{"id":181,"date":"2016-05-01T19:43:22","date_gmt":"2016-05-01T19:43:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pascaleditions.com\/peterthomassimon\/?p=181"},"modified":"2016-05-12T17:32:00","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T17:32:00","slug":"the-case-against-the-people-against-the-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pascaleditions.com\/peterthomassimon\/the-case-against-the-people-against-the-people\/","title":{"rendered":"The Case Against The People Against The People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew<\/span>\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>\u2019s recent assault on\u00a0Trump<\/a>\u00a0in New York Magazine<\/em>\u00a0— “The Case Against The People” — is so bad I am loathe to waste pixels on it, viewing it as little more than the conditioned Pavlovian drool one has come to expect from illiberal liberal commentary on The Donald.\u00a0 You know it\u2019s going to be bad when a mere quick scan pulls up multiple instances of \u201cfascism,\u201d \u201cfascist,\u201d \u201cneo-fascist,\u201d and so on and so on.\u00a0\u00a0 (God, is there no decent\u00a0Marxist<\/i>\u00a0criticism anymore?\u00a0 At least they bothered to trace phenomena back to actual causes.) \u00a0But some pieces are so bad one is honor-bound to call them out as examples of what not to do.<\/p>\n

The \u201calarm bells,\u201d to use one of the other cliches universal in all such productions, begin to sound when the\u00a0ad hominem\u00a0<\/i>attacks start; but they\u00a0really<\/i>\u00a0sound when the author feels safe enough to admit personal revulsion.\u00a0 Says\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>, \u201cAnd so, as I chitchatted over cocktails at a Washington office Christmas party in December,\u201d [nice upper-class social signaling there] \u201cand saw, looming above our heads, the pulsating, angry televised face of Donald Trump on Fox News,\u201d [another great marker \u2014 what,\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>\u00a0watches\u00a0Fox?<\/i>\u00a0 Does\u00a0Trump\u2019s \u201cpulsating (?), angry face\u201d never appear on PBS?\u00a0 What kind of face \u201cpulsates,\u201d anyway?], I couldn\u2019t help but feel a little\u00a0nausea<\/i>\u00a0permeate my stomach. And as I watched\u00a0frenzied\u00a0<\/i>Trump rallies\u2026 the\u00a0nausea<\/i>\u00a0turned to\u00a0dread<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The nausea\u2026 the dread\u2026 Well, to our misfortune, he recovered, and began writing.\u00a0 Surprisingly,\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>\u2019s first argument proved to be a right-wing screed straight out of\u00a0National Review,<\/i>\u00a0not to say numerous white nationalist web sites.\u00a0 His argument:\u00a0\u00a0democracy leads to diversity, diversity leads to all sorts of differences which by definition sap social cohesion, and then, as Yeats says, \u201cthings fall apart, the center cannot hold\u2026 \u201c<\/p>\n

One might expect\u00a0Andrew<\/span>\u00a0to follow the logic of his critique and say, \u201cFriends of Democracy, let us\u00a0pull back<\/i>\u00a0from all this diversity before we go over the brink!\u00a0 Immigration moratorium now!\u00a0 Hispanics, learn English!\u00a0 Trannies, get back in your jockey shorts!\u201d\u00a0 But, of course, if he said that, his article would never appear in\u00a0New York Magazine<\/i>.<\/p>\n

No, we are committed to diversity, which he seems to assume means that we as a society are doomed\u00a0to fall apart, which means that when the chaos becomes intolerable, some brute beast will weld it all back together by undemocratic brute force.\u00a0 Needless to say, this is not the suave and urbane Obama, acting by executive fiat, ordering assassinations, supporting invasions, ordaining bombings; no, it\u2019s pulsating, angry Trump — who has never misused political power because he’s never even\u00a0had<\/i>\u00a0any political power. \u00a0Nonetheless, Trump\u2019s the Coming Darkness.\u00a0 We can be sure of that as we chitchat over our cocktails because\u2026 well, we just can. \u00a0I mean… look<\/em> at that hair.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sadly the full all-out assault on Trump has to wait till\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>\u00a0wades through several boring pages of re-stating others\u2019 off-topic arguments.\u00a0 First we have to put up with several repetitions of Plato\u2019s observation that democracies inevitably turn into tyrannies.\u00a0 They do?\u00a0 Britain\u2019s been a democracy in many respects since the Magna Carta in 1215. \u00a0Sharia law may be just around the corner, but it hasn\u2019t turned fascist yet.\u00a0 Canada started out democratic.\u00a0 Still is.\u00a0 New Zealand ditto.\u00a0 Australia ditto.\u00a0 Granted, there were a swatch of fascist European states and Communist dictatorships a while back.\u00a0 But hey:\u00a0 they seemed to have hopped more from monarchies (or post-WW1 chaos) to tyrannies, actually; and then from tyrannies\u00a0to\u00a0<\/i>democracies.<\/p>\n

