I too fear for this republic. To state the obvious (which obvious bears repeating): these are not conservatives but radicals. This fantasy of "creating our own reality," this heaping of scorn on those left behind in the (ancien regime of) the "reality-based community"...this is the talk of revolutionaries. The aide quoted in this article could be working for Robespierre. Is he representative, or an aberration?
I can't find the cite, but a few years ago I read a profile of Dick Cheney in which he recounted his moment of clarity while he was trying to decide whether to become an academic: he could either be out making history, or stuck inside the academy, studying it. The attitude of the aide, then, sounds like a perfect amalgam of Bush and Cheney's beliefs.
So much for that whole passé Enlightenment thing. Such a bore. Instead, let's find us some witches and burn 'em!
If Bush wins, I think I'm going to try and dig up old family birth records and see about getting one of those passports with a harp on the front and right-to-work in Europe contained therein.
Reminds me of the impression I got from a lot of people, here in red-state Bush country, on 9/11. Not sadness or anger, but an almost gleeful sense of "it's on like Donkey Kong", only "it" being the apocalypse.
Reminds me of the impression I got from a lot of people, here in red-state Bush country, on 9/11. Not sadness or anger, but an almost gleeful sense of "it's on like Donkey Kong", only "it" being the apocalypse.
I'm a born and bred blue stater, but I had a sense of the Apocalyptic myself (no Donkey Kong though). But more of in the mode of a Twilight of the Idols than a Rapture. The Idols here being, American Exceptionalism, Empire, and all those ideals that one is supposed to be patriotic about.
But at least we'll always be able to get good apple pie.
-I'm so shrill that only the cynics can hear me ;-)
So the Times has a unpleasant characterization of the Bush adminsitration as being "detached from reality." It's by Ron Suskind. They have quotes from and Biden and Lantos about Bush being a dullard, and quotes from a Bartlett about Bush being faith based in the sense of unmoored from the facts. And then lots of speculation about how Bush, who once seemed so open, now 'doesn't care about the truth.'
Let me suggest that this is not the kind of account that should scare anybody. Or at least, it should be exactly as scary as the stories that Clinton & co. decided major policy decisions via pizza-fueled all-nighters.
Really, the apocalyptics in evidence are not the much-maligned evangelicals, but those opponents of the adminstration who claim we're on the verge of a plutocracy/theocracy leavened by irrational decisions, the stifling of dissent, and rule by underground morlocks. Get a grip, for heavens sake.
Congrats to Barry Freed for citing *exactly* the appropriate literary analogy (although perhaps supportingly not mockingly).
I'm sorry, baa, but I think you're inexcusably complacent about the state of things. It's not a matter of whether things will get bad, but of how much worse they can be. Here's a quick list: Padilla, Hamdi, Arar, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib--and now to crib from Matt Y:
what one might call the creeping Putinization of American life (the Sinclair incident, the threatening letter to Rock The Vote, the specter of the top official in the House of Representatives making totally baseless charges of criminal conduct against a major financier of the political opposition [shades of Mikhail Khodorovsky], the increasing evidence that the 'terror alert' system is nothing more than a political prop, the 'torture memo' asserting that the president is above the law, the imposition of rigid discipline on the congress, the abuse of the conference committee procedure, the ability of the administration to lie to congress without penalty, the exclusion of non-supporters from Bush's public appearances, etc.
I don't know if Suskind's "faith-based" rubrick is the best way to explain what's going on, but there's no question that this administration believes in "bold" action, and treats laws as inconveniences.
Furthermore, the public's reaction to the things listed has been such that I have no doubt that if the order came down to lock the Middle-Easterners, my fellow Americans would be lining up for the chance to be my jailor.
What would have to happen for you to think that things are bad?
I think McKinnon is exactly right, and it's not "the right" per se that he's talking about. This is where Red State/Blue State rhetoric makes some sense, even if it's mislocated as a pure geographic referent. I think many of those who are voting for Bush aren't voting for Bush, exactly. They're voting against the people who would vote against Bush; they're voting against bicoastal and urban elites.
