Certain writers, correct or not, are valuable and a joy to read. (G. K. Chesterton, for instance, with whom I agree less and less each year, but whose every page is sparkling.)\u00a0 They have style. So much style that it excuses even a feebleness of substance, if enough verbal gracefulness is applied.<\/p>\n
Andrew Sullivan has style.\u00a0 But he doesn\u2019t have quite enough to cover his deficits of substance, which are increasingly (in both senses of the word) yawning. My view of him sank precipitously upon a New York Magazine<\/em> hit piece on Trump, and then seeing the sputtering follow-up interview with Chris Matthews. \u00a0When a writer gets on the tube and call the presumptive Republican nominee a “neofascist” and \u201ca Reality TV asshole,\u201d one strains to compliment him on the nuanced elegance of his learned self-expression. True, his positions have been morally and intellectually incoherent for quite a while. Sullivan has been a cheerleader for George Bush and Barack Obama, The Bell Curve<\/em> and the war in Iraq. \u00a0He\u2019s supported torture and Thatcher, and is a \u201cfaithful Roman Catholic\u201d who, to quote Wikipedia<\/a>, has \u201cposted anonymous online advertisements for unprotected anal sex, preferably with \u2018other HIV-positive men\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n A record\u00a0of sound judgements? \u00a0Hardly. \u00a0Sullivan doesn\u2019t seem to arrive<\/em> at sound judgements. He starts<\/em> from personal preferences<\/em>, then shores them up with a display of florid verbosity which every writer must admire, but before which every reasonable citizen must cringe. \u00a0Regrettably, he has his fans and some are notable, such as Ross Douthat, who meditates on Sullivan’s recent abysmal performance at length in a recent Times column<\/a>, and, alas, falls under Sullivan’s musical spell.<\/p>\n Take this selection of Sullivaniana that Douthat favored enough to quote:<\/p>\n As the authority of elites fades, as Establishment values cede to popular ones, views and identities can become so magnificently diverse as to be mutually uncomprehending. And when all the barriers to equality, formal and informal, have been removed; when everyone is equal; when elites are despised and full license is established to do \u201cwhatever one wants,\u201d you arrive at what might be called late-stage democracy \u2026 And it is when a democracy has ripened as fully as this, Plato argues, that a would-be tyrant will often seize his moment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Lovely sentence. But is it even remotely in touch with reality? The \u201cauthority of elites\u201d has faded? Try sailing into Martha’s Vineyard with a coterie of fellow migrants and see how long it takes to experience some authority. \u201cMagnificently diverse\u201d? He finds it \u201cmagnificent\u201d that Trump parties in Trump Tower while Ferguson burns and Somali illegals rape children? \u201cElites are despised\u201d? Has anyone told the Kardashians, the Kennedys, the producers of Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous?<\/em> Full license to do \u201cwhatever one wants\u201d? Like say the \u201cN\u201d word? Refuse to bake a cake for gays? Protest in Washington on January 6? License? What<\/em> license? Those things get you arrested, jailed, fired, shunned, sued and on occasion killed.<\/p>\n Till recently, the relation between elites and democracy in America recalled Frederick The Great\u2019s bon mot<\/em>: \u201cThe people say whatever they want. And I do whatever I want.\u201d \u00a0Ah, where are such benevolent tyrants now? \u00a0In today’s triumphant democracy, say one wrong word and \u2014 unless you\u2019re a real estate investor with very deep pockets and orange hair \u2014 your career is over.<\/p>\n Sullivan calls this coercive and inegalitarian society \u201clate-stage democracy,\u201d and he fears the coming<\/em> tyrannization? Look out the window, Andy. It\u2019s here.<\/p>\n I doubt Sullivan is really disturbed about Plato or the supposed applicability of his notions to technological societies 2,400 years in the future. He just wants to throw some rich black mud at Donald Trump. The racist \/ sexist \/ homophobe \/ bigot \/ Hitler chants are getting old. We need to come up with a new label:\u00a0 King. Tyrant.