whose economic interests had been ignored and whose culture had been disrespected by urban liberals. These latter created a network of interconnected national populist movements that claimed democracy and freedom (not without reason in some cases), seizing power quite quickly in Hungary and Poland but increasingly setting the terms of debate elsewhere and posing material threats to the established order in countries as different as the UK, France and Italy.
The first major breakthrough for populism against the elite was not on the Right but on the Left with the surprise election of a marginal figure (Jeremy Corbyn) to the Leadership of the Labour Party, Instead of accepting the result, the liberal wing of the party undertook a war of attrition against their new Leader. This halted any chance of Labour becoming the voice for British populism instead of UKIP. By the time he was established firmly as Leader (even then clearly being undermined despite that), the initiative had long since passed to UKIP and thence to the Leave Campaign for Brexit. This same opportunity was lost more recently in the US when the DNC conspired to halt the rise to power of the avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, confident that their preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton would have the confidence of the American people. This split on the Left and widespread economic discontent presents us with weak versions of Lenin’s famous three pre-conditions for revolution. All that were missing were the cadres to seize power. These were provided by ruthless well-funded populist machines, wholly dedicated to achieving power, in successively the Brexit Vote and the 2016 Presidential Election and strong enough to push aside even the mainstream media which had been arbiter of politics for the bulk of post-industrial history.
The victory of these forces is truly revolutionary for the following reasons:-
This is as strategically important as the arrival of communism and fascism in the 1920s. Even if states were not communist or fascist by the 1930s, they often adapted their politics not merely to challenge these forces but to appropriate aspects of them in order better to challenge them. National populism in a number of variants, including liberal and Left variants, are likely to become the hegemonic form of international relations discourse for at least the next decade and probably much longer This does not mean the Left does not represent a challenge to the new Right. Neither of national populism’s great victories (the US Election and Brexit) were overwhelming – the Democrats still (barely) won a majority of the popular vote and we have noted the theoretical possibility of the result being overturned by recounts. Similarly, Brexit is accepted by both major parties but the debate over whether the UK is to have a 'soft' or 'hard' Brexit permits Remainers to believe they can overturn the mandate through stealth or attrition. But the Left now has a major problem of credibility – it is associated with arrogance, incompetence, corruption and hypocrisy and, increasingly, with a rather dubious attitude to democracy.
Another problem the Left has is one of division – there are now two major competing visions for defeating neo-nationalism, the liberal and the socialist, which are fundamentally incompatible. The former will not adapt, compromise and let go of power while the latter sees the former as equally if not more problematic than the populists (who inconveniently will not go all the way to being fascists or official racists or xenophobes despite intense attempts by liberal propagandists to make these connections). Moreover, many socialists have more in common with Trump on key aspects of foreign and economic policy than they do with their own liberal ‘allies’ while many liberals are clearly highly emotional about single and identity issues that socialists see as part of the problem and not part of the solution. Given that Jill Stein only got 1% of the vote and 40% of women voted for Trump, the environmentalist and feminist commitments that lead Left thinking are also probable barriers to recapturing working class support.
To all intents and purposes, November 8th was a devastating blow to the liberal internationalist project. Funding will continue from European (at least until 2018) and from Liberal Foundation sources but US and UK Government sources are likely to dry up quite rapidly in the coming months. More to the point, the US and UK Governments are no longer going to be available to promote many liberal causes with emerging world Governments even if the British Government appears to remain committed to some important international rights-related treaties. UK Government action will be redirected at trade deals forcing European countries to follow suit. Major international agencies will have their role questioned with expectations that policy be in accordance with national populist values. The Business & Human Rights Treaty is unlikely to make progress until the current cycle is over - unless it is made more business-friendly. The balance of power has shifted.
Corporate reactions fall into various special interest categories with many welcoming the new populism, others (with large urban liberal customer bases) nervous of boycotts and politicisation and others concerned about the collapse of the existing liberal internationalist order. One likely result is that all but the bravest corporation will start to withdraw funding from social liberal projects that might be classed as political where once they were simply classed as CSR (corporate social responsibility). Public affairs departments are reeling under the shock because they tend to be staffed by ‘urban liberals and liberal conservatives’, people who have had a stake in the preceding order and a career path that might include political office. Now, they have to consider their options as business splits into camps according to their relationship to various factions in the culture wars. However we look at it, independent funding is likely to decrease or shift into obviously charitable projects where those charities are not engaged in political lobbying. Radical capitalists like Soros and Branson are swimming against the tide. They are also not getting any younger.
