Pretentious partisan nonsense masquerading as serious analysis! The author tells us that Trumpism is an amalgam of nostalgic nationalism, autocratic bullying and egotistical manipulation. How is it possible that egotistical manipulation is seen as a preserve of one political leader? Such allegations can be made against a large number of people. Andrew Cuomo claims his exemplary leadership saved many lives during Covid and many liberals doubtless believe him due to the fawning media coverage. Is that an example of "egotistical manipulation"? How about Bill Clinton? Now let's come to autocratic bullying. Where is the evidence that such instances of bullying constitute a clear break from precedent, so much so that we need a separate ism to characterise them? If we look at Trump's policies and actions rather than his tweets and rhetoric, was it all that different from previous administrations? Apart from the vague and almost meaningless definition of what Trumpism is, this analysis suffers from two additional flaws.
1. What explains the whole Trump phenomenon? How did he manage to win in 2016? Why did so many people including women and minorities vote for him in 2020? According to some exit polls (we will learn more in future), more than 30% of Muslims voted for Trump. Why? What does a vote for Trump mean for his supporters? Liberals and establishment Republicans have provided two answers to this question a) Voters were motivated by racism and misogyny. b)Unlike Liberals, conservative voters are kind of stupid and irrational and they may be swayed by badly written Russian ads on Facebook! I am afraid this analysis is seriously flawed, if a lofty word like analysis could be applied to such opinions at all.
2. What are the social and political conditions that (usually or often) lead to the rise of populist leaders like Trump? How did the mistakes of American elites; their selfishness and their deliberate obtuseness and indifference to the suffering of certain groups of people in society contribute to the Trump phenomenon?
Such self-serving analysis from America's liberal elites would not help the struggle against populist politics; a little more humility and introspection is necessary. Maybe American voters were entirely rational to vote for Trump and we don't understand them very well because we are surrounded by people who think EXACLY like us in almost every respect?
> a) Voters were motivated by racism and misogyny. b)Unlike Liberals, conservative voters are kind of stupid and irrational
Projection. The Democrats have had multiple rounds of infighting trying to figure out why they didn't win more seats i.e. Spanberger vs AOC. What have the Republicans done to assess why Trump didn't win? Scream "vote fraud!"
If you are claiming that the majority of discourse on the Left does not suggest that Trump voters are motivated primarily by racism and misogyny, then I have to disagree with you. I think over the last 5 years, there is plenty of evidence that this is what the Left believes and continues to believe. Along with this comes a sense of self-righteousness and insularity; people who disagree with us are morally contemptible or must be somehow totally irrational etc. There are many pathologies on the Right as well (of course), but I don't think this article is a credible discussion of these issues. Whether Republicans reflected on their recent election defeat in a meaningful or rational way is not what is discussed in this article. I agree with you that they haven't been able to do that.
Sinchan: there's also a good deal of evidence from political science and political psychology that the conservative movement and Republican Party have created a more comfortable and welcoming environment for racism and, therefore, have attracted more racists than the Democratic Party. That's not projection or fantasy. There's a difference between saying this and saying that all conservatives/Republicans are racist. That's not true. But decades of evidence explain why the Southern Strategy wasn't an abject failure.
Thanks for your response. Few points on this. (I am not an expert on all this, so please correct me when I am wrong).
1. What you are saying implies that Americans who are racist are more likely to identify with the Republican party than the Democrats. I agree with that. But that doesn't tell us what % of Republicans hold racist beliefs. Maybe the % is quite small today? I don't know. Many papers (including famous ones) that tried to show that Trump voters were motivated by racism are actually based on pretty shoddy research, as discussed in an excellent paper by Musa-al-Gharbi in The American Sociologist in 2018. We need to be careful while discussing things that everybody agrees is true (like Republicans are racist) because in an environment where everyone has the same political ideology, groupthink can lead us astray. The research on Trump voters is a clear example of that. The overwhelming need to demonize the other side can and does affect scholarship.