<\/em> The fascist label isn\u2019t sticking, so let\u2019s strike a new path, get classical, and drag in Plato for a dash of class. Mind you, to date Trump has never<\/em> held any<\/em> political power at all<\/em>, but he\u2019s Trump<\/em>, so who cares? \u00a0Hillary has held power, and, if Libya is any indication, deployed it stupidly and brutally.\u00a0 But is Hillary a potential tyrant? Hillary?<\/em> Hillary who?<\/p>\n Ross Douthat, a far more consistent writer Sullivan, is not alone in suffering the same affliction as other readers and finding Sullivan\u2019s style and show of learning seductive. They’re qualities that turn up nicely in Dothat\u2019s own writing, and if the influence stopped at sentence structure, I\u2019d be a happy reader. But the intelletual incoherence infects it too, when Ross gets too close, and it does so drearily. Thus, Ross:<\/p>\n Yes, maybe that wider elite, too, has lost the ability to coordinate against a demagogue;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Which is why all 1,399 (minus four, now) newspapers in the US oppose Trump? \u00a0Why the whole of the mainstream media has been wallowing in the Hitler meme for months?\u00a0 Why the super delegates that could put Bernie Sanders in first place put Hillary there before the race even began?<\/p>\n \u2026maybe it, too, is so disdained and dismissed by We the People that the public can be persuaded to replace our overclass en masse with Corey Lewandowski and his epigones.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s right, Ross. The world-encircling Hive Mind of the overclass, the full entirety of the 1%, is about to be booted onto the street as Corey Lewandowski and friends move in. Hopefully there\u2019s room in your basement for Sheldon Adelson.<\/p>\n But despite (or because of?) its many vices, our power elite actually seems pretty unified and confident in its own cosmopolitan virtue, pretty good at steering public opinion on many controversial issues, and pretty determined to keep a force like Trumpism at bay.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Pretty good at steering public opinion? Of course they are. That\u2019s why roughly two out of three Americans don\u2019t want any more Muslim immigrants, don\u2019t want any more immigration at all, don\u2019t want NAFTA, don\u2019t want any more foreign military involvement, and do<\/em>\u00a0want Trump.<\/p>\n Now If Ross were to say that our power elite is good at making the media organs they own<\/em> put out the message they want put out, with monolithic uniformity, that might be an accurate statement. The problem is, the uniformity is so monolithic and so gross and so obviously an expression of elite, not public, interests. Interest that the public just doesn\u2019t believe in any more.<\/p>\n Douthat rightly and sagely points out that a democracy\u2019s culture doesn\u2019t necessarily translate into a democracy\u2019s politics. He might better have read Martin Gilen\u2019s study<\/a> on how the elite works to shape<\/em>\u00a0democratic culture through<\/em> politics. Where, for instance, is the burning, overwhelming public groundswell to open girls’ bathrooms to guys? But sexual idiosyncrasy is now sacrosanct, a given for a bored elite ever ready for new diversions; and while trickle-down economics is pass\u00e9, trickle-down morality is mandatory.<\/p>\n Ross doesn\u2019t explore this particular aspect of our democracy \u2014 true, it supports his perception that the elite are far from down and out, but it might appear to question the axiomatic liberal morality of the Times<\/em>. That way lies madness, and worse: a pink slip. So he dithers:<\/p>\n Which major donor to the left of Michael Bloomberg is going to sit on their hands rather than give to Hillary, the way that many Republican donors sat on their hands rather than go all-in for Cruz and Kasich and even Rubio?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cSat on their hands\u201d? Here\u2019s a NY Times list<\/a> of a hundred<\/em> donors dropping at least a million apiece on the candidates. One<\/em> single candidate other than Trump donated to Trump; all the rest went to Cruz and Kasich and Rubio and Hillary.<\/p>\n How many mainstream media figures are going to go all-in for Trump in the style of Sean Hannity or certain segments of talk radio?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Um\u2026 several hundred<\/a>? (Y\u2019know, it\u2019s really easy to research these things, Ross.)