What does any of this have to do with Trump?\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 Oh, but we need to understand democracies simply ache<\/em> for brutish takeover, because they do<\/em>, and that Trump is just such a prefect brute<\/em>, fertively\u00a0lurking<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0thirsting,<\/i>\u00a0like the Undead in B movies,\u00a0preparing<\/i>\u00a0to tyrannize.\u00a0 Are there, like, any actual statements of intent that he wishes to rule unopposed, i.e., has he said, \u201cKill the Supreme Court,\u201d or even Rosie O’Donnell, that sort of thing?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 If anything, he\u2019s stresses his\u00a0Art Of The Deal<\/i>\u00a0negotiating skills.\u00a0 Why is he pushing his abilities to work\u00a0with\u00a0<\/i>people if he wants to tyrannize\u00a0over<\/i>\u00a0them?\u00a0\u00a0Because he\u2019s a cunning swine!<\/i><\/p>\n

The next long boring stretch is a recital about how the Founding Fathers, in their wisdom, knew that the\u00a0hoi polloi<\/i>\u00a0were far too dumb to rule themselves, and so, under a veneer of democracy, these wise autocrats slipped in numerous nifty barriers to gut any actual democratic rule. \u00a0Sullivan assures us this was a noble move, blithely shuffling\u00a0Jim Crow and others anti-democratic practices and episodes behind the curtain. \u00a0All we need to know is that misshapen and loathsome Trump is trying to remove these wise barriers to the electorate’s dim stupidity.<\/p>\n

Can one\u00a0imagine\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>\u00a0in 2008 arguing that Obama, winning the popular vote in the primaries, should have them re-routed elsewhere because of the\u00a0nausea<\/i>\u00a0and\u00a0dread<\/i>\u00a0that a possible black President aroused in the author? \u00a0No. \u00a0But this is Trump.\u00a0 Naturally we should take down democracy in order to stop him.\u00a0 If we don\u2019t he may take down democracy!\u00a0 To save the village we have to destroy it!<\/p>\n

And nowhere does\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>\u00a0celebrate the last time these glorious democracy-frustrating aids to wise rule were implemented, namely, in taking the White House away from the popularly-elected Al Gore, and giving it to George W. Bush, the less popular but far<\/em> wiser choice of our ruling elite.\u00a0 That worked out just great, didn’t it?<\/p>\n

Nor does he seem to pause at the fact that these little tweaks to stifle direct democracy seem to have\u00a0 gone a long way to bringing Bernie Sanders down too. \u00a0 (Well, we can’t have\u00a0socialists and Jews<\/i>\u00a0in the White House, can we?\u00a0 Thank Beelzebub we have a pseuso-democratic system that can protect us from such horrors, instead of\u00a0actual<\/em> democracy.)<\/p>\n

Yet at the same time that\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>\u00a0celebrates this castration of democracy, he also tells us that \u201cThe days when party machines just fixed things or rigged elections are mercifully done with.\u201d\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 Tell that to the million Coloradans whose Cruz delegates were chosen unelected.\u00a0 Or to the 500+ super-delegates dropped into Hillary\u2019s pocket at the starting gate.<\/p>\n

