A completely empty political, moral, and intellectual position

benfell

It is too big a jump, I believe, to claim, as neoconservative John Podhoretz at Commentary does, that “that what has befallen the New Republic is, in some ways, what has befallen liberalism writ large. It became unserious, and is about to become more unserious still, because that [is] what has happened to liberalism as a governing philosophy.”[1] What seems to have happened instead at the New Republic is that a great many writers and editors, possibly a critical mass, have resigned, “believ[ing] that [Chris] Hughes and [Guy] Vidra now intend to turn TNR into a click-focused digital media company, at the expense of the magazine’s strong editorial traditions and venerable brand, according to sources who attended the gathering at [Franklin] Foer’s house.”[2] The feared outcome would be something like what has happened to Atlantic, which I still think is a worthwhile publication, but which has clearly spread itself thin.[3]

I think Podhoretz—and it’s very rare for me to agree with neoconservatives on anything[4]—does have a point regarding “liberals.” Consider Elias Isquith’s qualified praise at Salon for two speeches in the wake of the grand jury decision against indicting the cop who strangled Eric Garner:

As with [New York Mayor Bill] de Blasio’s comments on Wednesday, [Hillary] Clinton’s slow amble toward embracing the growing movement to reform America’s racist and destructive criminal justice system is too much of a half-measure to warrant a declaration of victory or celebratory parade. If Democrats are to do not only what is politically wise but also morally correct, they’ll have to prove that, to them, “black lives matter” is more than just a slogan.[5]

Isquith’s concern, plainly, is that Democrats will substitute words for meaningful action.[6] This, notably, has been one of my major complaints about Barack Obama all along. Obama sometimes says fine things, particularly when he wants progressives to vote. Almost always, he has gone back on those fine words, all too often within two weeks of uttering them. Isquith is right to insist that we should look to deeds.

But in their capitulation to the right, a capitulation whose origins seemingly lie in an apparent failure of Keynesianism and social welfare policies,[7] and which was cemented with the fall of the Berlin Wall,[8] Democrats long ago ceased to stand for anything except getting elected. They generally supported George W. Bush on the invasion of Iraq even after they were elected to full control of Congress with a mandate to get the U.S. out of Iraq.[9] They have generally embraced and extended Bush’s policies and, though self-identified neoconservatives refuse to admit it, are generally indistinguishable from neoconservatives. They generally support domestic spying and neoliberalism. They rushed, even more than Republicans, to save the banks while leaving underwater homeowners and the unemployed to twist on the vine. They have not argued against the disasters of imperialism or so-called “free trade.” They have been weak in support of abortion rights and the environment.

As Noam Chomsky put it,

In the past, the United States has sometimes, kind of sardonically, been described as a one-party state: the business party with two factions called Democrats and Republicans. That’s no longer true. It’s still a one-party state, the business party. But it only has one faction. The faction is moderate Republicans, who are now called Democrats. There are virtually no moderate Republicans in what’s called the Republican Party and virtually no liberal Democrats in what’s called the Democratic [sic] Party. It’s basically a party of what would be moderate Republicans and similarly, Richard Nixon would be way at the left of the political spectrum today. Eisenhower would be in outer space.

There is still something called the Republican Party, but it long ago abandoned any pretence of being a normal parliamentary party. It’s in lock-step service to the very rich and the corporate sector and has a catechism that everyone has to chant in unison, kind of like the old Communist Party. The distinguished conservative commentator, one of the most respected – Norman Ornstein – describes today’s Republican Party as, in his words, “a radical insurgency – ideologically extreme, scornful of facts and compromise, dismissive of its political opposition” – a serious danger to the society, as he points out.[10]

In fact, it was Chomsky himself who wrote of the U.S. in 1990, “There is essentially one political party, the business party, with two factions. Shifting coalitions of investors account for a large part of political history.”[11] Gore Vidal’s version was slightly different: “I have been saying for the last thousand years that the United States has only one party—the property party,” he told David Barsamian in 2006. “It’s the party of big corporations, the party of money. It has two right wings; one is Democrat and the other is Republican.”[12] Either way, when voters elect Democrats they still get Republican policy as, for just one example, Bill Clinton signed so-called “welfare reform” and Barack Obama has sought to sell out the social safety net in the name of “compromise.”[13]

I said of Obama in 2011 that he had no moral justification for seeking re-election (in 2012).[14] That can be said of all but a few Democrats generally. Like all functionalist conservatives, they are simply seeking power.

And that is a completely empty political, moral, and intellectual position.