2. Political beliefs should not be held with a sense of rigidity and certainty; nuance is important. There is no evidence that in the 1950's Republicans were more likely to be racist than the Democrats, it is only since the late 1960's that this pattern gradually took hold. (though most politicians outside the South voted for civil rights legislation, whether they were Democrat or Republican). There has been massive positive changes in attitudes towards racial issues in American society, among both Democrats and Republicans in the last four decades. It is not that the views of Republican voters on these issues were frozen in time. It won't surprise anyone (except Liberals) if the Republicans end up nominating a non-white person to be President in 2024 or 2028.
3. Left and Right extremism reinforce each other; if people are labeled as racist because they don't sign up to the left/liberal agenda on all issues, that will create resentment and divisiveness in society. Something like this contributed to the election of Trump. As Camille Paglia said "viciously silencing opponents simply guarantees that when the backlash finally comes , it will take a massively reactionary form". You could make a good argument that the way American universities pursue affirmative action does not advance the cause of justice. Can the Left have such a debate? No. Their religion does not permit heresies. It is possible to have an intelligent debate about this only on the non-Left. (see for example recent discussion in Quilette between the philosopher Michael Sandel and Glenn Loury of Brown University).
Hi Sinchan: Thanks for responding--I'll respond briefly to your points (and thank you for organizing them). 1) I try to be very careful not to say that Republicans are racist and still bear in mind what a great deal of research tells us. I'm not familiar with the piece you cite. And I know that a number of studies have concluded since 2016 that what brought Trump to power in 2016 and kept him in good stead with Republican voters wasn't primarily racism but, rather, cultural differences/disagreements, many real and many a result of consistent disinformation from right-wing media. However, many studies of the Tea Party by highly reputable scholars found that one of the key drivers of that movement was racism, and the Tea Party became a feeder movement into Trumpism. I also think groupthink (motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, etc.) is a big problem, but I'm comfortable with the broad conclusion that even if I disagree with "my" side about what constitutes racism (which I do), if you're looking for racism in American politics, you're going to find it on the right. And there’s still a good bit of it there to be found.
On 2), very quickly: beware of right-wing talking points! When we’re talking about racism in American history, unless you detach Democrat/Republican from liberal/conservative you end up marveling that MLK was a Republican or you wax poetic about the Party of Lincoln. The appropriate distinction in the 20th century was (something like) conservatives vs. liberals and then you see the consistency of what political psychology tells us about the propensity of conservatism to be associated with elements of ingroup favoritism and anxiety about outgroups. I also won’t be surprised if the Republican Party nominates a person of color in 2024. The GOP and its constituencies love people of color who sign on to their ideology, and Nikki Haley has been aggressively positioning herself for the honor of taking up Trump’s mantle.
On 3) Agreed! But I also think we need to be wary of false equivalences. Is the Washington Post Fox News? No. Is the Heritage Foundation the same as Brookings? No. I don’t think the attempt to build back a center for American politics requires us to regard each side as equivalent to the other. I’m sure there’s something I agree with Paglia about, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be any insight about US politics, not the least of which reason is because her whole career has been an exercise in incitement. Then again, maybe she does know a thing or two about our current situation.
Thanks for taking time off your busy schedule to respond to me. I am enjoying our debate! I agree racism is more likely to be found on the Right. As Jonah Goldberg said, there are too many racists in the Republican party and too few people willing to say it. However, if most Americans (whether they are Left or Right) are not racist, then there is no reason to apply the label of racism broadly to Republicans as a group. If we look at some personality traits/political attitudes that are common among Liberals/Conservatives, we find undesirable traits in both groups. That's why there must be a robust debate on all public issues in which both the Left and the Right can contribute. That doesn't happen in America - for example, anybody critical of lockdowns is labeled as an anti-science crackpot, even if they are trying to make arguments with facts and evidence.
