<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/richard-nixon.jpg"
In a previous post on expectations of whether an Obama win will reshape politics and end the culture wars, I briefly discussed Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland, which I read recently. The title, incidentally, comes from a passage in a speech by Adlai Stevenson in the 1956 Presidential election, when the Democrats played on Eisenhower’s recent heart attack to stir up fears of Nixon becoming President – convinced as they were that attacking the genial Ike himself would be in vain:
Our nation stands at the fork in the political road. In one direction lies a land of slander and scare; the land of sly innuendo, the poison pen, the anonymous phone call and hustling, pushing, shoving; the land of smash and grab and anything to win. This is Nixonland. America is something different.
Perlstein emphasises the dissonance between Stevenson’s claims to high minded political virtue and his own tactics:
The courtly type, he couldn’t campaign directly against a dying war hero; instead he ran against the man who might replace him. And he did it in a singularly uncourtly fashion. He wrote his friend John Kenneth Galbraith, the (courtly) Harvard economist, “I want you to write the speeches against Nixon. You have no tendency to be fair.” Galbraith acknowledged that as a “noble compliment.”
There isn’t much evidence that Stevenson’s “jeremiads” helped his cause much. His loss to Ike in 56 was comprehensive, and its dimensions were greater than those of his first defeat in 52.
In another excellent book on Nixon, in this case on his various images in the American cultural imagination, David Greenberg emphasises that liberal attacks on the Republican’s devilish character tended to backfire. Nixon’s Shadow highlights the genuineness of the identification between Nixon and many voters, and debunks the claims that such identification was nefariously produced by artifice. Artifice is one of the perennial political arts.
For a whole host of reasons, it’s almost impossible to read about Richard Nixon without thinking of John Howard. Just as Kevin Rudd was wise to avoid trashing Howard personally, and Maxine McKew sensibly realised Howard’s persona did strike a chord with many voters, so too it’s sensible of Barack Obama to take the high road in his campaign this year. Doing so isn’t necessarily incompatible with vigorous rebuttals of slurs and slanders. But again, just as an Obama victory would not end the culture wars or bring a new age of enlightenment to political discourse (though it may make some difference for the better), we shouldn’t overstate the degree to which there may be change that we really can believe in. Culture wars and the politics of personality and identification are particularly suited to Presidential systems, it needs to be remembered, and the fact that Americans are voting for their Head of State as well as their Head of Government powerfully reinforces both the politics of personal narrative and symbolism.
That’s why this point from a symposium organised by Henry Farrell on Nixonland is so important:
This makes it quite clear that a Democratic victory on its own, doesn’t mean much, unless there is a consequent or simultaneous shift in basic assumptions about government and the role of policy. It also presents an interesting way of thinking about the questions that Chris raises below. The ‘circumstances’ that politicians and policy makers face aren’t set in stone – they are the result of politicians’ beliefs and expectations. If Obama wins, as seems very likely, do we (as some libertarians, such as Ilya Somin fear) face a substantial increase in the role of the state, and in the willingness of politicians to use political power to redress economic and social inequalities? Or should we expect a more cautious managerialism? The kinds of factors that Paul highlights suggest that the answer will depend both on the willingness of external groups to push for serious ideological changes, and on the willingness (or lack of same) of Obama and the people around him to use the current crisis as a way to remake basic understandings about the role of government in American society.
I’d recommend going beyond the Crooked Timber post and reading the entire symposium transcript.
And some major similarities that would have altered history–if only Tricky Dicky hadn’t recommended the Watergate Hotel to Forrest Gump. And if only Howard had fewer letterboxing Gumps.
On a more serious note, after Nixon the culture of power and “the end justifies the means” to retain power took somewhat of a beating. (My guess is that an Obama victory will lead to some kind of moderation in the culture wars as the hate spewing neo-cons fade into obscurity.)
(One in the spaminator Mark.)
I think it’s a mistake to fix too closely on individual personalities when looking at longer run political change. The Repubs would have used the Southern strategy in the wake of the Civil Rights Act (as Johnson predicted at its signing), with or without Nixon. And a lot of Australians are very small-c conservative and like long-running tory governments, with or without Howard (think of Menzies, Playford, etc). They distrust big ideas, and Howard was far from the only ultra-pragmatist in parliament.
