Over more than three decades Gary Kasparov has written, spoken and acted courageously in the defense of freedom and liberal society. In his opposition to Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2016 and to President Trump’s post-election conduct in office Kasparov has consistently warned Americans – most of whom can barely imagine life under a deeply illiberal regime – that the erosion of a constitutional order does not take place suddenly. In this interview he says “It’s not about tanks in the streets.” That statement rebuts, concisely and vividly, the belief of many conservatives that, absent an explicit defiance of the President’s constitutional restraints, Trump poses no real threat to the historically resilient United States institutional structures of governance. Kasparov is asking us to look beyond the simple mechanics of governance, which for the most part have been mainstream and unexceptional during Trump’s term in office, and see in Trump’s indifference or disregard for “honor… traditions [and] certain political rules that are not written in the law books” a fundamental threat to the republic.
Conservatives, habituated to see civil society through a Burkean lens as an artifact constructed organically across long periods of times by the ongoing testing, stressing and balancing of countless checks and balances, will mostly agree that Trump has, at the very least, brought more stress on this equilibrium than any President in living memory. Said simply, Trump is not a conservative, if by that term we mean someone who respects and conserves the inherited institutional framework. Kasparov argues that Trump is a real and ongoing danger to the republic. He is damaging what is best in the flawed but precious system we live in now.
I happen to agree, but here’s the problem, and I would humbly argue that Kasparov and others who make this argument most convincingly (Andrew Sullivan especially) miss, or at least fail to acknowledge: the ascendancy of identity politics and other extreme progressive political forces also radically stresses our constitutional framework. This short comment section isn’t the place to argue that case; most readers will be at least somewhat familiar with it.
So here’s the point: many of us feel the danger to our constitutional order from both directions, and it isn’t enough to point out Trump’s depradations to indicate a way out of the danger. There’s not much of a market for “the US constitutional framework is in trouble no matter who gets elected” commentary, but it seems closest to the truth. This is a perilous time for liberal society, and it isn’t clear yet what it will take from each of us to preserve it, whatever the outcome on November 3rd.
So true! There is another difference; the threat from the Right is widely recognised and acknowledged within and outside USA, the threat from the Left not so much. Second, radical left wing ideas have become very popular in elite institutions in academia and the media/cultural sectors. And these institutions play an important role in shaping public opinion. Finally, once Trump is gone, is there still a threat from the Right? Of course, the Republican party will still be full of. bad ideas, but that is different from a threat to liberty or the Constitutional order. On the other hand, even after Trump is gone, the threat from the Left will very much be there.
One thing that astonishes me sometimes when I talk to young people is that they are often unaware of any instance - not one! - of a tyrannical regime other than Nazi Germany. That educational gap is, obviously, not their fault, but it produces a blindness in which racial hatred looks like the uniquely defining characteristic of murderous societies. The notion that utopian ideological aims are not only no barrier to autocracy and totalitarianism but often its precursor strikes them as ridiculous. The "equality of opportunity" / "equality of outcome" distinction sounds like a game of semantics. "Equality for all" seems not merely unobjectionable but pure, beautiful and unquestionably visionary. What could go wrong? They do not know, and they do not ask. They don't realize that tens of millions of graves have been filled in just the past century by political actors who flew the very same flags they are themselves now carrying. It's scary.
Brilliant comment, Thanks! You probably already this article, but if not I think you will like it. She analyses how such extremism grew on American campuses until it took over academia.
Hi Sinchan. Thank you for the link to Lama Abu-Odeh's excellent article. I had not read it. I myself work for one of those "liberal institutions that are buckling," a multi-national corporation which cheerfully employs the rhetoric of Critical Race Theory and enthusiastically subsidizes its adherents. Speech regulation, innocuous enough for now, has become official policy, as has the advocacy of politically correct beliefs in, for example, "implicit bias." I choose to believe that the culture and leadership of the company, both of which I genuinely admire, are well-intentioned and honorable in their wish to make the world a better place.