This is the same thing Thomas Frank is wrestling with; I think his answers to the problem are wrong, and his identification of the social division is a bit off, but he's also got a lot right. This is what underlies a lot of the depressive apocalypticism of my recent writing about the election: I think this election is a synecdoche for an imminent if undeclared civil war in the United States. Two large-scale social coalitions have decided, for various reasons, that they have to capture the state, that there is no middle ground or consensus politics.
I keep hoping that a Kerry victory can let some tension out of the room, that people can back off and return to at least the possibility of a consensus politics. Maybe this would also be possible because if the Republicans lose, there's going to be some serious dissension in their party and they won't be able to play the very dangerous game they've been playing for a long while with a whole heart. I find it bitterly hilarious that the Republicans will occasionally scream "class war" at liberals, given that the Republican Party has been playing a balls-to-the-walls class war game ever since 1988 or so, and possibly since 1968. I think at first they played it lazily, cynically--but now they've put all their chips on that table.
Rense.com is more accurate half of the time. Both sell to the weird left.
The Republican party has purged itself of its radical nutcases. The Oklahoma City bombing did not happen because Tim felt 'empowered' and loved by the GOP. He was kicked out and told to get the hell away.
The Democratic Party has embraced its nutjob left.
Al Sharpton?
Jesse J?
Charley Rangel , the Democrat, the ONLY ONE to propose a draft, who then voted against it.
The mean Dean meme is unhinged and breathing too much fog.
To even suggest that W is a right winger is to show how watermelon-leftist one is. It is that simple.
Why does the world and the spoiled-brat left hate America? Here it is:
"Easily the scariest thing I've read in the past few years."
I sorta thought I noted so when I posted the link on October 16th, at 11:46 a.m. and said "If you are one of the faithless, the knee-jerk coastal, urban elitist, blue state, foolish, it will scare the bejeesus out of you. "
Putting the focus on the truly important issue, the one that will affect our lives for years to come, how come hardly anyone ever engages in these comment threads, or comments on, my blog?
"The Republican party has purged itself of its radical nutcases. "
Speaking of Red/Blue, I wonder how many left/liberal bloggers actually live in Red States, as I do in Colorado, where, also being a swing state, we've been seeing the Manchurian-candidate-ish Swiftboat/POW ads on tv at just about every commerical break on every tv station every hour of the day, a dozen times a day per hour per station, every day, day after day, week after week, for a couple of weeks now.
Not being subjected to that, I fear that most Kerry-supporting bloggers are completely missing the impact the Vietnam charges continue to have where these ads are seen.
But then, the level of lying in the other Bush ads on constantly is as heavy as you'd expect. I gather that Kerry's health plan will lead to all doctors being killed and replaced by UN troops; or something like that.
"I keep hoping that a Kerry victory can let some tension out of the room, that people can back off and return to at least the possibility of a consensus politics."
I'm very depressed about all this, Timothy Burke; I tend to think this is as likely to happen as it did under Clinton. Didn't you know that Kerry is a traitor, a bad man, someone who led a KGB plot, and so on?
I fear for my country no matter who wins. Frankly, far more than at any time in the past four years; I've always been a fairly chipper, "we'll survive this, we always do" sort. I still think we'll survive it, but I fear the detours, and how many years it will take before we can ever start to truly come together culturally.
I hope this is just depression on my part for other reasons, and also because of the intensity of the pre-election. I doubt it, but I'll still hope.
acb325, I can't read the whole thing, because it starts with a faulty premise: that there's something schizoid about admiring the USA for its successes while also criticizing it for its failures. No, this is normal behaviour, and you don't need to convene a think-tank to examine it.
Uncritically accepting that the USA is the greatest nation that will ever be, and that nothing it does collectively can ever be wrong -- that is pathological, and how people get into that state despite all the examples from history to point out how seriously wrong this attitude is -- that is something that requires serious study.
The point of Suskind's article is that you can't define reality just by will alone if you intentionally blind and deafen yourself. You'll make a reality, but it won't be the one you were expecting.