I am not sure why Liberals won't welcome Nikki Haley or Tim Scott (or any other person of colour) being nominated as the Presidential candidate. Liberals are all about identity politics until they are not. (I am not talking about you). Nikki Haley has not made racist and sexist statements of the kind Trump made. I think the Liberals will keep saying that Republicans are racist even if a POC is a Republican President. Just like more minorities voting for Trump was further proof of the power of white patriarchy, according to a NYT writer. It is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, as Yascha Mounk pointed out.
I agree we don't need to believe that Right and Left are equally culpable for America's problems. I am not going to argue with someone who thinks that the problems on the Right are more serious. Many things were (and are) deeply wrong with the Republican Party, that is why someone like Trump could win the nomination. But how or why did that happen? I think the emotional need to demonize Republicans and Trump voters have prevented liberal American academics and journalists from forming an understanding of the Trump phenomenon. You are a poor analyst of what you hate. Shadi Hamid makes the point that if you hate Islam, you probably should not write a book about politics and religion in the Middle East. If you hate Republicans (and American liberals passionately hate Republicans), then it is harder to understand them.
Liberals will also benefit from some criticism of their worldview and their politics. In American culture and media, there is too little of it. How many American comedians would dare to make fun of woke culture, although it is extremely funny? (except for an occasional segment by Bill Maher). How many will look at the Democratic party as a political organisation worthy of critique instead of always defending "our side". There is a little too much self-righteousness among American liberals and it is not a very constructive emotion.
To my mind, the scariest conclusion of the last four years is that a very large share of Americans are uninterested in representative government on its own merits. We have measurable proof of this on the right, and it would take a lot of faith to assume that the same isn't true on the left. As a lifelong conservative, it's been depressing witnessing such tolerance for authoritarianism on my "side" of the political spectrum.
"politics of grievance, rage, race and revenge" - this is equally applicable to Democrats and Progressives. Today's wokism and identity politics are the very definition of grievance, rage and race - did we not see it in this summer's BLM riots, and there's revenge o'plenty.
Not much self-awareness or persuasion here, but lots of claims for the moral high-ground.
Appalled to find Charles de Gaulle who fought Nazis and French collaborators and later achieved independence of Algeria on this list of tyrants, boors, and kleptocrats. When French voters rejected his proposal to make France arguably less democratic, he left office.
Not sure how de Gaulle ended up within this list of populists. No idea how "reserves of public rage", "anti-intellectualism", "hostility toward rules and institutions", "a fierce enmity against rivals, who are not treated as compatriots but as enemies who pose an existential threat." could be applied to him. I'm French, so I must be biaised, but this feels really weird.
It would actually be useful for such authors to do what even Entertainment Tonight can do, which is list a top ten scoundrels most likely to execute fiendish schemes upon the hapless electorate. Instead, ghosts and spirits of Xisms are invoked, as if humans are as subject to ideological whim as they are to parasitic infections.
Naim and many others, including Never Trumpers of all stripes, are right that Trumpism will continue to be a threat to the US after Trump leaves office and likely long after Trump. What we disagree about are the details and the prognosis. Diagnoses of right-wing populism and right-wing authoritarianism aren't redundant; they give us overlapping but also distinct descriptions of the phenomenon of Trumpism and our likely future. And yes, as some commenters note, it's not just the right but also the left. I agree that we're confronting both an authoritarian right and an authoritarian left, but I also don't think there's any doubt that the most immediate threat to our political institutions and the rule of law hails from the right. This isn't a partisan call--I'm chilled by the authoritarian left, which I see as a threat to free speech, free inquiry, and the rule of law. It's just that, shockingly, that's still no comparison to the rapid devolution of the Republican Party into an openly, unapologetically authoritarian party, which includes the GOP's refusal to check the undermining of political institutions and the party's embrace of a foreign policy of identifying with dictators and stiff/strong-arming democratic leaders. My critique could boil down to this: it's not the only threat we face, and the left is also dangerous, but before you cross the street, you tend to look in the direction of the first car that might hit you when you step off the curb. Doesn't mean the car coming from the other direction isn't also dangerous.
