Tuesday, August 2, 2022

American Political Future

 The shadow remains.

The future of American politics will be, in the main, fairly grim. I hope to offer an analysis that is not a value judgement, but an examination of the conditions. First, I want to recapitulate a criticism of the reified myths of the generic liberal textbook:

 No government has been unified, but usually criss-crossed by various factions or cliques that find mutual alignment. FDR held together a complex coalition of New York Yankee oligarchic finance, southern & western populists, and Rockefeller Republicans interested in defense of American business in Asia. With FDR's death and the end of World War Two, Republicans increasingly became frustrated with Truman's administration and its lack of attention to Asia, particularly China. Truman was a machine politician, but he depended upon FDR's brain-trust to conduct his foreign policy. Barely winning out against Yankee Progressive-lite Dewey, Truman alienated many conservatives when he sacked MacArthur and allowed China to go Red. With the voter animated, the Republican Party defended the legacy of the New Deal when it allowed Eisenhower to cheat his way into the nomination. The Me Too Republicans brought the old mid-west conservatives to a close and continued the same policies, with a pivot to Asia. Eisenhower struggled to placate these critics, while his government was full of Yankee money and Rockefeller influence, along with the growing Military-Industrial Complex and a combinatrix of business and labor. The 50s were booming. In 1960s, the Yankee establishment and the southern populists helped catapult John Kennedy into office, stealing enough votes in Texas and Illinois to pull it off. But Kennedy was a caesarist, treating the "Whiz Kids" as tools to cement his own popularity and power. Disgusted with the growing power of the Establishment, Kennedy was willing to slash to carry out his own policies, until he met his own end.

After Kennedy, Johnson inherited a cabinet full of Establishment, WASP intellectuals, and a splash of Southern populists. However, many Southern populists had become alienated from Johnson, as he had made a deal to side with Kennedy. The government largesse of the New Deal was strained and being deployed to minorities. Additionally, efforts to fix racial imbalances through social engineering angered southern whites, who felt their culture was being put under armed guard. Southern populists increasingly bolted from Johnson, who had been a mediating figure, and would turn against his '68 successor, Hubert Humphrey. But then again, Johnson did not care much for Humphrey and had become exhausted from his failures. He had bridled and channeled the Civil Rights Movement, by making them apart of the welfare coalition, turning black politics into one more ethnic enclave looking for goods. He had also expanded the scope of government through his vain monument to self, the Great Society. But Vietnam was another story. Confused by spooks, state department reps, military generals, and the national security advisors who talked him into a tizzy, Johnson was through. This left the door open to Nixon. Having built a coalition on conservative frustration, southern populists (who were moderate New Dealers from Dixiecrat Wallace's white welfare programs), and the rump of Me Too Republicans, Nixon snatched a narrow victory over Humphrey. Having deigned to end the war in Vietnam as a mechanism towards world stability, Nixon spent the next four years secretly trading a Vietnam victory for a triangulation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China. He succeeded. Combined with his moderated domestic policies, welfare-warfare proved a powerful combination. The acid and abortion candidacy of McGovern was blown apart. But not everyone was happy. The Watergate burglary, concerned as it was with covering up a CIA honey-pot and using Nixon's umbrella, embroiled the president in scandal. Now, his enemies sharpened their knives. Frustrated Establishment Liberals lamented his conservative rhetoric and law and order policies. Federal bureaucrats despised the loss of their powers as the presidency concentrated in Nixon's choices. The military felt sold out over Vietnam being determined by Jew Kissinger. All conspired in Nixon's downfall. With the alliance between Washington Post liberals and military asset Woodward, internal leaks and animosities would bury Nixon. In his last gasp, having lost his protective threat in the corrupt Agnew, Nixon resigned himself to his fate. He nominated a moderate and mundane Ford, and took his leave.