Which is not to deny that Nixon was a quite extraordinary person. The definitive biography of him is yet to be written.
mark says:
Conflict in the “minority multicultural divsersity” theatre of the Culture Wars is not likely to die out. That conflict is driven by the anthropological reality of race. Its possible that the “majority subcultural perversity” theatre of the Culture Wars is spluttering out and dying as religious zeal seems to be waning.
The US polity is re-shaping itself, whether or not Obama/Clinton would be the DEM candidate or even (in the improbable event) that McCain won the Presidency. The USA is moving back to a kind of default position Clintonian Centre after a decade+ of conflict and competition derailed it to the Gingrich Right. Those somewhat inept and dubious heirs to the Nixonland legacy, are headed for the Dustbin of History.
But its doubtful that the USA will transcend its racial divisions as the Obama-tronic drones seem to believe. The recent financial disaster was triggered by minority financial delinquency. That should put the kibosh on any starry-eyed idealists who think that the race-divisive cracks in Nixonland have been filled up.
But alot of other social divisions are being healed. The REPs made alot of ground during the nineties through noughties on the strength of the perceived validity of their policies in the Class War, Culture War and Civilizational Clash. Much heat is going out of these conflicts, and what remains sheds an unkind light on staple REP positions.
The REPs are now looking the Bad Guys in the Class War with the exposure of the kleptocratic tendencies of the Wall Street hustlers. The REPs are no longer needed to curb the excesses of the Culture War amongst minorities now that so many bad people amongst the minorities are behind bars. And the REPs have shot themselves in the foot on countless occasions during their mishandling, misleading and misadventures in the Civilizational Clash.
The political signs are very auspicious that the USA is returning to secular trend interrupted by Gingrich Class/Buchanan Culture/Bush Civilizational Warriors from the period 1990 through 2004. The DEMs won a near landslide in 2006. Obama will win by a landslide 53%+ (as I predicted) in 2008.
He will move the country back to the Centre. And the REPs will probably abandon Class War, Culture War and Civilizational Clash political strategies, at least to the extent that these do not involve White Flight to the exurbs and South.
I predict that the USA polity is on the verge of returning to its default pre-Gingrich trend. This will not make it a clone of a standard USE state. Thats not possible with 30% minority population.
But it will make the USA into a more normal state; without the economic myopia, ethnic mayhem and strategic megalomania. Sort of Canada with Colored People led by “America’s First Black President” without the sleaze.
The comparison of Richard Nixon and John Howard is fascinating, and it is remarkable it isn’t better-known. It’s easy to compare Howard to any right-wing leader including George W Bush, but the comparison doesn’t really stand up.
But Nixon and Howard both suffered political setbacks and were written off after losing a national election. Both of them came from lower-middle-class background and spent their lives trying to climb the social ladder, while maintaining a contempt for elites of all kinds.
Both of them are also renowned for their lack of individual political principles: both were willing to change their policies with ease when political pragmatism demanded it.
Likewise, both were probably the most defining politician of their generation, but ended their careers in disgrace (although Nixon’s disgrace was much worse than Howard’s).
mark says:
Its not surprising that liberal attacks on the Republican’s devilish character tended to backfire because of the “genuineness of the identification between Nixon and many voters”. As did Left-wing attacks on Howard. Waleed Aly put his finger right on the Hot Button when he identified the enemies of Howard are his friends:
Both Nixon and Howard were dealing with genuine problems unleashed by a generation of post-modernist revolution plus alot of other baggage left over from the various modernist revolutions. Nixon in particular had to deal with a plateful of Cold War, Culture War and Class War problems not of his own policy creation but ideal for his poltical exploitation. Lets review the Little Shopping List of Ideological Horrors dumped on his plate by Left-liberals:
First World
- Chaos and anarchy with student radicals Campus;
- Minority civil rights welfare state mau-mauing;
- Massive upsurge in cultural vice-related (sex, drugs, gambling) crime;
- A final spasm of labour militancy in municipal unions;
- Feminist bra-burners and ball-busters spoiling dreams of Stepford Wives;
Second World
- Resurgence of the Cold War by the USSR (invasion of Czecho);
- Upgrade of Soviet aero-military systems (Migs, SAMs, MIRVs and SS-18+)
- Genocidal insanity from Maoist Cultural Revolutionaries in PRC;
Third World
- Neo-cannibalism in Africa,
- Castroism and Allendism radical nationalism in L’America’s;
- Rise of OPEC oil nationalism in Arabia;
- Communist political advance in SE Asia;
- Everyone in the UN ganging up on Israel.