Interesting. I guess we agree about both Left and Right extremism being a threat. I see the threat from the Right as a possibility of a violent extremist Trump supporter doing something stupid to "stop the steal". There could be other kinds of threat; we will know as time passes, but I don't see them yet. I live in a country where the government is actually undermining political institutions and the rule of law, I don't think that is what is happening in America. Maybe Trump would like that to happen, but he has no real "will to power" and no ability or inclination to force his way on those issues. That has been clear for quite a while.
Love for dictatorships? That's nothing new either. It would be hard to convince a South Asian like me (or South Americans or Africans or people from any other Third World country) that Americans had any principled commitment to democracy or generally prefer dealing with democratic rather than authoritarian leaders. Again, Trump may be worse in his rhetoric, but in terms of actual policies, I don't see it. For example, American liberals have no problem with China, Wall Street and Biden are eager to repair the relationship with China and restore/deepen economic ties, in spite of whatever concerns (I assume) they have in other areas. I don't like the overly hawkish Democratic rhetoric on Russia. Trump was right when he said that 4-star generals want war because they serve on the board of Raytheon. Obama wouldn't be able to say that because he was too deferential to the American national security establishment - and that establishment has too many people who are looking for opportunities to start a war. They might succeed in the next 4 years.
I refer to foreign policy, because you mentioned it; but we could also discuss Obama's use of Espionage Act to go after whistleblowers and even journalists, critics say (with good reason) that Obama was more aggressive in this way than most previous governments put together. Then there is Obama's drone war of uncertain effectiveness, which cost hundreds of civilian lives and Obama's decision to unilaterally kill an American citizen without any due process. Obama makes nice speeches but his policies helped weaken democratic norms in some areas and George Bush (unlike Trump) may be a nice guy, but his policies led to the international catastrophe of the Iraq War. Nothing similar happened in terms of foreign policies in the Trump administration. Not that he didn't make mistakes and take bad decisions, but all administrations do.
Sinchan: I couldn't disagree with you more on the distinction you make between Trump's rhetoric and his policies. The damage that he's done to the US government, its foreign policy, and the people the US has abandoned on his watch makes this the most destructive government in my 60+ years. And it really is possible to see the terrible inhumanities the US has inflicted on many parts of the world in its history realistically and still see Trump's administration as different in kind and degree. For the record, I don't see most of the damage Trump has done in terms of "policy." He and his minions spoke in these terms only to mimic the discourse of ordinary administrations. The things that don't benefit Trump or can't be turned to his purposes he perverts or destroys. Most Americans have very little sense of how much he has destroyed, even the ones who dislike him. If Trump had been in charge of the German army pulling out of Paris in 1945, he would've blown up the city just for fun and to see it burn.
I agree that Trump has done some damage; though not so much in terms of foreign policy. In fact, in terms of foreign policy he has made one important contribution. He has changed the conversation on China in American politics. Thus there is no going back to how things were under Obama, however much Biden's Wall Street backers want that. I agree Trump has done some damage to the institution of the Presidency itself, through his coarse verbal rhetoric and his compulsive lying. But #Resistance also did damage to American institutions through actions that they took ostensibly to fight Trump. I studied and teach economics, so I can say with some confidence that the American economy really boomed under Trump before covid. In fact, 2019 was the best year for the economy in a long time, particularly for poor, disadvantaged workers.
Can you please be more specific about things Trump has destroyed? If you don't have time or space here, can you point me to an analysis that you think captures your sense of what Trump has destroyed? I really want to learn more about arguments I disagree with. Thanks again.