Culturally, the liberal internationalists are faced with the problem that they are no longer ‘hegemonic’ within the West. Half the population rejects their hegemony. A significant part of the leadership of the 'hegemonic half' is questioning the strategy of arrogance towards the working and lower middle classes. Globalisation is in question intellectually. Liberal internationalists no longer hold all the commanding heights of power (and may not recover ground until 2020 or even 2024 or 2028) and, if they do recapture them, it will be a much weakened position - Weimar or Leon Blum's Popular Front to all intents and purposes. Their funding is about to fall except from highly politicised Foundations who are now in a confrontational relationship with the sources of power that can deliver what liberal NGOs want. Soros, for example, has openly declared war on the Trump Administration which places the Trump Administration alongside every 'regime' that Soros wants to overturn - their enemies' enemy is Trump. Every attempt to assert radical liberal values now has a countervailing, often cogent and aggressively positioned, alt-right argument. As liberal social media platforms try to cut out the alt-right, new platforms appear to serve it.
Two cultural opponents within the West are now evenly matched for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union and this has happened in under a year. As in all such struggles in the past, it will be hard for anyone to stay out of the fight and stay in public life. The old Right/Left conflict is changing into a conflict between democratic nationalism and inter-nationalism on the one side and supra-nationalism and liberal internationalism on the other. A third of the Left, mostly working class, will find itself moving into what will be positioned as the New Right and a third of the Right, mostly managerial business and white collar professionals, will find themselves moving into the Liberal Left. The former have the old media, the universities, the 'intellectuals' and the scribblers. The latter may have the most innovative parts of the new media, the public meetings, the bulk of social media sharers and the people who discuss public affairs in the pubs rather tham the wine bars. And we are only at the beginning ...
We can start by saying that the neo-liberal model and its ameliorative liberal internationalist and post-Cold War international socialist variants have improved conditions for many millions outside the West but they have arguably also enriched up to half of domestic Western populations at the expense of the condition, security and identity of the other half as well as created oligarchical minorities elsewhere. Neo-liberalism and its variants have also not brought peace. On the contrary, a forward expansion of liberal values by force has destabilised many countries, leading to mass movement of peoples (which brings free movement of peoples into disrepute amongst those who have not benefited from globalisation), has created new security threats, has forced non-Western sovereign states into defensive militaristic postures and has even recreated the conditions for superpower competition and confrontation only a quarter of a century after the ending of the Cold War.
There have been benefits from quasi-socialist and liberal ameliorative strategies operating at a global level, especially in terms of the mobilisation of progressive forces outside the West and the engagement of young activists in progressive politics within it but regulatory regimes have tended to pay only lip service to democracy and to have preferred corporatist structures in which activist minorities collaborate with corporate CSR departments and government agencies to impose legal and regulatory solutions to global problems without consultation with or the political education of those in the West left behind. They also tend to treat emerging country populations as ‘subjects’ of action rather than as independent actors engaged in their own liberatory struggle.
The role of the United States has been ambiguous. The promotion of a progressive liberal agenda has often operated alongside a militaristic and expansionist agenda. This has created a class of international NGO activists ‘who mean well’ but it has also created alliances with faith-based obscurantists who feign democracy and, in turn, also created its own obscurantist and reactionary oppositionism prepared to engage in armed struggle to defend identity against what they see as cultural imperialism. National liberation has moved from the progressive Left to the reactionary Right, the United Nations has been diminished and, at its worst, the reaction to Western ideological expansionism has created cause for new threats of asymmetric warfare operated by terrorists allied with organised crime.
Globalisation, in collapsing borders, has also permitted massive capital accumulation by organised crime, free riding the increase in international trade, in facilitating illegal economic migration (often willing but sometimes enslaved), piracy, online fraud and the trade in narcotics and banned substances as well as in armaments and illicit untaxed funds. The liberal internationalist regulatory strategy has scarcely made a dent in this expansion of non-state activity which may be classed as criminal by state moralists but, in some areas, represents the developing world’s own rational exploitation of globalisation.