Phew! What a nightmare. No wonder the USA swung to the Right. Even re-capitulating it with this sends shivers down my spine. I’m surprised more at Nixon’s relative moderation rather than his “devilishness”.
And of course Howard had to deal with real problems, particularly relating to National Security and Cultural Identity, when he came to power in 1996:
- the Arc of Crisis to our Near North – sorted by Fed Police;
- potential fascist-fundamentalist axis in Indonesia – sorted by INTERFET;
- dysfunctional Aboriginal communities unaccountable Aboriginal elites – ATSIC abolished;
- unruly ethnic gangsters engaging in violent, esp drug-related, crime – multiculturalism sidelined;
- cultural elites living in a post-modern ideological fantasy land.
Its a striking fact that most of these conflicts have been resolved or dissolved with victories of the Right-corporalism. The world-wide Left-liberal reformatory and revolutionary zeal is the dog that did not bark in the Third Way nineties and noughties. In no small measure due to efforts of Nixon-Buchanan in the USA (and Howard-Hanson in AUS).
This has weakened the Right in the hegemonial Anglophone nations. AS I said back in mid-2006:
And of course the Anglphone Right looks even worse now because of its perceived Class Warrior sins in the Social Equity (Santas v Scrooges) issue. The deregulatory and privatising Wealthfare State Scrooges were very much the poster boys of the New Right. But both issues are now political poison and Welfare State Santas are making a comeback.
The Right has not moved on from the Hawks victory over the Doves in the Cold War and the Dries victories over the Wets in the Culture War. In doing so it has developed its own social pathologies, drinking post-modernist Kool Aid in the Class War and Civilizational Clash.
Shorter Strocchi:
– Nixon-Buchanan under-reacted to factual policy crises, leading to Right-wing political success.
– Bush-Gingrich over-reacted to fantasy policy crises, leading to Right-wing political failure.
– Howard-Hanson reacted properly to factual policy crises, leading to Right-wing political success, now exhausted.
Obviously I have a soft spot for both Nixon and Howard. They were Machiavellian populists which meant the times suited them.
“Shorter Strocchi” is an oxymoron.
It does however set my mind at ease to learn that once more, Jack has been right about everything all along.
Following the Crooked Timber link I come accross Krugman’s summary which exactly accords with Strocchiverse thinking, at least as regards the REPs in USA:
In Anglophone nations there is an emerging Centrist consensus on financial, cultural and martial policies. No more free-hand for elites in these areas. (There is a Leftist consensus emerging on ecological policies.)
The USA Left and the AUS Left have both converged to the Centre. As has the AUS Right, now that it has abandoned its opposition to industrial equity and ecological sustainability.
But the USA Right remains an outlier on the ideological spectrum. The political landslide it will shortly suffer will bring it back into line abit, already going by the REP choice of maverick McCain. But the continual sorespot is the USA’s racial division (which the half-caste Obama is somehow supposed to heal).
Unfortunately race is an anthropological reality. No politician can wave it away with an ideological magic wand. The recent minority-triggered financial crisis is another reminder of its incorrigible nature.
The REPs will remain the party of the majority of the majority so long as the USA continues to express civic segregation. The DEMs will remain the party of the majority of minorities. So some political polarisation is baked into the USA polity.
Memo for folks in danger of being sucked into the Strocchiverse: being unpopular is not the same as being incorrect.
And then this:
The Strocchiverse contains critters that make the bar scene from “Star Wars” look like a committee meeting for the Goodna Country Women’s Association.
Don’t go there.
Jack, let’s be charitable here and put a benevolent construction on that para Katz quoted. Because if we don’t you would appear to be a flat-out racist bigot. Please explain what you mean, sir, or I for one will never bother wading through your turgid prose again.
Though even given that charitable construction your claim about the “minority triggered financial crisis” is factually incorrect. You should know better than to draw your “facts” from the wingnut right, even if this time the “minority” they blame is not the International Jewish-Bolshevik Conspiracy or the Islamofascist-Librul Axis.
13 derrida derider Nov 3rd, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Sure, I understand that counting is now a form of “racism”.