Pretentious partisan nonsense masquerading as serious analysis! The author tells us that Trumpism is an amalgam of nostalgic nationalism, autocratic bullying and egotistical manipulation. How is it possible that egotistical manipulation is seen as a preserve of one political leader? Such allegations can be made against a large number of people. Andrew Cuomo claims his exemplary leadership saved many lives during Covid and many liberals doubtless believe him due to the fawning media coverage. Is that an example of "egotistical manipulation"? How about Bill Clinton? Now let's come to autocratic bullying. Where is the evidence that such instances of bullying constitute a clear break from precedent, so much so that we need a separate ism to characterise them? If we look at Trump's policies and actions rather than his tweets and rhetoric, was it all that different from previous administrations? Apart from the vague and almost meaningless definition of what Trumpism is, this analysis suffers from two additional flaws.
1. What explains the whole Trump phenomenon? How did he manage to win in 2016? Why did so many people including women and minorities vote for him in 2020? According to some exit polls (we will learn more in future), more than 30% of Muslims voted for Trump. Why? What does a vote for Trump mean for his supporters? Liberals and establishment Republicans have provided two answers to this question a) Voters were motivated by racism and misogyny. b)Unlike Liberals, conservative voters are kind of stupid and irrational and they may be swayed by badly written Russian ads on Facebook! I am afraid this analysis is seriously flawed, if a lofty word like analysis could be applied to such opinions at all.
2. What are the social and political conditions that (usually or often) lead to the rise of populist leaders like Trump? How did the mistakes of American elites; their selfishness and their deliberate obtuseness and indifference to the suffering of certain groups of people in society contribute to the Trump phenomenon?
Such self-serving analysis from America's liberal elites would not help the struggle against populist politics; a little more humility and introspection is necessary. Maybe American voters were entirely rational to vote for Trump and we don't understand them very well because we are surrounded by people who think EXACLY like us in almost every respect?
> a) Voters were motivated by racism and misogyny. b)Unlike Liberals, conservative voters are kind of stupid and irrational
Projection. The Democrats have had multiple rounds of infighting trying to figure out why they didn't win more seats i.e. Spanberger vs AOC. What have the Republicans done to assess why Trump didn't win? Scream "vote fraud!"
If you are claiming that the majority of discourse on the Left does not suggest that Trump voters are motivated primarily by racism and misogyny, then I have to disagree with you. I think over the last 5 years, there is plenty of evidence that this is what the Left believes and continues to believe. Along with this comes a sense of self-righteousness and insularity; people who disagree with us are morally contemptible or must be somehow totally irrational etc. There are many pathologies on the Right as well (of course), but I don't think this article is a credible discussion of these issues. Whether Republicans reflected on their recent election defeat in a meaningful or rational way is not what is discussed in this article. I agree with you that they haven't been able to do that.
Sinchan: there's also a good deal of evidence from political science and political psychology that the conservative movement and Republican Party have created a more comfortable and welcoming environment for racism and, therefore, have attracted more racists than the Democratic Party. That's not projection or fantasy. There's a difference between saying this and saying that all conservatives/Republicans are racist. That's not true. But decades of evidence explain why the Southern Strategy wasn't an abject failure.
Thanks for your response. Few points on this. (I am not an expert on all this, so please correct me when I am wrong).
1. What you are saying implies that Americans who are racist are more likely to identify with the Republican party than the Democrats. I agree with that. But that doesn't tell us what % of Republicans hold racist beliefs. Maybe the % is quite small today? I don't know. Many papers (including famous ones) that tried to show that Trump voters were motivated by racism are actually based on pretty shoddy research, as discussed in an excellent paper by Musa-al-Gharbi in The American Sociologist in 2018. We need to be careful while discussing things that everybody agrees is true (like Republicans are racist) because in an environment where everyone has the same political ideology, groupthink can lead us astray. The research on Trump voters is a clear example of that. The overwhelming need to demonize the other side can and does affect scholarship.
2. Political beliefs should not be held with a sense of rigidity and certainty; nuance is important. There is no evidence that in the 1950's Republicans were more likely to be racist than the Democrats, it is only since the late 1960's that this pattern gradually took hold. (though most politicians outside the South voted for civil rights legislation, whether they were Democrat or Republican). There has been massive positive changes in attitudes towards racial issues in American society, among both Democrats and Republicans in the last four decades. It is not that the views of Republican voters on these issues were frozen in time. It won't surprise anyone (except Liberals) if the Republicans end up nominating a non-white person to be President in 2024 or 2028.