The negative response to this situation was originally restricted to two distinct movements. The first was the rise of a domestic Western anti-war movement which split progressive forces into those who supported liberal values expansion and those who saw it as imperialistic. The second saw the co-emergence of neo-nationalist resistance to the claims of the West. Both appeared in the wake of Western intervention in Central Asia and the Middle East. During this period, the Liberal Establishment of the West was in a strong enough position to ignore the anti-war movements and to place continued pressure on non-Western nations, not excluding attempts at regime change by stealth, often indirect through 'Foundations'. The prospect of a global hegemony for the West, based on market economics, oligarchical democracy and rights ideology, was considered real by the liberal’ hawks’. At this time, right wing national populist forces in the West were largely marginal.
In 2008, a major economic crisis transformed the situation. The capitalist system teetered briefly on the edge but proved resilient. However, its resilience was purchased at the price of a strategy of domestic austerity which continues to this day. This coincided with growing acceptance that liberal interventionism using force had been a disaster that had not achieved its ends although the full fruits of that disaster would still not be seen for some time (exemplified by the Syrian tragedy). Confidence in the elite was shaken but the solution of the voters was, at this stage, to grumble but change the captains of the fleet, not the direction of the navy.
The Coalition Government of 2010 in the UK and the Obama Administration which came to office as the recession of 2008’s effects were unfolding continued governance much as before but a series of developments shook confidence in the elite: above all, the economic crisis itself and the associated fact that, though economies were stabilised, growth did not return. The self-identifying middle classes (actually the middling and lower middle classes and upper working class) were disproportionately hit by the consequences. The rich appeared to get richer. Austerity measures were increasingly judged to be applied unfairly to keep elected officials in power by appealing to the half of the population fearful of taxation. Elected officials were increasingly seen as self-interested and even corrupt or certainly beholden to the economic interests who had caused the crash. In foreign affairs, incapable of winning wars, democratic states proved perfectly capable of war crimes and out of touch with public distaste for foreign adventurism. Since progressive governments had either presided over the conditions that led to the crash or were presiding over the failure to deal with the consequence of the crash, public discontent tended to move to the right rather than the left (although populist movements appeared of both types). This was compounded by a new factor - the pressure of mass migration as 'free movement of peoples' turned from a dream into a nightmare that liberal ideologues failed to recognise as such.
The failure of the Arab Spring and other democracy movements saw a hardening of state power across the emerging world and in the communist and former communist states. These latter states also took a more neo-nationalist stance, fully aware of the role of Western elites in attempted regime destabilisation. Noting Russia’s successful incursion into Georgia, they began the process of resisting liberal Western incursion and then turning back the tide of Western expansion, a process in which Russia took the lead with its acquisition of Crimea and its own intervention in defence of the existing order in Syria. If the liberal internationalists continued to pursue their strategy either directly or indirectly through ‘philanthropic’ foundations, these not only made little headway but created further instabilities which neo-nationalists could exploit. A huge class, an 'industry', of otherwise unemployable graduates created a special interest bloc in the West of 'activists' and 'campaigners', appealing to that part of the electorate with a deontological view of international affairs where the exclamation of a 'should' would be sufficient to demand an action that would then become an 'is' - life is rarely so simple! This was faith-based and not evidence-based politics. While the Left began to split into its liberal left and socialist components with increasingly bitter recriminations between the two over austerity, identity politics, liberal economics and foreign policy, the real beneficiary of this break down in the liberal Western paradigm was the neo-nationalist and populist Right which now began to grow rapidly within the West.