In fact “racist” counters are popping up all over the place these days. Sheehan today (good timing) is another one of these bigots. He echoes my point, banged on interminably over the past six months, that the banking crisis results from the intersection of the policies promoted by and for New Right economic class elites and New Left ethnic clan elites or elite-aspirants:
Dont tell me. Sheehan is another ‘wing nut assylum seeker in the Strocchiverse.
We have a difference. I am trying to figure out why the REPs survive, even remain popular, when by most objective political indices they should have folded after the end of the Cold War. The one thing that keeps them in the game with the majority populace of the USA is the incorrigibility of race differences in SES outcomes. Exhibit umpteenth: the on-going meltdown that was triggered by mass defaults in predominantly minority mortgages.
The unmeltable ethnic pot is what Nixon based his gameplan on once it was clear that the South was going to leave the DEMs and join the REPs in the aftermath of Civil Rights cum Culture War. The fact that the Southern Strategy has been so successful over such a long time suggests some kernel of realism in it.
Perhaps Obama can somehow through some ideological alchemy turn the melting pot into something digestible by all. I remain unconvinced. Which implies a future for the retro-Nixonian REPs, although not necessarily as “Natural Party of Governance”.
You, OTOH, show no interest at all in rational social analysis. You are just another person interested in displaying how much he is into “Stuff White (liberals) Like”.
A dime a dozen down the local flea market.
I anticipate a round of weasling around the term ‘triggered’.
12 Katz Nov 3rd, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Unfortunately for your type we live in a populist democracy: Only a damn fool or a Wet could possibly forget that the motto for the demos is: Vox Populi Vox Dei
Sure, the Howard-hating Wets were always taking unpopular stands in support of charming people like the Theophanous Dodgy Bros (ethnic rackets done dirty cheap), Geoff Clark (former head of former ATSIC), Marcus Einfeld (National Treasure soon to be guest of HM) and Al Grassby (godfather of more than just the multiculturalists).
Why anyone should jump to the conclusion that such unpopular fellows were in any way incorrect completely escapes me. Heaven forbid!
# 9 Spiros Nov 3rd, 2008 at 10:49 am
Still waiting for an answer on my awkward question. Deafening silence.
Psephology and plutology arent that important going by the pay-rates of political scientists and business journalists. Actions speak louder than analyses.
I do them for a hobby, not a living. Even so, as an amateur I like to think I play off a low-handicap. Still proficiency in these vocations is a modest enough ambition for someone with my somewhat antiquated tertiary qualifications.
So how’s your long-range psephological score? Still waiting to get off the mark, eh comrade?
Jack – Race is not an anthropoligical reality.
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In fact the presence of sufficient ethnic diversity amongst the human species to even justify the term ‘race’ is a matter of debate amongst biologists. Not only is the reality of which you speak insignificant it may not even be the reality. The Culture Wars are a competition between propagandists. I’m with Vaclev Havel here – it’s apparatchniks that are the problem. Fortunately for them people like us are too nice to pack ‘em off to Siberia.
Peter Kemp – My guess is that an Obama victory will lead to some kind of moderation in the culture wars as the hate spewing neo-cons fade into obscurity.
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Andrew Bacevich has made the very valid point in his last book that the American culture puts too much stock in the Imperial Presidency as an agent of change. Ironically, tho’ a graduate of the ‘Great Man’ school of history, he’s come to fairly Hegalian-Marxian conclusions viz the ability of presidents to divert the course of history. For example: the presidential administration responsible for the policy direction that led to the Iraq War was Jimmy Carter’s!!!! Strange but true.
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As Bacevich says the intentions of Obama might be laudable but his capacity to effect such change is limited by the historical circumstances in which he finds himself. The trouble is that events have seen the arise of what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex, the entrenchment of a vested interest on the part of the US to continue to fund it (consider the billions lost to the US economy in the event of a scale-down) and the deployment of short-term covert military and imperial action in furtherance of short-term interests.
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Here I would cite the removal, by the CIA of the Arbenz and Mossadegh governments under Eisenhower’s watch. This was the genesis of anti-American postures in Latin America and the Middle-East. Ironically, if realpolitik and Dulles interests had been ignored in favour of basic decency we may have seen the emergence of liberal-democracy in the Middle-East and Iberian America much sooner. Idealism may have been the true realpolitik.