I'm so tired of this "elitst liberal" crap. And of this "bi-costal urban liberal" stereotype. I'm tired of it from both sides. The only out-of-touch elites are the people who make these ridiculous claims, which goes doubly from conservatives, the only people who, in my experience, will demand qualifications before arguing with a person.
I'm from a "red state," (red this last election - not all elections) in mid-south America. It's a majority conservative, but not big a large majority. I know plenty of pickup-truck driving, tobacco-chewing, heavy-redneck-accent libruls. And I'm told there's lots of conservatives, especially powerful ones, in coastal, metro areas.
You know when they show those amazingly partisan liberal-hating conservative couples from utah? I bet their neighbors think they're nuts. We're all integrated, and we need to stop ignoring that. I do think our country is divided, but not as badly as the pundits and editorial writers (David Brooks is an effing moron) are trying to make it out to be. I can't go to any kind of family/social gathering, mine or my girlfriend's, without their being a mix of liberals and conservatives. Some joking and ribbing goes on, some debate goes on, but we get along as well talking about politics as we do talking about anything else. Give the "divided america" talk a break.
I have to agree with Gary against Tim on this one. If Kerry's elected, I expect four years of constant attacks on his policies and character. I expect the attacks will be about as principled as the ones we got from Arkansas state troopers and swift boat veterans. Ron Brownstein explains it well.
The next president is more likely to arrive with almost half the country deeply disappointed in his victory. That is the way our era of polarized partisanship perpetuates itself. As long as the election results stay close, the losing party has every incentive to fight the winner every day, hoping that the accumulation of nicks and bruises will peel away enough voters to tilt the result the other way next time.
And while I agree with Michael that the stereotypes and divisions between citizens themselves are overblown, the nastiness at higher levels is true, and likely to get worse.
Michael says "Give the "divided america" talk a break."
I'd be happy to, and you have a point, and I'm a bit purplish myself, but I've often lived in communities that are about 95% liberal in who's part of the crowd/comes to the parties, and sometimes lived in communities that are ditto for rather extreme conservatives. The extreme divisions aren't a hallucination, either, though they certainly can be over-stated in many specifics.
For the record, I endorse baa's negative view of the article (what a shock! Biden tells stories about Bush that aren't flattering!) while remaining neutral on the question of how close we're drifting to the end of democracy, etc.
I too fear for this republic. To state the obvious (which obvious bears repeating): these are not conservatives but radicals. This fantasy of "creating our own reality," this heaping of scorn on those left behind in the (ancien regime of) the "reality-based community"...this is the talk of revolutionaries. The aide quoted in this article could be working for Robespierre. Is he representative, or an aberration?
Posted by mcm | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 6:19 AM
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wagn'nagl fhtagn! Aaaaaaiiiiiiii!!!!
Posted by Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 8:40 AM
Is he representative, or an aberration?
I can't find the cite, but a few years ago I read a profile of Dick Cheney in which he recounted his moment of clarity while he was trying to decide whether to become an academic: he could either be out making history, or stuck inside the academy, studying it. The attitude of the aide, then, sounds like a perfect amalgam of Bush and Cheney's beliefs.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 9:48 AM
So much for that whole passé Enlightenment thing. Such a bore. Instead, let's find us some witches and burn 'em!
If Bush wins, I think I'm going to try and dig up old family birth records and see about getting one of those passports with a harp on the front and right-to-work in Europe contained therein.
Posted by LarryB | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 11:25 AM
Reminds me of the impression I got from a lot of people, here in red-state Bush country, on 9/11. Not sadness or anger, but an almost gleeful sense of "it's on like Donkey Kong", only "it" being the apocalypse.
Posted by son volt | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 12:00 PM
Reminds me of the impression I got from a lot of people, here in red-state Bush country, on 9/11. Not sadness or anger, but an almost gleeful sense of "it's on like Donkey Kong", only "it" being the apocalypse.
I'm a born and bred blue stater, but I had a sense of the Apocalyptic myself (no Donkey Kong though). But more of in the mode of a Twilight of the Idols than a Rapture. The Idols here being, American Exceptionalism, Empire, and all those ideals that one is supposed to be patriotic about.
But at least we'll always be able to get good apple pie.