Do they really believe in these ideas? As Ms. Abu-Odeh suggests about the progressive academic boomers, the answer is probably "Yeah, sort of." My guess is that the stewardship of several hundred billion dollars in market capitalization has a way of focusing the mind. If the identitarian chickens do someday come to roost in woke corporations we'll see reversion to more narrow, apolitical and traditional definitions of corporate purpose. In the meantime the chickens are loose, dissent is verboten, and it's anybody's guess whether corporations, like the academy, will be unable to rein in the totalizing morality of these forces when they are turned on their sponsors.
Hi Chris, Thanks for your response. The identarian chickens could come to roost in woke corporations pretty soon! The idea is that each sphere of human activity or organisation or company should have roughly equal representation of different races. (for example, if the Cleveland symphony orchestra has a lower % of black musicians than the % of black population in Cleveland, they could be accused of "systemic racism" etc). That means all races should be equally represented ideally at all levels of the organisation. I don't see how American corporations benefit if such an ideology gains wide acceptance in society among the elite.
But I guess there is also an element of cynicism? For example, if CRT infused diversity training creates a workplace with some degree of racial tension, perhaps that reduces the chances of unionisation or any other collective action by employees that could hurt the bottomline. Most woke corporations (and their representative the American Chamber of Commerce) will lose their minds if a liberal administration proposes mandatory paid sick leave or maternity leave. Wokeness, on the other hand, improves your public image somewhat, but has the benefit that it doesn't cost any actual money. (apart from the few hours of diversity training by the clerisy). Moreover, you want to be ahead of the curve; signal your virtue before others have had the chance to accuse you of anything! Does any of this ring true?
I agree, Chris Nathan. even though I'm not a historian by training, I constantly teach history now as a way of acquainting students with some of these regimes and the utopian promises that enabled them. When I make connections of the sort you describe, I generally get the result you describe. I'm also extremely troubled that most college students I teach can't imagine any outcome from their demands other than the obedience of their fellow citizens. Why? Because they're right. In the past few years, I've taken to asking them what degree of force or coercion they're willing to use or support to make other citizens obey their dictates. The responses are truly depressing.
Hi Sinchan: as we've talked about before, I agree with you about the radical academic left, its bad ideas, and the consequences of what I think of as a left authoritarianism in universities and culture. However, I fear that the political force of right-wing authoritarianism that Trump has encouraged and consolidated is a continuing threat that we shouldn't underestimate. I fear we're caught between these two authoritarian tendencies. But the one on the right is now relatively organized, enjoys various levels of support from what used to be the Republican establishment, and has guns.
Thanks for your post. I noted in this chat that Kasparov did call attention to "fringes on both sides," which is quite right. Sometimes I fear that Trump's "very fine people" comment has spoiled the legitimacy of the kinds of "both sides" arguments we need to make to break the deadlock of GWB's "with us or against us."
What we have learned from the last 4 years is that 1) our civil service and our military are subject to serious political pressure, 2) we have very weak system of checks and balances, 3) there is no one person - one vote; we now have minority rule. In all other western democracies Judge Barrett could only be confirmed by a representative body and in general, by more than a one person majority.
I think Mr. Kasparov's pearl-clutching over Judge Barrett's evading Senator Booker's question is -- as you can probably tell from my choice of metaphor -- reading more into that exchange than is there. I don't know that Judge Barrett isn't secretly a fascist, but I certainly have no reason to suspect it and the exchange with Senator Booker doesn't change that.
Why should Amy Coney Barrett be involved in a current political controversy just because a Senator, a political creature, is trying to involve her in it? When you look at the relevant clip on Google, it is clear what Cory Booker was trying to do politically. Judge Barrett's response is totally appropriate. But maybe Mr Kasparov disagrees? Fine. But to say on this basis that the judiciary's independence is being eroded or Amy Coney Barrett is not fit to serve on the Supreme Court is astonishing hyperbole. Is this the Rachel Maddow show or Persuasion? Very disappointed with this kind of rhetoric.