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At base the problem is this: there is a parochial culture of self-indulgence and ignorance of matter beyond the borders of the US endemic in America. There is little understanding of the American policy factors that led to 9/11 for example. There is even less understanding of the enormous military apparatus of the US government and its necessity in preserving resource flows to aid the living standards of US citizens.
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As Ike said:
What’s missing is a citizenry that is alert and knowledgeable. Instead we have an increasingly polarized electorate half of whom adhere to ever more entrenched views more appropriate to some 13th century peasant. The other half are secular but Utopian. There is a political culture which exacerbates this in discourse whilst doing very little on behalf of the constituent’s concerns in reality. Instead they must focus on providing pork for those that invested in their careers.
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Meantime the military have increasing amounts of autonomy. There is currently no evidence that American officers have ever considered a coup. However it’s become commonplace for commanders in regional theatres to refer to themselves as proconsuls.
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We’ve been there before. The Culture War is just smoke. The fire is way more dangerous than that.
# 18 Adrien Nov 3rd, 2008 at 6:26 pm
If you are fool enough to believe that social constructivist balderdash then you make my job of making a mockery of your world-view that much easier. Only someone whose mind has been ravaged by political correctness could come out with this tosh in the early twenty first century.
Go back to the Human Genome Project which deals with the scientific reality of race. Or better still, be aware of the evidence of your own ‘lyin eyes before you try your hand at some amateur social science. Dont come whingin’ to me when you get mugged by reality.
Adrien says:
Oh but you’d like to wouldnt you, going by the ferocìous brand of political correctness still prevalent amongst middle-aged perpetual student Lefties around here. Social death by a thousand unkind cuts is always the most humane form of execution. (Im lucky my Lefty friends were too cynical to take that “stuff white liberals like” too seriously.)
The Culture Wars are going to end when important SES divisions between cultural groups (clans and creeds) end. ANd that aint going to happen soon, both for reasons of biological conservation (Darwinian genetics) and sociological construction (diversity celebrants).
The Culture Wars flared up from the sixties onwards in the North when mostly Southern-originated bio-diverse cultural groups, led by elites within both the majority and minorities, attempted to knock Straight White Christian Males off the top rung of the pecking order.
Majority elites were primarily interested in promoting sub-cultural perversity, as this definitely drummed up illicit-feeling arty trade. Minority elites were primarily interested in promoting multicultural diversity, to mau-mau the Man. BUt there was considerable cross-cultural co-operation in the War against Whitey.
The premise of the Culture War is that everyone in the post-modern era could freely and equally pursue their own valid alternative lifestyle and still reap the benefits of the Good Life. THats because there were no real cultural or natural pre-conditions for social progress. Only the Man stood in the way of free stuff for the People.
That utopian promise went up in bong smoke. It turns out that biological identification still strongly predicts social stratification. The rat-race is endless, if its not the Whitey-face it will be Slanty-eyed who make the running. Who ever has the brains, brawn and balls to make the tough calls and carry through.
DOnt you read the business papers or look at the makeup of Year 12 top scorers?
Which is true, but there is something larger in the symbolism of Obama – one billion or so of us on this planet might be “white” but 5 billion of us aren’t. Whether an Obama administration fixes health care, signs Kyoto, and throws the lobbyists out of the temple, the possibility of the invisible 5 billion having a legitimate role in the discourse of governance cannot be taken away. Obama’s narrative of opportunity given in the land of the free is as much about the taking of power as it is about the opportunity offered. However grudgingly that may have been done.
Has anyone noticed the extent to which the Cult of (Obama’s) Personality is being touted as the Cure for the, um, Cult of Personality.
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Just saying.
Thanks Adrien for expanding on my early morning, overly simplistic, time-constrained thought. Indeed even Ike saw the MIC problem aeons ago.
Never ceases to amaze me how so many of the “13th century peasants” vote against their own economic interests, for example @$5.15/hr minimum wage (last I saw) while their favoured Republican party shipped non-service sector jobs overseas willy nilly.
Diabolical and masochistic, to the nth degree. And they lap up the bullshit exceptionalist pap; equate liberalism with communism; follow the most asinine fairyologists: If only Pavlov was still around to do a further study of brain dead rednecks slavering at the false patriotism and lies they hear on TV from the likes of McPalin and the religious right ranting on against evolution, gays, abortion and the evil ways of the “librul media.” FFS that’s been so depressing the last 8 years.