3. Left and Right extremism reinforce each other; if people are labeled as racist because they don't sign up to the left/liberal agenda on all issues, that will create resentment and divisiveness in society. Something like this contributed to the election of Trump. As Camille Paglia said "viciously silencing opponents simply guarantees that when the backlash finally comes , it will take a massively reactionary form". You could make a good argument that the way American universities pursue affirmative action does not advance the cause of justice. Can the Left have such a debate? No. Their religion does not permit heresies. It is possible to have an intelligent debate about this only on the non-Left. (see for example recent discussion in Quilette between the philosopher Michael Sandel and Glenn Loury of Brown University).
Hi Sinchan: Thanks for responding--I'll respond briefly to your points (and thank you for organizing them). 1) I try to be very careful not to say that Republicans are racist and still bear in mind what a great deal of research tells us. I'm not familiar with the piece you cite. And I know that a number of studies have concluded since 2016 that what brought Trump to power in 2016 and kept him in good stead with Republican voters wasn't primarily racism but, rather, cultural differences/disagreements, many real and many a result of consistent disinformation from right-wing media. However, many studies of the Tea Party by highly reputable scholars found that one of the key drivers of that movement was racism, and the Tea Party became a feeder movement into Trumpism. I also think groupthink (motivated reasoning, confirmation bias, etc.) is a big problem, but I'm comfortable with the broad conclusion that even if I disagree with "my" side about what constitutes racism (which I do), if you're looking for racism in American politics, you're going to find it on the right. And there’s still a good bit of it there to be found.
On 2), very quickly: beware of right-wing talking points! When we’re talking about racism in American history, unless you detach Democrat/Republican from liberal/conservative you end up marveling that MLK was a Republican or you wax poetic about the Party of Lincoln. The appropriate distinction in the 20th century was (something like) conservatives vs. liberals and then you see the consistency of what political psychology tells us about the propensity of conservatism to be associated with elements of ingroup favoritism and anxiety about outgroups. I also won’t be surprised if the Republican Party nominates a person of color in 2024. The GOP and its constituencies love people of color who sign on to their ideology, and Nikki Haley has been aggressively positioning herself for the honor of taking up Trump’s mantle.
On 3) Agreed! But I also think we need to be wary of false equivalences. Is the Washington Post Fox News? No. Is the Heritage Foundation the same as Brookings? No. I don’t think the attempt to build back a center for American politics requires us to regard each side as equivalent to the other. I’m sure there’s something I agree with Paglia about, but it sure as hell wouldn’t be any insight about US politics, not the least of which reason is because her whole career has been an exercise in incitement. Then again, maybe she does know a thing or two about our current situation.
Thanks for taking time off your busy schedule to respond to me. I am enjoying our debate! I agree racism is more likely to be found on the Right. As Jonah Goldberg said, there are too many racists in the Republican party and too few people willing to say it. However, if most Americans (whether they are Left or Right) are not racist, then there is no reason to apply the label of racism broadly to Republicans as a group. If we look at some personality traits/political attitudes that are common among Liberals/Conservatives, we find undesirable traits in both groups. That's why there must be a robust debate on all public issues in which both the Left and the Right can contribute. That doesn't happen in America - for example, anybody critical of lockdowns is labeled as an anti-science crackpot, even if they are trying to make arguments with facts and evidence.
I am not sure why Liberals won't welcome Nikki Haley or Tim Scott (or any other person of colour) being nominated as the Presidential candidate. Liberals are all about identity politics until they are not. (I am not talking about you). Nikki Haley has not made racist and sexist statements of the kind Trump made. I think the Liberals will keep saying that Republicans are racist even if a POC is a Republican President. Just like more minorities voting for Trump was further proof of the power of white patriarchy, according to a NYT writer. It is an unfalsifiable hypothesis, as Yascha Mounk pointed out.