Ford carried on the Nixon coalition, and policy, but alienated the conservative wing. Barely surviving a 1976 primary from Cowboy insurgent Reagan, Ford dumped his liberal aspects and tried to appeal to a middle. But this was not enough. Democrats had reeled from the New Left take over in 1972, and brought the party around a moderate governor, with personally conservative bonafides, James Carter. The Carter government was made up of conflicting elements. On the one hand, Nixon's policies had opened the door to absorb the USSR and PRC into the market-order that the Anglo-American victors of World War Two forged in Bretton-Woods. This order, having reformulated by jettisoning the gold-standard, required reworking. Including Western Europe and Japan, the Trilateral Commission hoped to defend the globalist order through a diffusion of American power. This approach could woo these regional powers to the table. On the other hand, Carter's government had old-school liberal hawks. They did not want the Soviet Union on its feet, but on its knees. Sabotaging efforts at SALT II, Carter's government by 1978 had become increasingly hawkish. But this could not staunch the critique he had become soft. Additionally, the 1970s saw the wartime boom of American global dominance dry out. The US economy was no longer the industrial aid producer, with both West Germany and Japan on their feet. Reagan clubbed Carter with these failures, consolidated with his October Surprise shadow agreement with the new Iranian Revolution government. The Nixon doctrine was dead.

Reagan, however, was an actor with a fairly liberal background. A former Democrat, Reagan was effectively a Me Too Republican. However, he channeled his hawkishness to attract conservatives and presided over a fairly liberal gubernatorial reign. In 1980, the same contradictions remained. Reagan's government had both southwest Cowboys and Me Too liberals. The former represented up-and-coming oil interests and defense contractors in the southwest. The latter represented the remnants of the internationalist liberal republicans, which were willing to use state power to crack down on crime and communism at home and abroad. The failed, probably Bush encouraged, assassination of Reagan left the Cowboys in charge. But the Iran-Contra scandal, which sent Oliver North to jail and jeopardized a number of Cowboys in government, put Bush in charge. From 1988, Bush coasted into office from the boom years of Reagan, channeling his legacy, using his rhetoric, but keeping his Internationalist efforts. As one example, Bush was the last member of his government to realize that Gorbechev could not be saved, and the Soviet Union would dissolve. The idea was international order, and rule breakers would be punished. Whether it was former allies Noriega or Hussein, anyone who threatened to deviated from this globalist hyper-American order was shut down. What made this global rules-based order hyper-American was its projection of a certain elite vision of a plastic alchemical universal peace, against the concrete historical American culture that existed. Bush would eventually give way to Clinton, who attacked him as a hawk and from his right. Clinton slid into government, bringing back east-liberals, but also the up and rising tech sector in California, as well as Wall St which knew they had an ally. Clinton maintained his position, waged his wars, and expanded the tech sector through his Dot-Com Boom. While Gore seemed a shoe-in, some Americans were wary of this endless war, especially as human-rights violations had replaced the far more sinister and ideological potent threat of Communism. Bush II won, barely, through a little bit of vote rigging in his brother's Florida.

