How do you know if your politics are behind the times?

[Tamas]

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'



I have been meaning to open this topic but I am not sure how to convey what's in my mind. Let's give it a go.

The key question, I think, is: how would you know if you are so behind the times that ideas spread outside your view? I am of course referencing the fact I, like I think most of you, am befuddled by the level of detached nihilism in democracies that enables the likes of Trump to be elected. It is hard to shake the feeling that it is not just a takeover of the world by complete imbeciles, but that we are, safely tucked away in our middle class lifestyles, are failing to see what's going on under the well-controlled surface, like so many economist and Democrat politicians puzzled by why the masses are not happy by the great economic indicators of last year.

Now, I am not saying that the reactionary fascism of Trump, Farage, Orban etc could be a better alternative to the liberal democratic system. That's clearly not the case, objectively so, there are plenty of historic examples.

But despite my earlier views (before Trump's second term, really), I am now increasingly agreeing with those who are saying that politics as we knew it are over. There is no going back to the Obama and Clinton, or New Labour days. Rightly or wrongly the people have moved past that style of politics. I suspect, they are hungry for dynamism, focus and change, and so they are voting the only option where they can see that: the fascists.

But if so, why is the progressive side not reacting? Am I wrong to think their days in their current format are over, or it's them (and to some large extent still, me) just being blind to whatever is happening in political culture?

Are we dinosaurs, destined to go extinct while fascism takes over until its years of war and oppression triggers a Leftist ideological revolution that we can't fathom yet?

[The Brain]

It's been quite a few years since I realized that my politics were obsolete, but I don't know exactly how many. But civilizations rise and fall. After summer is winter, and after winter summer. Maybe someday the views I like will come back in style.

[Grey Fox]

My views have never been in fashion during my lifetime.

Victims of marketing most people are.

[Josquius]

Yes. I'd think my views have always been pretty out of fashion and time keeps proving them consistently to have been right... Though ever more distant from potentially seeing light of day.

Well. My views on how things should be anyway. I've sadly been shown to be very wrong in my precious trust in the Internet and how if people just learned more of the facts they'd stop voting for corrupt self serving bastards....

[Sheilbh]

I know I bang on about it but I think Peter Mair's (sadly unfinished and posthumous) book, Ruling the Void, is in my view the best account of what's going on.

But pointing to a book is unhelpful - he wrote this (very long) article a few years before the book with the same title. And it sketches out a lot of his argument:
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii42/articles/peter-mair-ruling-the-void

I think the bit that is also needed is the wider context. In particular two failed wars, a global economic crash (which China handled best) - and distinctive local crises: in the US the opioid crisis, in Europe the Eurozone crisis and austerity, in the UK austerity. Add in other policy failures that have subsequently been exposed, like getting gas from Russia. That's not the legacy of the populists or the nihilists. That's the legacy of the adults in the room - and I'd add, there is zero accountability for any of that. Not only very few prosecutions (for financial crimes or torture) but the leaders who presided over that have comfortable retirements with their memoirs and their non-executive directorships and the circuit of well-paid speaking opportunities.

But despite my earlier views (before Trump's second term, really), I am now increasingly agreeing with those who are saying that politics as we knew it are over. There is no going back to the Obama and Clinton, or New Labour days. Rightly or wrongly the people have moved past that style of politics. I suspect, they are hungry for dynamism, focus and change, and so they are voting the only option where they can see that: the fascists.

I think there's a question of style and content though they're related (in that I think to some extent style produces content). But I agree it's dead.

But if so, why is the progressive side not reacting?

So John Ganz has recently written a book on the 90s with lots of slight pre-figuring of Trump (as I feel is inevitable to an American historian writing about the twentieth century).

One argument he makes that I keep mulling over - because I'm not sure - is basically that we got rid of our cranks. So one of the reasons in the US the Democrats do relatively well is because they professionalise and they push the cranks and the weirdos and the prophets away. Politics is professional, it's about winning and then delivering the marginal policy gains (while conceding a lot of ground intellectually) with no time for the wilder fringes of the rainbow coalition. By contrast the GOP cannot discipline it's nutcases.