I agree we don't need to believe that Right and Left are equally culpable for America's problems. I am not going to argue with someone who thinks that the problems on the Right are more serious. Many things were (and are) deeply wrong with the Republican Party, that is why someone like Trump could win the nomination. But how or why did that happen? I think the emotional need to demonize Republicans and Trump voters have prevented liberal American academics and journalists from forming an understanding of the Trump phenomenon. You are a poor analyst of what you hate. Shadi Hamid makes the point that if you hate Islam, you probably should not write a book about politics and religion in the Middle East. If you hate Republicans (and American liberals passionately hate Republicans), then it is harder to understand them.
Liberals will also benefit from some criticism of their worldview and their politics. In American culture and media, there is too little of it. How many American comedians would dare to make fun of woke culture, although it is extremely funny? (except for an occasional segment by Bill Maher). How many will look at the Democratic party as a political organisation worthy of critique instead of always defending "our side". There is a little too much self-righteousness among American liberals and it is not a very constructive emotion.
To my mind, the scariest conclusion of the last four years is that a very large share of Americans are uninterested in representative government on its own merits. We have measurable proof of this on the right, and it would take a lot of faith to assume that the same isn't true on the left. As a lifelong conservative, it's been depressing witnessing such tolerance for authoritarianism on my "side" of the political spectrum.
"politics of grievance, rage, race and revenge" - this is equally applicable to Democrats and Progressives. Today's wokism and identity politics are the very definition of grievance, rage and race - did we not see it in this summer's BLM riots, and there's revenge o'plenty.
Not much self-awareness or persuasion here, but lots of claims for the moral high-ground.
Do you think Biden got elected on grievance?
Both the left and right are fueled by grievance, but only the left is 'woke' with a whole set of academic grievance studies.
I wish I disagreed with you.
Appalled to find Charles de Gaulle who fought Nazis and French collaborators and later achieved independence of Algeria on this list of tyrants, boors, and kleptocrats. When French voters rejected his proposal to make France arguably less democratic, he left office.
Kate Auspitz
Somerville MA
Not sure how de Gaulle ended up within this list of populists. No idea how "reserves of public rage", "anti-intellectualism", "hostility toward rules and institutions", "a fierce enmity against rivals, who are not treated as compatriots but as enemies who pose an existential threat." could be applied to him. I'm French, so I must be biaised, but this feels really weird.
One need not be French to regard this as absurd and unjust
I left a comment an hour ago (12/27) before I saw yours.
Kate Auspitz
It would actually be useful for such authors to do what even Entertainment Tonight can do, which is list a top ten scoundrels most likely to execute fiendish schemes upon the hapless electorate. Instead, ghosts and spirits of Xisms are invoked, as if humans are as subject to ideological whim as they are to parasitic infections.
Naim and many others, including Never Trumpers of all stripes, are right that Trumpism will continue to be a threat to the US after Trump leaves office and likely long after Trump. What we disagree about are the details and the prognosis. Diagnoses of right-wing populism and right-wing authoritarianism aren't redundant; they give us overlapping but also distinct descriptions of the phenomenon of Trumpism and our likely future. And yes, as some commenters note, it's not just the right but also the left. I agree that we're confronting both an authoritarian right and an authoritarian left, but I also don't think there's any doubt that the most immediate threat to our political institutions and the rule of law hails from the right. This isn't a partisan call--I'm chilled by the authoritarian left, which I see as a threat to free speech, free inquiry, and the rule of law. It's just that, shockingly, that's still no comparison to the rapid devolution of the Republican Party into an openly, unapologetically authoritarian party, which includes the GOP's refusal to check the undermining of political institutions and the party's embrace of a foreign policy of identifying with dictators and stiff/strong-arming democratic leaders. My critique could boil down to this: it's not the only threat we face, and the left is also dangerous, but before you cross the street, you tend to look in the direction of the first car that might hit you when you step off the curb. Doesn't mean the car coming from the other direction isn't also dangerous.