Bush II brought in a mixed coalition. The ruling faction was his father's men, the liberal internationalists who came under the banner of "compassionate conservatism" as a reformatted Me Too Republicanism. Tech sector and Wall St would get their support, yet international intervention would slow down. However, part of this coalition were Neo-cons, post-Trotskyist democratic ideologues which sought a full-frontal war for civilization. These dovetailed with a rump of Cowboys (manifest in Cheney and Rumsfeld) who wanted access to Arab oil on their own terms, coupled with battles which would increase defense spending. 9/11 became the means for these people to seize control. However, it was limited. Unable to gain absolute victory over Afghanistan and their ramming through the Iraq War, the liberal internationalists and career bureaucrats struck. With events like the Plame Affair as serially undermining Bush's legitimacy, he was given reelection through a combined voter inertia and concerted effort to keep the election in his hands (a little bit of vote rigging and media kid gloves). Bush cleaned up his act and the liberal internationalists, with their Me Too socialism, triumphed. No Kid Left Behind and the TARP are only two ways this economic interventionism, without any oversight over profits from government funds, continued. Bush gave way to Obama, who channeled populism to overcome the basically identical McCain. Obama carried on, and expanded, Bush's policies. He abandoned the Neo-con Middle East project, winding down the Iraq War. With the War in Afghanistan as "the good war", Obama made his "pivot to Asia". Instead of ideological confrontation, liberal internationalists chose color revolution. Instead of actively invading Egypt or Libya or Syria, the state department fomented a mix of liberal democratic angst with Islamist politics. The end result saw the brief overturn of Egyptian secularism, the death of Gaddafi for slave markets, and the attempt on Assad. In Asia, America sought to secure its presence in Western Asia (buoyed with the killing of Osama bin Laden), and strengthen its command in Eastern Asia. However, Obama himself owed much of his power to the Clinton networks. These pursued the old liberal internationalist concern about Russia, while Obama's tech supporters revealed a growing concern over China's industrial capacity. Under Xi, China had removed its pro-Western leadership and pursued increasingly independent policies outside the rules-based order. Nevertheless, with weak challengers from the Republicans (McCain and Romney as militant liberals, who channeled conservative nationalist rhetoric about overseas expansion and government overreach), Obama maintained this coalition. Obama's two terms signified a clear shift to preserve this global order.

In comes Trump. The almost arrogant presumption that Hilary Clinton would win, as heir apparent, was dashed against clever campaigning. Clinton had the backing of Wall St, the tech sector, and the full push of Democratic urban political machines. Trump seemed to bluster into the nomination on rhetoric alone (a victory Clinton celebrated). Without infrastructure or clear party command, Trump was supposed to flounder. However, as clear in his choices, Trump had made deals of his own. He had signed up with the Blue Team of the military establishment, promising increased conflict with Asia. Clinton had shifted towards Russia, not China, and this had alienated some. Additionally, some in the tech sector (particularly the brilliant and well-organized Peter Thiel) had failed to appreciate Clinton as anything but a worn out act. A gay heterodox Christian of dual citizenship, Thiel had a more robust vision for American geopolitics. It was not possible for America to continue at the rate it was going if it were to remain a world power. The globalist network was already beginning to shake, as the US struggled to find victory in the Middle East, retain its European allies, and additionally contain China and, perhaps, a resurgent Russia. For Clinton, Putin was the scariest. A dyed-in-the-wool national liberal, Putin attempted to defend Russia from international investors (driving out many oligarchs to London), while at the same time extending a hand to Europe. He hoped greater partnership would see both Europe and Russia grow wealthy. Thiel saw this reality and, as a rogue tech sector faction and investor, believed the proper enemy was China. Russia, a historic antagonist to its southern neighbor, may be an aid to contain the rising dragon. For Thiel, the only future for American global power was for America to abandon the globalist project. Akin to China, America should develop a regional sphere of influence, that then could expand to offer a friendly monetary hand to the rest of the world. Like China, America's tech sector could aid in governance and control, even if this policy was pursued through public-private partnership instead of direct state snooping. Palantir, not the Total Information Awareness system, could provide a more robust means to root out criminals and subversives.

Trump's four years in office reflected some of these goals. His immigration policies restricted skill-less workers, but attracted competent tech sector employees (under the auspices of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner). Trump lost his Pentagon support (manifest in Mathis and Kelly departing), but he retained critical support from some of the old deep-state cowboys (eg Bill Barr, Eliot Abrams). Steve Bannon was a foreign policy pundit who signaled this growing Blue Team concern about China's military, economic, and technological growth. As an internal CIA powerpoint presentation shows - acquired through FOIA - there is a concern that China may simply overcome the US' technological capacity. To that end, the malleability of the US economy needs be improved. Things that hinder quick adjustment (eg individual ownership of cars, paper money, property ownership) must be abandoned. Instead, a more fluid economy must be adapted, one that prioritizes division of labor over private property. It's only a fast paced economy, with rapid overturn in technology and lots of spending, which will thrive in the growing struggle between nations. All of these things represent the kind of vision Thiel wants to enact. It is only through these means that can bring an age of American power, even as it abandons its claim as global hegemony. The seemingly innocuous "rules-based order" cannot sustain itself. If it falls while America still upholds it, ruined through catastrophe and crisis, then not only would the American global empire fall, but it would plunge the American nation into chaos.