The negative populist reaction to liberal elite failure was both a Left and a Right phenomenon but it was the Right that was enabled to remain united in its opposition. Most of the establishment Left were implicated in the failures and errors of the current regime. This has been symbolised well in the last week by the unprecedented decision of an incumbent French Socialist President of France not to put himself forward as the candidate of his Party in next year's Presidential Election. Liberal elements on the Left had refused to compromise with public anger because of liberal ideology and so saw their side split into factions and their acceptability diminish except among special interest groups who had nowhere else to go (such as public sector white collar employees and NGO workers). Meanwhile the populist Right, taking overt inspiration from the effective opposition to liberal hegemony of Putin (Russia), created an alliance of the lower middle class with national trading and financial interests and discontented working class people whose economic interests had been ignored and whose culture had been disrespected by urban liberals. These latter created a network of interconnected national populist movements that claimed democracy and freedom (not without reason in some cases), seizing power quite quickly in Hungary and Poland but increasingly setting the terms of debate elsewhere and posing material threats to the established order in countries as different as the UK, France and Italy.
The first major breakthrough for populism against the elite was not on the Right but on the Left with the surprise election of a marginal figure (Jeremy Corbyn) to the Leadership of the Labour Party, Instead of accepting the result, the liberal wing of the party undertook a war of attrition against their new Leader. This halted any chance of Labour becoming the voice for British populism instead of UKIP. By the time he was established firmly as Leader (even then clearly being undermined despite that), the initiative had long since passed to UKIP and thence to the Leave Campaign for Brexit. This same opportunity was lost more recently in the US when the DNC conspired to halt the rise to power of the avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, confident that their preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton would have the confidence of the American people. This split on the Left and widespread economic discontent presents us with weak versions of Lenin’s famous three pre-conditions for revolution. All that were missing were the cadres to seize power. These were provided by ruthless well-funded populist machines, wholly dedicated to achieving power, in successively the Brexit Vote and the 2016 Presidential Election and strong enough to push aside even the mainstream media which had been arbiter of politics for the bulk of post-industrial history.
The victory of these forces is truly revolutionary for the following reasons:-
- They have forced conservative forces to accommodate the key populist demands of the neo-nationalists – we see this in the strategic commitment of the May Government to Brexit and the degree to which previously negative conservative Republicans have offered their full support to the incoming President
- They have given encouragement strategically and tactically to national populists elsewhere, most notably in Europe where there are real fears amongst liberals that their last major stronghold (the European Union) may fall to neo-nationalism or implode under pressure from neo-nationalism
- They have not merely out-manoeuvred the progressive Left but have forced it into a crisis with the two factions (the socialists and the liberal) now engaged in a bitter existential struggle for dominance as the primary opposition force – a process that may take many months or even years to result in victory for one side. It is just as likely that these forces will split into separate ‘parties’, dividing the Left for a generation.
- Moreover, they have managed to ‘detourne’ the liberal left so that it appears to be increasingly anti-democratic and irrational as well as arrogant and narcissistic, the historical attributes of the Right. This latter may be the populists’ greatest achievement in the long run.
- They have introduced other apparently left-wing strategic policies – including variants of Keynesianism and anti-imperialism/peace – into populist discourse leaving the liberal (rather than the democratic socialist) Left as justificatory spokespeople for austerity, corporatism and even war (which in itself fuels the civil war within the Left).
- They have adopted a paradoxical inter-nationalism in which strong nation states collaborate as they compete, concentrating on trade relations and deal-making rather than war – again, this is a ’detournement’ of traditional Left positions which have abandoned inter-nationalism and national liberation for supra-nationalism and trans-nationalism.
- Above all, they have appealed over the heads of the Left beyond their traditional lower middle class base to the non-public sector working class (at least in the Anglo-Saxon countries), adopting their values, respecting their culture and (at least superficially) supporting their economic interests. This has split the working class from the Left in a decisive historical shift that saw a third of working class votes go for Brexit despite Labour backing for Remain and the Democrat’s white working class support dramatically hollowing out on November 8th.
This is as strategically important as the arrival of communism and fascism in the 1920s. Even if states were not communist or fascist by the 1930s, they often adapted their politics not merely to challenge these forces but to appropriate aspects of them in order better to challenge them. National populism in a number of variants, including liberal and Left variants, are likely to become the hegemonic form of international relations discourse for at least the next decade and probably much longer This does not mean the Left does not represent a challenge to the new Right. Neither of national populism’s great victories (the US Election and Brexit) were overwhelming – the Democrats still (barely) won a majority of the popular vote and we have noted the theoretical possibility of the result being overturned by recounts. Similarly, Brexit is accepted by both major parties but the debate over whether the UK is to have a 'soft' or 'hard' Brexit permits Remainers to believe they can overturn the mandate through stealth or attrition. But the Left now has a major problem of credibility – it is associated with arrogance, incompetence, corruption and hypocrisy and, increasingly, with a rather dubious attitude to democracy.