  1. [1]John Podhoretz, “You’ll Never Guess What Happened to This Magazine! Click Here for More!” Commentary, December 4, 2014, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/12/04/youll-never-guess-what-happened-to-this-magazine-click-here-for-more/↩
  2. [2]Dylan Byers, “After shake-up, New Republic staffers resign en masse,” New Republic, December 5, 2014, http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/12/new-republic-staffers-resign-en-masse-199595.html↩
  3. [3]Dylan Byers, “After shake-up, New Republic staffers resign en masse,” New Republic, December 5, 2014, http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/12/new-republic-staffers-resign-en-masse-199595.html; John Podhoretz, “You’ll Never Guess What Happened to This Magazine! Click Here for More!” Commentary, December 4, 2014, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/12/04/youll-never-guess-what-happened-to-this-magazine-click-here-for-more/↩
  4. [4]However, they sometimes seem relatively sensible on undocumented migrants: John Podhoretz, “The Weird Logic of Obama’s Immigration Speech,” Commentary, November 20, 2014, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/11/20/the-weird-logic-of-obamas-immigration-speech/; Peter Skerry, “Young Latin Americans pay the price for America’s policy blunders,” Weekly Standard 19, no. 46 (August 18-25, 2014), http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/immigration-malpractice_802175.html; Pete Spiliakos, “Making Immigration A Little More Serfy,” First Things, January 26, 2014, http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/making-immigration-a-little-more-serfy; Pete Spiliakos, “Conservatives’ Mixed Message on Immigration,” First Things, July 24, 2014, http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/07/conservatives-mixed-message-on-immigration; Jonathan S. Tobin, “Obama’s Orders: Politics, Not Compassion,” Commentary, November 20, 2014, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/11/20/obamas-executive-orders-politics-not-compassion-immigration-amnesty/; Jonathan S. Tobin, “Pass an Immigration Bill? What’s the Point?” Commentary, November 24, 2014, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2014/11/24/pass-an-immigration-bill-whats-the-point-obama-amnesty/↩
  5. [5]Elias Isquith, “Black America’s pitiful allies: Why the Democratic Party needs to finally stand up on race,” Salon, December 5, 2014, http://www.salon.com/2014/12/05/black_americas_pitiful_allies_why_the_democratic_party_needs_to_finally_stand_up/↩
  6. [6]Elias Isquith, “Black America’s pitiful allies: Why the Democratic Party needs to finally stand up on race,” Salon, December 5, 2014, http://www.salon.com/2014/12/05/black_americas_pitiful_allies_why_the_democratic_party_needs_to_finally_stand_up/↩
  7. [7]Daniel Stedman Jones, Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 2012); George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, 30th anniversary ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2006).↩
  8. [8]Melvyn P. Leffler, “The Free Market Did Not Bring Down the Berlin Wall,” Foreign Policy, November 7, 2014, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/11/07/berlin_wall_fall_25_anniversary_reagan_bush_germany_merkel_cold_war_free_market_capitalism↩
  9. [9]Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee, “With Election Driven by Iraq, Voters Want New Approach,” New York Times, November 2, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/us/politics/02poll.html↩
  10. [10]Noam Chomsky, “The U.S. behaves nothing like a democracy,” Salon, August 17, 2013, http://www.salon.com/2013/08/17/chomsky_the_u_s_behaves_nothing_like_a_democracy/↩
  11. [11]Noam Chomsky, “Containing the Threat of Democracy,” Chomsky on Anarchism, Barry Pateman, ed., (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2005), 157.↩
  12. [12]David Barsamian, “Gore Vidal Interview,” Progressive, August, 2006, http://www.progressive.org/mag_intv0806↩
  13. [13]Bryce Covert, “Clinton Touts Welfare Reform. Here’s How It Failed,” Nation, September 6, 2012, http://www.thenation.com/blog/169788/clinton-touts-welfare-reform-heres-how-it-failed; Kristina Cooke, David Rohde, and Ryan McNeill, “The Undeserving Poor,” Atlantic, December 20, 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/12/the-undeserving-poor/266507/; Peter Edelman, “The Worst Thing Bill Clinton Has Done,” Atlantic, March, 1997, http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97mar/edelman/edelman.htm; Henry A. Giroux, “Neoliberalism’s War on Democracy,” Truthout, April 26, 2014, http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/23306-neoliberalisms-war-on-democracy; Marcella S. Kreiter, “Fiscal Cliff: Social Security, Medicare eyed as spending cut targets,” United Press International, December 16, 2012, http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2012/12/16/Fiscal-Cliff-Social-Security-Medicare-could-be-cut-to-rein-in-spending/UPI-52311355650200/; Alex Seitz-Wald, “Liberals reject Obama’s Social Security offer,” Salon, December 18, 2012, http://www.salon.com/2012/12/18/liberals_reject_obamas_social_security_offer/; Matt Stoller, “Obama’s Second Term Agenda: Cutting Social Security, Medicare, and/or Medicaid,” Naked Capitalism, July 29, 2012, http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/07/obamas-second-term-agenda-cutting-social-security-medicare-andor-medicaid.html; Lambert Strether, “Grand Bargain or Great Betrayal? Reading the Tea Leaves of Fiscal Intentions for Entitlements,” Truthout, November 14, 2012, http://truth-out.org/news/item/12721-grand-bargain-or-great-betrayal-reading-between-the-tea-leaves; Joan Walsh, “Poverty nation: How America created a low-wage work swamp,” Salon, December 15, 2013, http://www.salon.com/2013/12/15/poverty_nation_how_america_created_a_low_wage_work_swamp/↩
  14. [14]David Benfell, “Analyzing the ‘rabid right’ and the prospects for a coherent outcome to the 2012 presidential election,” Not Housebroken, May 1, 2011, https://disunitedstates.org/?p=3490↩

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