Trump haphazardly pursued these ends. The reality of the Trump presidency was not ideological conformity, but destructive revelation. Trump revealed the limits of the presidency before a sprawling bureaucracy. Trump exposed the interconnections between military, media, and deep-state. He operated as a battering ram, even as his actual governing was impotent. It was not his policies, but his impotency which demonstrated a deep-rot to the American people. Many began to realize the deep-rot at the heart of the global liberal internationalist order, which both Clintons and Bushes wished to stave off. The Clinton Humanitarian crusade and the Bush War on Terror are now both placed under judgement. Through media talking-heads like Tucker Carlson, more and more Americans have adopted paleocon lines of critique about endless wars, global governance, and unlimited surveillance. That doesn't mean it does not happen. Corona restrictions and vaccinations, embraced by both parties, dovetail with bipartisan support for bolstering Ukraine. Silence and criticism of reckless spending has been, at best, the legacy of the most vocal Trump Republicans sitting in Congress. Criticisms may be disingenuous, especially as the useless war in Ukraine is juxtaposed about the growing threat in China. Nevertheless, they open up a new view in American politics. The World War Two order of endless militancy seems to be reaching its nadir. If the global order cracks under support, or withers from American abandonment, both will result in a radical global realignment. Europe will increasingly take a move towards independence. China will be dealt with as an enemy competitor. Russia, and perhaps Iran and Turkey, will be allowed to enter into a regional hegemon status. Many new things, unexpected and undetermined, may appear with rapid speed.

Here we enter into the current era. Trump, by hook or crook, his bid for reelection, coalesced around the corpse of Joe Biden. A sock puppet for the same Clinton-Obama forces, representing California through courtesan Kamala, Biden began a process of pivoting. Biden ramped up Corona protocol, reflecting the broader global frenzy to contain the disease until the protocol ran out its use. It is not to say Corona was part of a Plandemic, as if a cabal decided to unleash it. Rather, it reflects a greater shift to bio-politics, far more extensive than anthrax, H1N1, ebola, or zika virus. However, corona (likely a lab-altered virus that escaped) was erratic and thus put bio-medical government into full-force. As government pre-planning, like Dark Winter had predicted: containment was primarily about the perception of competence than effect. Whether the government was effective depended on obedience, a commitment to common good in a medical war to defeat a virus. It was no different than efforts to unify against communism, human-rights violators, and religious terrorists. It required surveillance, management, and governing in a way that did not seem too overbearing. It was not China's fairly draconian lockdown procedures. Yet it still produced a backlash, especially as Trump refused to implement a national policy. Now Biden has tried, combined with massive Ukrainian defense spending, and the fruits of the Fed's insane lending policies, leading to great frustration. Increasingly the American people realize he's a zombie, and the question is what will succeed this current regime, especially as midterms loom.