Over more than three decades Gary Kasparov has written, spoken and acted courageously in the defense of freedom and liberal society. In his opposition to Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2016 and to President Trump’s post-election conduct in office Kasparov has consistently warned Americans – most of whom can barely imagine life under a deeply illiberal regime – that the erosion of a constitutional order does not take place suddenly. In this interview he says “It’s not about tanks in the streets.” That statement rebuts, concisely and vividly, the belief of many conservatives that, absent an explicit defiance of the President’s constitutional restraints, Trump poses no real threat to the historically resilient United States institutional structures of governance. Kasparov is asking us to look beyond the simple mechanics of governance, which for the most part have been mainstream and unexceptional during Trump’s term in office, and see in Trump’s indifference or disregard for “honor… traditions [and] certain political rules that are not written in the law books” a fundamental threat to the republic.
Conservatives, habituated to see civil society through a Burkean lens as an artifact constructed organically across long periods of times by the ongoing testing, stressing and balancing of countless checks and balances, will mostly agree that Trump has, at the very least, brought more stress on this equilibrium than any President in living memory. Said simply, Trump is not a conservative, if by that term we mean someone who respects and conserves the inherited institutional framework. Kasparov argues that Trump is a real and ongoing danger to the republic. He is damaging what is best in the flawed but precious system we live in now.
I happen to agree, but here’s the problem, and I would humbly argue that Kasparov and others who make this argument most convincingly (Andrew Sullivan especially) miss, or at least fail to acknowledge: the ascendancy of identity politics and other extreme progressive political forces also radically stresses our constitutional framework. This short comment section isn’t the place to argue that case; most readers will be at least somewhat familiar with it.
So here’s the point: many of us feel the danger to our constitutional order from both directions, and it isn’t enough to point out Trump’s depradations to indicate a way out of the danger. There’s not much of a market for “the US constitutional framework is in trouble no matter who gets elected” commentary, but it seems closest to the truth. This is a perilous time for liberal society, and it isn’t clear yet what it will take from each of us to preserve it, whatever the outcome on November 3rd.
So true! There is another difference; the threat from the Right is widely recognised and acknowledged within and outside USA, the threat from the Left not so much. Second, radical left wing ideas have become very popular in elite institutions in academia and the media/cultural sectors. And these institutions play an important role in shaping public opinion. Finally, once Trump is gone, is there still a threat from the Right? Of course, the Republican party will still be full of. bad ideas, but that is different from a threat to liberty or the Constitutional order. On the other hand, even after Trump is gone, the threat from the Left will very much be there.
One thing that astonishes me sometimes when I talk to young people is that they are often unaware of any instance - not one! - of a tyrannical regime other than Nazi Germany. That educational gap is, obviously, not their fault, but it produces a blindness in which racial hatred looks like the uniquely defining characteristic of murderous societies. The notion that utopian ideological aims are not only no barrier to autocracy and totalitarianism but often its precursor strikes them as ridiculous. The "equality of opportunity" / "equality of outcome" distinction sounds like a game of semantics. "Equality for all" seems not merely unobjectionable but pure, beautiful and unquestionably visionary. What could go wrong? They do not know, and they do not ask. They don't realize that tens of millions of graves have been filled in just the past century by political actors who flew the very same flags they are themselves now carrying. It's scary.
Brilliant comment, Thanks! You probably already this article, but if not I think you will like it. She analyses how such extremism grew on American campuses until it took over academia.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/campus-week-cancel-culture
Hi Sinchan. Thank you for the link to Lama Abu-Odeh's excellent article. I had not read it. I myself work for one of those "liberal institutions that are buckling," a multi-national corporation which cheerfully employs the rhetoric of Critical Race Theory and enthusiastically subsidizes its adherents. Speech regulation, innocuous enough for now, has become official policy, as has the advocacy of politically correct beliefs in, for example, "implicit bias." I choose to believe that the culture and leadership of the company, both of which I genuinely admire, are well-intentioned and honorable in their wish to make the world a better place.