That works while the system is doing pretty well but once it comes under challenge the Democrats are a bit trapped in TINA ("there is no alternative") politics. They cannot imagine what a future would look like that is not just more of the same: and they'd be professional, winning, delivering marginal gains. While the freaks and the cranks and the nuts on the right meant that at the crisis there are people who have imagined and are proposing (terrifying) alternatives.

The other side I suppose is that I think it's difficult for people, especially leaders, to come to terms with changes to the system they built. Part of it will also be that that school and style of politics is part of the identity people have constructed (I think this especially with phrases like "the adults in the room") - I saw a review of Nicola Sturgeon's memoir. The thrust of it was that she's an incredible political talent and very sympathetic in the book, but ultimately flawed because she's obsessed with Scottish independence. Which seems to me like such a failing of intellectual empathy.

Are we dinosaurs, destined to go extinct while fascism takes over until its years of war and oppression triggers a Leftist ideological revolution that we can't fathom yet?

I don't know. I mean I think you could fight back. I think there's definitely a space no more than ever for liberalism if that's where you are. But there doesn't seem to be much appetite for getting dirty in politics, from what I can see. I've said before but I have no idea how there's not been basically a mass takeover of the Lib Dems to represent this strand of opinion which absolutely exists. Perhaps not dinosaurs but listening to some people who are very attached to that moment and its politics - but disengaged from actual politics - and it reminds me of something like a Chekhov aristocrat, the Ranyevskayas in the Cherry Orchard.

To be entirely honest I don't know that the results will be war and oppression. I think there's a possibility it works in some sense, which would be bad but probably form the basis of a new order (until it too, eventually, fails). Perhaps worse (but maybe more likely) is that it fails too and I don't know what comes next as there's some really terrifying stuff percolating.

Edit: And I'd add Ruling the Void is really, really worth it and the quotes on the blurb go from John McDermott, Peter Oborne, Anne Applebaum, Wolfgang Streeck and Jan-Werner Muller. - so a fairly broad spectrum of opinion

Edit: Also I hate the framing of "progressives" - but I would add that anything on other sides not reacting would need to include Syriza, Corbyn, Melenchon, Sanders, Mamdani etc - but also, say, Macron. I think there has absolutely been a reaction. I think understanding those, the responses to them and where they've succeeded or not (and why) is probably relevant.

[Admiral Yi]

One argument he makes that I keep mulling over - because I'm not sure - is basically that we got rid of our cranks. So one of the reasons in the US the Democrats do relatively well is because they professionalise and they push the cranks and the weirdos and the prophets away. Politics is professional, it's about winning and then delivering the marginal policy gains (while conceding a lot of ground intellectually) with no time for the wilder fringes of the rainbow coalition. By contrast the GOP cannot discipline it's nutcases.

Interesting.  I've been casting around for grand narratives that explain Trumpism.  The first one I looked at was white straight people wanted to get in on the joy of being outraged.  The second was it's a power grab by the nouveau riche.  Recently I'm attracted to the idea that the GOP has become the conspiracy theory party.

[Sheilbh]

It's an interesting book although, as I say, mainly a history of the 90s. It's just impossible to read or write in a way that doesn't end up with Trump.

[Razgovory]

Oooh!  I read the same book as Shelf.  When the Clock Broke.

[Darth Wagtaros]

I expected politicians to at least pretend to have some class and some sense of professionalism.  At this point I'd vote for a mafia don if he didn't make a point of gloating about what a piece of shit he and his followers are.

[Savonarola]

I realized my politics were behind the times when politicians and pundits on the right started using "I know what time it is" as a catch phrase and I started having flashbacks to Flava Flav (BOY!).

    

Edit:  Also "Based" as an adjective, especially to describe themselves.

[Sheilbh]

Oooh!  I read the same book as Shelf.  When the Clock Broke.

Yes! What did you think?

I enjoyed it but, as I say, still mulling on/not totally convinced by some of the argument.

[Jacob]

Here's a theory:

At a macro level the post-WWII Western political order saw tension between two primary impulses - the "socialist Left" and the "classically liberal right". The core of the "socialist left" is broadly "protecting the interests of individuals and social classes against the depredations of capital" while the core of the "classically liberal right" is something like "freedom for individuals and for capital." Meanwhile the "reactionary right" was essentially excluded on the basis of Hitler being defeated and anathema, with occasional bits co-opted here and there in the margins.