(Depraved as Nixon was, rat cunning like Howard OTOH, at least he was to an extent pragmatic in foreign policy,(ie China) which puts him light years ahead of the current Bushovic imbeciles.)
As some Brit comedians said one time re “fire” and “smoke”:
As an antidote to Jack’s blaterings, can I propose people read this Obsidian Wings piece The Joshua Moment? Race and the ’08 Election? It provides a far better explanation of why “race” is such a persistent concept in the United States.
Has there ever been a lamer bit of social analysis from Paul Krugman in the Henry Farrell seminar on Nixonland? He attempts to explain why Nixon’s Southern Strategy (of class war through cultural division) was a political success for so long?
Krugman attributes the Culture War to a bunch of nasty right-wing intellectuals thinking bad thoughts out aloud! And he puts forward an anti-McCarthyite conspiracy theory explains why so many white clan ethnic Americans vote against their own working class economic interest:
Why would any sane white (or for that matter brown or black or yellow) person worry about 5-10,000 extra inner-city homicides per annum for the thirty years 1965-95? May be 300,000 casualties of the Culture War?
Not to mention working class wages crushed by massive inflows of unsksilled illegal immigrants (Ike sent ‘em back “Operation Wetback” with the blessing of Cesar Chavez the union martyr.)
And dont get me started on the relentless downward pressure that unruly minorities exerted on public institutions (parks, hospitals, schools) that their more ruly bretheren absolutely relied upon to get ahead or at least stay afloat.
According to Krugman none of these events are objective facts worth consideration when expressing a rational political preference. Its all the fault of “six angry billionaires”.
No Nobel Prizes for anthropology coming PK’s way.
Of course when Krugman puts on his scientific economic hat when analysing a Culture War topic like immigration he comes off sounding like…a decaff version of Nixonland:
ANother assylum-seeker in the Strocchiverse…
I neither forget the motto nor do I feel unfortunate when idiots come to different conclusions from my own.
I enjoy it all the more when they come to regret their mistakes.
Fair enough Katz, but when did you last regret a mistake? or take a more nuanced view of a topic?
BTW, thanks for your comments on that “Vietnam-War-financing-ruined-the-US” story. Was it just one of those convenient myths, that help persons avoid the hard work of thinking carefully?
I recall the late Rex Connor [Minister in a Canberra Govt.] gloating, circa 1974, that “nothing in life is certain except death, taxes, and continuing devaluation of the American dollar”.
Was old Rex right about anything??
I regret it when folks fail to recognise their mistakes, despite advice.
This piece from the LA Times isn’t bad in its analysis, exploring four main points
- Will America elect a black President?
- Is the culture war ongoing?
- Do Americans want small or bigger g’ment?
- How has demographic change contributed
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-questions2-2008nov02,0,3848411.story?page=1
# 24 Down and Out of Sài Gòn Nov 3rd, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Obsidian’s post reaches the following shattering conclusion:
SO obsidian wings believes that race contradicts American ideals. And that Obama’s Presidency might indicate that the US has transcended this fundamental contradiction. Or it might not.
Thanks for drawing our attention to this blinding insight. Do you think it would have been news to Jefferson and Washington that racial division was a big “contradiction to their ideals”?.
No doubt Obama’s election is of great symbolic importance. But symbolism is cheap these days, the debased currency of an inflated political discourse. I would be more interested in substantial progress amongst minorities. Hard facts supporting that conclusion are harder to come by.
Thats why I prefer Nixon-Atwater as social scientists. At least they were realists. And, as the remarkable success of Nixonland shows, their theories had legs. In spite, not because, of the prevailing overwhelmingly political correct culture.
Even now, with the Culture War muted and an African-American about to take the top job in a landslide, there is no transcendence of race reality. SUb-prime crisis etc
The real problem for political scientists is not why Obama/DEMs will win, in a landslide as I predicted six months ago (obvious from mid-2006 as the US started its long meltdown). It is why McCain/REPs are still competitive throughout so much of white America despite their party being so radically disconnected from both common sense reality and decent morality. And despite the co-incidence of the recessional phases in both political and business cycles.
The only explanation is that the REPs rely on white ethnic solidarity in heartland areas. Which implies that such people are both loony or evil (the Guardian/Larva-Prodder view) or that they just have different social interests for which they have a more or less true consciousness (empirical anthropological view).