Do they really believe in these ideas? As Ms. Abu-Odeh suggests about the progressive academic boomers, the answer is probably "Yeah, sort of." My guess is that the stewardship of several hundred billion dollars in market capitalization has a way of focusing the mind. If the identitarian chickens do someday come to roost in woke corporations we'll see reversion to more narrow, apolitical and traditional definitions of corporate purpose. In the meantime the chickens are loose, dissent is verboten, and it's anybody's guess whether corporations, like the academy, will be unable to rein in the totalizing morality of these forces when they are turned on their sponsors.
Hi Chris, Thanks for your response. The identarian chickens could come to roost in woke corporations pretty soon! The idea is that each sphere of human activity or organisation or company should have roughly equal representation of different races. (for example, if the Cleveland symphony orchestra has a lower % of black musicians than the % of black population in Cleveland, they could be accused of "systemic racism" etc). That means all races should be equally represented ideally at all levels of the organisation. I don't see how American corporations benefit if such an ideology gains wide acceptance in society among the elite.
But I guess there is also an element of cynicism? For example, if CRT infused diversity training creates a workplace with some degree of racial tension, perhaps that reduces the chances of unionisation or any other collective action by employees that could hurt the bottomline. Most woke corporations (and their representative the American Chamber of Commerce) will lose their minds if a liberal administration proposes mandatory paid sick leave or maternity leave. Wokeness, on the other hand, improves your public image somewhat, but has the benefit that it doesn't cost any actual money. (apart from the few hours of diversity training by the clerisy). Moreover, you want to be ahead of the curve; signal your virtue before others have had the chance to accuse you of anything! Does any of this ring true?
I agree, Chris Nathan. even though I'm not a historian by training, I constantly teach history now as a way of acquainting students with some of these regimes and the utopian promises that enabled them. When I make connections of the sort you describe, I generally get the result you describe. I'm also extremely troubled that most college students I teach can't imagine any outcome from their demands other than the obedience of their fellow citizens. Why? Because they're right. In the past few years, I've taken to asking them what degree of force or coercion they're willing to use or support to make other citizens obey their dictates. The responses are truly depressing.
Hi Sinchan: as we've talked about before, I agree with you about the radical academic left, its bad ideas, and the consequences of what I think of as a left authoritarianism in universities and culture. However, I fear that the political force of right-wing authoritarianism that Trump has encouraged and consolidated is a continuing threat that we shouldn't underestimate. I fear we're caught between these two authoritarian tendencies. But the one on the right is now relatively organized, enjoys various levels of support from what used to be the Republican establishment, and has guns.
Thanks for your post. I noted in this chat that Kasparov did call attention to "fringes on both sides," which is quite right. Sometimes I fear that Trump's "very fine people" comment has spoiled the legitimacy of the kinds of "both sides" arguments we need to make to break the deadlock of GWB's "with us or against us."
What we have learned from the last 4 years is that 1) our civil service and our military are subject to serious political pressure, 2) we have very weak system of checks and balances, 3) there is no one person - one vote; we now have minority rule. In all other western democracies Judge Barrett could only be confirmed by a representative body and in general, by more than a one person majority.
I think Mr. Kasparov's pearl-clutching over Judge Barrett's evading Senator Booker's question is -- as you can probably tell from my choice of metaphor -- reading more into that exchange than is there. I don't know that Judge Barrett isn't secretly a fascist, but I certainly have no reason to suspect it and the exchange with Senator Booker doesn't change that.
Why should Amy Coney Barrett be involved in a current political controversy just because a Senator, a political creature, is trying to involve her in it? When you look at the relevant clip on Google, it is clear what Cory Booker was trying to do politically. Judge Barrett's response is totally appropriate. But maybe Mr Kasparov disagrees? Fine. But to say on this basis that the judiciary's independence is being eroded or Amy Coney Barrett is not fit to serve on the Supreme Court is astonishing hyperbole. Is this the Rachel Maddow show or Persuasion? Very disappointed with this kind of rhetoric.