Another problem the Left has is one of division – there are now two major competing visions for defeating neo-nationalism, the liberal and the socialist, which are fundamentally incompatible. The former will not adapt, compromise and let go of power while the latter sees the former as equally if not more problematic than the populists (who inconveniently will not go all the way to being fascists or official racists or xenophobes despite intense attempts by liberal propagandists to make these connections). Moreover, many socialists have more in common with Trump on key aspects of foreign and economic policy than they do with their own liberal ‘allies’ while many liberals are clearly highly emotional about single and identity issues that socialists see as part of the problem and not part of the solution. Given that Jill Stein only got 1% of the vote and 40% of women voted for Trump, the environmentalist and feminist commitments that lead Left thinking are also probable barriers to recapturing working class support.
To all intents and purposes, November 8th was a devastating blow to the liberal internationalist project. Funding will continue from European (at least until 2018) and from Liberal Foundation sources but US and UK Government sources are likely to dry up quite rapidly in the coming months. More to the point, the US and UK Governments are no longer going to be available to promote many liberal causes with emerging world Governments even if the British Government appears to remain committed to some important international rights-related treaties. UK Government action will be redirected at trade deals forcing European countries to follow suit. Major international agencies will have their role questioned with expectations that policy be in accordance with national populist values. The Business & Human Rights Treaty is unlikely to make progress until the current cycle is over - unless it is made more business-friendly. The balance of power has shifted.
Corporate reactions fall into various special interest categories with many welcoming the new populism, others (with large urban liberal customer bases) nervous of boycotts and politicisation and others concerned about the collapse of the existing liberal internationalist order. One likely result is that all but the bravest corporation will start to withdraw funding from social liberal projects that might be classed as political where once they were simply classed as CSR (corporate social responsibility). Public affairs departments are reeling under the shock because they tend to be staffed by ‘urban liberals and liberal conservatives’, people who have had a stake in the preceding order and a career path that might include political office. Now, they have to consider their options as business splits into camps according to their relationship to various factions in the culture wars. However we look at it, independent funding is likely to decrease or shift into obviously charitable projects where those charities are not engaged in political lobbying. Radical capitalists like Soros and Branson are swimming against the tide. They are also not getting any younger.
Culturally, the liberal internationalists are faced with the problem that they are no longer ‘hegemonic’ within the West. Half the population rejects their hegemony. A significant part of the leadership of the 'hegemonic half' is questioning the strategy of arrogance towards the working and lower middle classes. Globalisation is in question intellectually. Liberal internationalists no longer hold all the commanding heights of power (and may not recover ground until 2020 or even 2024 or 2028) and, if they do recapture them, it will be a much weakened position - Weimar or Leon Blum's Popular Front to all intents and purposes. Their funding is about to fall except from highly politicised Foundations who are now in a confrontational relationship with the sources of power that can deliver what liberal NGOs want. Soros, for example, has openly declared war on the Trump Administration which places the Trump Administration alongside every 'regime' that Soros wants to overturn - their enemies' enemy is Trump. Every attempt to assert radical liberal values now has a countervailing, often cogent and aggressively positioned, alt-right argument. As liberal social media platforms try to cut out the alt-right, new platforms appear to serve it.
Two cultural opponents within the West are now evenly matched for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union and this has happened in under a year. As in all such struggles in the past, it will be hard for anyone to stay out of the fight and stay in public life. The old Right/Left conflict is changing into a conflict between democratic nationalism and inter-nationalism on the one side and supra-nationalism and liberal internationalism on the other. A third of the Left, mostly working class, will find itself moving into what will be positioned as the New Right and a third of the Right, mostly managerial business and white collar professionals, will find themselves moving into the Liberal Left. The former have the old media, the universities, the 'intellectuals' and the scribblers. The latter may have the most innovative parts of the new media, the public meetings, the bulk of social media sharers and the people who discuss public affairs in the pubs rather tham the wine bars. And we are only at the beginning ...
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