<\/p>\n (Trump will get obsessive mainstream media coverage, but he already gets that, and all those hours of CNN and the nightly news have delivered him a 30 percent approval rating.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Uh\u2026 no. He just took the Northeast and Indiana with roughly 60% and more. \u00a0He got more than all his opponents put together. Remember?<\/p>\n Which apolitical gurus are going to go to work to build his turnout operation, his voter targeting, his web presence, his ad campaign?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Given that all those conventional things were deployed to the max by Trump opponents from Bush to Cruz, and they all failed miserably, should Trump really care?<\/p>\n Which retired generals and foreign policy hands are going to line up behind him, vouching for his soundness of mind and seriousness of purpose?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I was not aware that retired generals dictated who is to be our President, or are so versed in Freudian psychoanalysis as to sit in judgement on our candidates\u2019 soundness of mind. Though I must wonder why Ross is neglecting to cite former Navy Secretary Jim Webb, who has been on Trump\u2019s shortlist for VP for a while now. \u00a0And I also wonder why Ross has also not looked at actual military service members<\/em>, who, according to one poll,<\/a> prefer Trump over Hillary by nearly three to one. \u00a0Is there a gap between elite and rank-an-file there too? \u00a0Yes, yes, Ross we all know you can write<\/em>. \u00a0Some evidence<\/em>, please?<\/p>\n Which pundit-intellectuals are going to channel their Hillary-skepticism into a full-throated support for Trump? (Not Sullivan, clearly \u2026)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Well, no, not Sullivan. He has other intellectual things to do \u2014 put out ads for unprotected anal sex and the like. As far as pundit-intellectuals go, however, I suppose Ross is unaware of a major schism among the more esoteric intellectuals, like the American Straussians<\/a>, a significant proportion of whom appear to be Trumping rather heavily<\/a>. He entirely ignores the Alt Right<\/a>, of course, and the neoreactionaries<\/a>, the paleoconservatives like Paul Gottfried<\/a>, dissident rightists like Ann Coulter<\/a> and John Derbyshire<\/a>. They\u2019re 100% pro-Trump, but the New York Times won\u2019t publish them<\/em> (though, holding their nose, they\u2019ll grudgingly print rankings of Ann\u2019s ten NYT best sellers). And, you know, if the Times<\/em> won\u2019t touch you, then there\u2019s just nothing more to say: you really are a mere common bozo, and Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan don\u2019t need to take note of you.<\/p>\n \u201cBut Ann Coulter sells more books and has more readers than both of you put together!\u201d Oh shut up. (Bigot.)<\/p>\n Ross winds up his argument by saying, in contrast to Sullivan, that It Can\u2019t Happen Here, because here The Responsible Media — valiant American patriots like Ross and Andrew — are unified and foursquare in their policing of Neanderthal yawps burbling up from the Populist underbelly in the misshapen form of lurching humpbacks like Donald Trump, the Cthulhu from the caucuses. No, the real<\/em> danger, warns Ross, would be a President who has the complete blessing<\/em> of the Fourth Estate, our noble cultural guardians. Such a President could order assassinations willy-nilly; have drones obliterate entire villages just to torch one suspect; commit troops all over the world without any Congressional approval at all; engage in covert activities hidden from all public scrutiny; defy Congress; ignore border-control laws; such a man would be the sort of President \u2014 why, the sort of President who looks a lot like our current President, Barack Obama, come to think of it.<\/p>\n Oh, that would be bad!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Certain writers, correct or not, are valuable and a joy to read. (G. K. Chesterton, for instance, with whom I agree less and less each year, but whose every page is sparkling.)\u00a0 They have style. So much style that it excuses even a feebleness of substance, if enough verbal gracefulness is applied. Andrew Sullivan has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-ephemera","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\n