Interesting. I guess we agree about both Left and Right extremism being a threat. I see the threat from the Right as a possibility of a violent extremist Trump supporter doing something stupid to "stop the steal". There could be other kinds of threat; we will know as time passes, but I don't see them yet. I live in a country where the government is actually undermining political institutions and the rule of law, I don't think that is what is happening in America. Maybe Trump would like that to happen, but he has no real "will to power" and no ability or inclination to force his way on those issues. That has been clear for quite a while.
Love for dictatorships? That's nothing new either. It would be hard to convince a South Asian like me (or South Americans or Africans or people from any other Third World country) that Americans had any principled commitment to democracy or generally prefer dealing with democratic rather than authoritarian leaders. Again, Trump may be worse in his rhetoric, but in terms of actual policies, I don't see it. For example, American liberals have no problem with China, Wall Street and Biden are eager to repair the relationship with China and restore/deepen economic ties, in spite of whatever concerns (I assume) they have in other areas. I don't like the overly hawkish Democratic rhetoric on Russia. Trump was right when he said that 4-star generals want war because they serve on the board of Raytheon. Obama wouldn't be able to say that because he was too deferential to the American national security establishment - and that establishment has too many people who are looking for opportunities to start a war. They might succeed in the next 4 years.
That's why Obama ended his tenure after having started two wars; did not listen to advice on Syria that he was arming terrorists in the name of empowering Assad's opponents. Please also see this on the Saudi war against Yemen. https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/11/19/obama-officials-incomplete-reckoning-failure-yemen
I refer to foreign policy, because you mentioned it; but we could also discuss Obama's use of Espionage Act to go after whistleblowers and even journalists, critics say (with good reason) that Obama was more aggressive in this way than most previous governments put together. Then there is Obama's drone war of uncertain effectiveness, which cost hundreds of civilian lives and Obama's decision to unilaterally kill an American citizen without any due process. Obama makes nice speeches but his policies helped weaken democratic norms in some areas and George Bush (unlike Trump) may be a nice guy, but his policies led to the international catastrophe of the Iraq War. Nothing similar happened in terms of foreign policies in the Trump administration. Not that he didn't make mistakes and take bad decisions, but all administrations do.
Sinchan: I couldn't disagree with you more on the distinction you make between Trump's rhetoric and his policies. The damage that he's done to the US government, its foreign policy, and the people the US has abandoned on his watch makes this the most destructive government in my 60+ years. And it really is possible to see the terrible inhumanities the US has inflicted on many parts of the world in its history realistically and still see Trump's administration as different in kind and degree. For the record, I don't see most of the damage Trump has done in terms of "policy." He and his minions spoke in these terms only to mimic the discourse of ordinary administrations. The things that don't benefit Trump or can't be turned to his purposes he perverts or destroys. Most Americans have very little sense of how much he has destroyed, even the ones who dislike him. If Trump had been in charge of the German army pulling out of Paris in 1945, he would've blown up the city just for fun and to see it burn.
I agree that Trump has done some damage; though not so much in terms of foreign policy. In fact, in terms of foreign policy he has made one important contribution. He has changed the conversation on China in American politics. Thus there is no going back to how things were under Obama, however much Biden's Wall Street backers want that. I agree Trump has done some damage to the institution of the Presidency itself, through his coarse verbal rhetoric and his compulsive lying. But #Resistance also did damage to American institutions through actions that they took ostensibly to fight Trump. I studied and teach economics, so I can say with some confidence that the American economy really boomed under Trump before covid. In fact, 2019 was the best year for the economy in a long time, particularly for poor, disadvantaged workers.
Can you please be more specific about things Trump has destroyed? If you don't have time or space here, can you point me to an analysis that you think captures your sense of what Trump has destroyed? I really want to learn more about arguments I disagree with. Thanks again.