Using that (admittedly simplistic) lens you can probably classify most Western political movements based on the combination of how they resolved competing interests within their "side", and which elements from the opposing side they rejected and which they embraced (social liberals vs conservative socialists and so on).

The general Western consensus became some sort of (localized and changing) compromise along the lines of "we'll give as much individual freedom as practical (including marginalized folks), we'll provide some level of protection for the citizens including the poor (as seems affordable), and we'll restrain capital somewhat but not too much".

On the global stage, we had a superpower struggle between the US and the USSR. One championed "freedom" and the other championed "global socialism". Both poured massive amounts of resources into that struggle - including on the ideological battle for hearts and minds, at home and abroad. Arts and entertainment, political groups (both legitimate and illegitimate), thinkers and philosophers, and so on were all funded massively and many careers and livelihoods were built on championing versions of either of those ideological directions, on interrogating them, and/ or on synthesizing them. Third countries - including in Europe - became sites of differing forms of synthesis.

Leaving aside for the moment the question of how much the "freedom" and the "socialism" were championed for real vs how much they were illusions, the related concepts nonetheless underpinned massive economies and intellectual engagement.

Where reaction appeared it was mostly reflavoured superficially and co-opted into that struggle.

That was the status quo that we grew up with.

Then the USSR collapsed, the US won, and history ended.

In the US, with no real enemy to require focus, the pursuit of freedom became more of a pastiche. The cultural, media, and intellectual production had primarily been left in the hands of private capital. Without the need to battle socialism with broad appeals to freedom, the focus drifted more on to internal political battles (obviously much of the production was/ is pure entertainment, but if being apolitical is a political statement in itself there's still a political context and underpinning).

Meanwhile, the forces of reaction were organizing and no-one of consequence did much to oppose them. Over time, it turns out that some (many) of the significant holders of private capital have decided they have a reactionary political project, and they are influencing the direction of our cultural outputs (those being in private hands). There are now significant amount of money and careersto be made generating reactionary thought and media output, and people naturally respond to that. At the same time, there's less (still a bunch, but less and receding) money and careers to be made in propagating the ideals of "rightwing classical liberalism".

At the same time, Russia picked itself up after the collapse of the USSR and has given up on promoting "socialist leftism" even as an idea. Instead Russia has gone all in on reactionary politics as its ideological export. Globally this has taken some of the wind out of the sails of "socialist leftism" and helped advance the cause of reaction.

And so (this is the TL;DR): with a significant amount of resources withdrawn from propagating the politics of the post-WWII world order, those politics are falling away; and with a massive increase in the resources invested in propagating the ideals of reaction (internally in the West, and by opponents of the West as a tool of political battle), the politics of reaction are on the rise.

[Jacob]

Interesting.  I've been casting around for grand narratives that explain Trumpism.  The first one I looked at was white straight people wanted to get in on the joy of being outraged.  The second was it's a power grab by the nouveau riche.  Recently I'm attracted to the idea that the GOP has become the conspiracy theory party.

I think all three of those narratives have something going for them. They could potentially coexist.

[Jacob]

Edit: Also I hate the framing of "progressives" - but I would add that anything on other sides not reacting would need to include Syriza, Corbyn, Melenchon, Sanders, Mamdani etc - but also, say, Macron. I think there has absolutely been a reaction. I think understanding those, the responses to them and where they've succeeded or not (and why) is probably relevant.

And so (this is the TL;DR): with a significant amount of resources withdrawn from propagating the politics of the post-WWII world order, those politics are falling away; and with a massive increase in the resources invested in propagating the ideals of reaction (internally in the West, and by opponents of the West as a tool of political battle), the politics of reaction are on the rise.

One potential explanation for the relative failures of left reaction is that globally it lacks sponsors at the state and oligarch-clique level, and therefore is underserved in terms of intellectual and cultural support.

[crazy canuck]

Jacob, there is a lot to that explanation. I would add that when the world became unipolar, and the US was the only superpower in the 90s the prevailing thinking was that Liberal Democracy had won, and would spread by default.   

Of course the opposite happened. Liberal Democracy, undefended, dies on the vine.