2022 will almost surely bring some kind of red wave. A number of purple states will flip, for the time being, red. There are a few exceptions: such as Pennsylvania's celebrity ditz Oz being, perhaps, out-maneuvered from native Fetterman. Nevertheless, 2022 will signal some level of Democratic defeat. The senate, if not the house, will become Republican. The level of success of Trump endorsed candidates will determine the future. Everyone has been coy about the future election. Trump has neither announced nor stepped back. Trump-affiliated candidates, like Kemp or DeSantis, will remain mum until the big guy speaks. The Democrats will most surely dump Biden for someone else (not likely Kamala, but maybe Pritzker or Newsom). Republicans have a few options and a few possible results. If Trump declares, he will likely only attract a Never Trumper (perhaps Liz Cheney, Romney, McMullin, or some outside businessman) and an artificially propped-up super-Trumper (who will attack Trump for failing his promises; maybe Cruz or Cotton). Perhaps even Rand Paul would make another run. Trump would almost surely win the primary. If he wins the election, this will solidify Trump's populist-tinged nationalism and will cement this faction as the dominant force in the GOP. If he loses, this faction will suffer major setbacks, but the GOP won't recover. Enough of the voters have staked the future of the party on Trump and Trump alone. Thus some Trump-adjacent candidate, who will mouth his rhetoric and play coy with his policies, will likely take up the future mantle. If Trump, however, decides not to run, he will become a king-maker. If Democrats dump Biden, as they likely will, this will offer fresh-blood which can pander to the left-liberals that orbit the Justice Democrats, while maintaining strong ties with Wall St, the tech sector, federal bureaucrats, and increasingly the Pentagon. Trump may stir up old animosities, and an alternative may lessen the controversy while keeping the rhetoric of policies. The result would be perhaps an easier victory, but will lesson the battering ram aspect of Trump's insurgent presidency. No one appears to have a substantial vision that won't melt back into Bush's "compassionate conservatism" of criticism foreign expansionism (while doing it anyway) and decreasing economic intervention (but simply shift to a more private approach). It will take on a more paleocon aspect, but who knows if it will be meaningful. If a Trump endorsed candidate lost, which would be fairly surprising in this climate, it might doom the entire movement.

However, the reality is within the effort of Thiel to run a nationalist network to put an end to globalism. This will be an effort to replicate the Chinese model of efficiency, without its party-state or doctrinaire communism. American Empire has not yet suffered enough to be clearly in decline. Unlike Britain, which suffered with global decline for 40 years before the First World War, America will probably not suffer a catastrophic shock. Therefore, it will not likely appear to be headed for decline, as global power decreases. However, the fiat-dollar is not the gold-pound, it may crash in the blink of an eye. Therefore, it's difficult to say an almost imperceptible slow decline will happen, or a nearly instantaneous crash. However, the success or failure of Trump will probably determine whether the Thile-adjacent nationalist can pivot America away from globalism towards a national power that will be far more direct and regional in result.


The future is, to me, unknown. To offer a limited value judgement, all of this bolds ill. I don't want to live in a nationalist surveillance system, anymore than an internationalist and liberal one. I hope to be suspicious of the mask whether it's Tucker saying to stock up or CNN warning to wear it at all costs. I hope to doubt pharmaceutical companies whether they're jolted through Trump's Operation Warp Speed or Biden's obeisance and fawning over the efficacy of Pfizer. I would not mind a nationalist and regionalist America, but on terms that are decentralized and unsupportive of corporate technology. I want an American nation without an American empire. However, I do not think the Thiel effort is anything less than to defend an American Empire shorn of its globalist niceties. Involvement in Ukraine would continue, but not as a "liberal world order" but as American geopolitical interest. Even as Thiel was more conciliatory, a loss of European opportunities for America was treated the same as the Biden administration. I don't think a Trump victory will substantially put an end to the great evil at work in this nation. I don't see in any current politician, except perhaps a Thomas Massie, the spine to not simply replicate another version of watered down social democracy. Nevertheless, as someone both anti-imperialist and anti-globalist, the future looks fairly dim. Restraints on kulturkampf simply meaning rolling back a few decades, where the conservative position was the moderately liberal in the 1990s. It's hard to imagine Bill Clinton or Bob Dole endorsing transgender commentators as worthy supporters! Thus, it seems that only if America recovers some general sense of normative ethics at the heart of its governing, which may very result in its united dissolution, that something more just may emerge.


sic.