Also, if my posts on the politics of race are so “blatering” how come I consistently make the most accurate psephological predictions about the race-obsessed US? Just lucky, I guess.
Peter –
Well NAFTA and the rest were bipartisan. Reagan started the ball rolling, Clinton finished. They can blame him. I imagine that the Flyover States will see a large surge of anti-globalization in the coming year or so when the economic shit hits the fan. Trouble is the US corporations will be strenuously opposing any imposition of tariffs. This won;t be fun if you’re in the GOP.
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You forgot probably the worst feature. The opposition to public education on the basis that’s it’s a bastion of Liberal godlessness. Thus ensuring they can’t fit into a 21st century economy. If they got their old manufacturing jobs back things wouldn’t be better. The goods they’d produce would be too expensive.
Or Reagan. Bush’s foreign policy people used to call ‘emselves Neo-Reaganites. But the reasonably inexpensive tactics of Reagan (I’m excluding his huge military industry subsidies) seem to’ve eluded them. A lot of Reagan’s tough talk was bluff. Many at the time didn’t realize this. Neither, it seems, did many of his disciples. I myself had a hard time admitting to this. But the facts seem to make it plain.
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I already made a comment on this subject today.
Jack – It is why McCain/REPs are still competitive throughout so much of white America despite their party being so radically disconnected from both common sense reality and decent morality.
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That is a good question.
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But there’s an assumption that commonsense and decent morality (is there an indecent morality?) are pertinent to political life in the US. Amongst those who’re loyal to the Republican brand name there’s an apparent, obtuse unwillingness to even admit that the Bush presidency should cost ‘em the election.
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Given that Bush was preceded by Clinton who was himself an exceptionally oily and morally lazy person, given likewise that, despite his lapses and even more so despite his betrayal of Democrat policy, he was still lauded and defended by supporters right up to the very end. People who probably howled like wolverines on speed when Bush invaded Iraq said nothing when Clinton bombed the shit out of a Sudanese pharma factory. Say what you like but oil is a much better reason to deploy the military than simply distracting the US public from, ahem, certain extracurricular matters.
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The brand loyalty is an artifact of a larger cultural war in which the two Americas increasingly see one another as inherently nefarious. Neither side permits itself to think there’s much good in the other. Democrats concerned about the environment, for example, would probably never consider voting for Schwarzanegger (if he was able to run) but’d happily endorse a Democratic candidate even if s/he was an ecological ignoramus. Obama’s the first candidate in my memory who seems to’ve given the Flyover States an serious consideration, economically speaking, yet they’re all prepared to believe he’s Satan’s little sex slave.
Jack -
Also, if my posts on the politics of race are so “blatering” how come I consistently make the most accurate psephological predictions about the race-obsessed US? Just lucky, I guess.
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Predicting Obama winning is hardly gonna get you a job as an electoral consultant is it?
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Your assertions about race as far as I’ve seen them are slippery little jibes that barely disguise their Social Darwinism and seem to serve no better purpose than to indulge the Culture Warrior’s chauvinism viz the Inherent Superiority of Anglo-Saxon Culture or some such nonsense.
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Don’t gte me wrong I think aspects of British culture are superior – the que for example. But it’s evidently not entirely superior. Please see ‘cuisine’ for an elaboration on this.
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That you characterize me as some social constructivist hippie for calling bullshit on this poor contribution only elucidates your ideological mindset all the more. I’m quite happy to discuss factors of ethnicity in political life. Even ideas about it that I find personally unpalatable. But I’d like some facts and some familiarity with the complicating issues. Not just bald assertions.
“the queue” Adrien?
“the que” is Hispanic, I think you’ll find
They queue in the US too; they call it a line. Reportedly some stood in line for hours, in rain even, to vote. But then, a democratic occasion does tend to bring the courtly manners out for a day, does it not?
So I don’t know how to spell Ambigulous. It’s not my fault I went to a Sandstone University where they practiced Maoist techniques. They sent me out to work on a farm.
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I remember my English teacher who was Greek saying what he liked about Australia was that people waited in line. he said back in Athens there was always a mini-riot. Likewise China had a big thing about getting Beijing residents to wait in line and so forth…
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Britain has contributed much to world culture as long as you don’t let any of ‘em near a kitchen.