The next numbing stretch is a long rehash of The True Believer<\/i>, by Eric Hoffer, an analysis of cultist ideology and mass movements. \u00a0 A well-written and well-reasoned book, to be sure, but why does Sullivan bring this<\/em> particular volume up? \u00a0Trump is renowned for not having an ideology. \u00a0No one really knows if he’s left or right, he isn\u2019t organizing his followers into a unique Trump party, he isn\u2019t building paramilitary units, he doesn\u2019t have any unique symbols or logos or marches or manifestoes.<\/p>\n

Well… \u00a0So what?\u00a0 Connect the hidden dots, reader:\u00a0\u00a0Trumpistas\u00a0<\/i>are the\u00a0coming SS!<\/i>\u00a0 They may look like any old Republican \u2014 mostly because Trump supporters\u00a0are<\/i>\u00a0a majority of Republicans \u2014 but deep down,\u00a0deep<\/i>\u00a0deep down, we know their eye is on\u00a0you<\/i>, liberal, judging you to see whether you are sufficiently ovenworthy for the cleansing to come.<\/p>\n

How do we know Trump is on a par with these other scions of mass genocide?\u00a0\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>\u00a0descends to actual articulars.\u00a0 Trump\u00a0appeared on Howard Stern!\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0The sadist actually, cruelly, said \u201cYou\u2019re Fired!\u201d to actors\u00a0<\/em>on a Reality TV show!\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>He actually\u00a0praised Planned Parenthood!\u00a0\u00a0<\/i>Simple yokels might believe that he did so because he found them praiseworthy; but astute\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>\u00a0readers can be sure that\u00a0post-<\/i>embryonic abortions are even now being planned for those\u00a0New York Magazine<\/i>\u00a0readers who crawled from the womb only to dare to defy the God-Emperor!<\/p>\n

I wish the article had stayed on this more abstract level of absurdity, where one can sagely observe how emotion and language corrupt clear thinking.\u00a0 Sadly, when\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>gets down to particulars, as next he does, the attack becomes becoming outright foolish.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Sullivan: \u00a0\u201cWhat, one wonders, could be more impossible than suddenly vetting every single visitor to the U.S. for traces of Islamic belief?\u201d<\/p>\n

You mean it\u2019s impossible to look at a visa application and see if the \u201cMuslim\u201d box in the Religion section is checked?<\/p>\n

Sulliivan: \u00a0\u201cWhat could be more make-believe than a big, beautiful wall stretching across the entire Mexican border, paid for by the Mexican government?\u201d<\/p>\n

Um \u2014 the Great Wall of China?\u00a0 The walls separating Palestinian settlements from Jewish ones in the West Bank?\u00a0 The miles of\u00a0laser walls<\/a><\/i>\u00a0deployed by India on its Pakistani border that don\u2019t involve so much as one brick?<\/p>\n

Sulliivan: \u00a0\u201cWhat could be more credulous than arguing that we could pay off our national debt through a global trade war?\u201d<\/p>\n

How about arguing that we\u2019ll pay off our national debt much faster by doing nothing while every other country in the world slap tariffs on\u00a0our\u00a0<\/i>goods?\u00a0 Surely if we buy all\u00a0their\u00a0<\/i>stuff and no one buys\u00a0our<\/i>\u00a0stuff, we\u2019ll all be rich as kings!\u00a0 If no one buys what we manufacture while we spend ourselves silly,\u00a0of course\u00a0<\/i>we\u2019ll be out of debt in no time! \u00a0Gosh, if only more\u00a0successful international business billionaires could get\u00a0their basic economics than\u00a0Andrew<\/span>\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>…<\/p>\n

Sulliivan: \u00a0\u201cIn a conventional political party, and in a rational political discourse, such ideas would be laughed out of contention\u2026 \u201c<\/p>\n

Certainly.\u00a0 Why analyze proposals when you can mock them?\u00a0 That\u2019s what rational political discourse is all about.<\/p>\n

At this point\u00a0Sullivan<\/span>\u00a0ditched the Plato and Hoffer and got into serious Trump-bashing. I confess I just could not get through the remaining pages.\u00a0 I mean, it\u2019s not like there\u2019s anything new.\u00a0 One\u2019s eyes glaze over after paragraph after paragraph throws up the same old boilerplate phrases.\u00a0 Consider a sample (with occasional comments in brackets):<\/p>\n