-I'm so shrill that only the cynics can hear me ;-)
Posted by Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 1:43 PM
Squack! This is Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!
So the Times has a unpleasant characterization of the Bush adminsitration as being "detached from reality." It's by Ron Suskind. They have quotes from and Biden and Lantos about Bush being a dullard, and quotes from a Bartlett about Bush being faith based in the sense of unmoored from the facts. And then lots of speculation about how Bush, who once seemed so open, now 'doesn't care about the truth.'
Let me suggest that this is not the kind of account that should scare anybody. Or at least, it should be exactly as scary as the stories that Clinton & co. decided major policy decisions via pizza-fueled all-nighters.
Really, the apocalyptics in evidence are not the much-maligned evangelicals, but those opponents of the adminstration who claim we're on the verge of a plutocracy/theocracy leavened by irrational decisions, the stifling of dissent, and rule by underground morlocks. Get a grip, for heavens sake.
Congrats to Barry Freed for citing *exactly* the appropriate literary analogy (although perhaps supportingly not mockingly).
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 3:02 PM
I'm sorry, baa, but I think you're inexcusably complacent about the state of things. It's not a matter of whether things will get bad, but of how much worse they can be. Here's a quick list: Padilla, Hamdi, Arar, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib--and now to crib from Matt Y:
I don't know if Suskind's "faith-based" rubrick is the best way to explain what's going on, but there's no question that this administration believes in "bold" action, and treats laws as inconveniences.
Furthermore, the public's reaction to the things listed has been such that I have no doubt that if the order came down to lock the Middle-Easterners, my fellow Americans would be lining up for the chance to be my jailor.
What would have to happen for you to think that things are bad?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 3:23 PM
I think McKinnon is exactly right, and it's not "the right" per se that he's talking about. This is where Red State/Blue State rhetoric makes some sense, even if it's mislocated as a pure geographic referent. I think many of those who are voting for Bush aren't voting for Bush, exactly. They're voting against the people who would vote against Bush; they're voting against bicoastal and urban elites.
This is the same thing Thomas Frank is wrestling with; I think his answers to the problem are wrong, and his identification of the social division is a bit off, but he's also got a lot right. This is what underlies a lot of the depressive apocalypticism of my recent writing about the election: I think this election is a synecdoche for an imminent if undeclared civil war in the United States. Two large-scale social coalitions have decided, for various reasons, that they have to capture the state, that there is no middle ground or consensus politics.
I keep hoping that a Kerry victory can let some tension out of the room, that people can back off and return to at least the possibility of a consensus politics. Maybe this would also be possible because if the Republicans lose, there's going to be some serious dissension in their party and they won't be able to play the very dangerous game they've been playing for a long while with a whole heart. I find it bitterly hilarious that the Republicans will occasionally scream "class war" at liberals, given that the Republican Party has been playing a balls-to-the-walls class war game ever since 1988 or so, and possibly since 1968. I think at first they played it lazily, cynically--but now they've put all their chips on that table.
Posted by Timothy Burke | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 3:43 PM
Total garbage. The New York Times?
Rense.com is more accurate half of the time. Both sell to the weird left.
The Republican party has purged itself of its radical nutcases. The Oklahoma City bombing did not happen because Tim felt 'empowered' and loved by the GOP. He was kicked out and told to get the hell away.
The Democratic Party has embraced its nutjob left.
Al Sharpton?
Jesse J?
Charley Rangel , the Democrat, the ONLY ONE to propose a draft, who then voted against it.
The mean Dean meme is unhinged and breathing too much fog.
To even suggest that W is a right winger is to show how watermelon-leftist one is. It is that simple.
Why does the world and the spoiled-brat left hate America? Here it is:
Read the whole thing.
http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson101604.html
Posted by acb325 | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 4:47 PM
WALTER OLSEN REVIEWS Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s new book, Crimes Against Nature, and finds much to dislike:
October 17, 2004
http://instapundit.com/
Posted by asdaf4252 | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 5:29 PM
"Easily the scariest thing I've read in the past few years."
I sorta thought I noted so when I posted the link on October 16th, at 11:46 a.m. and said "If you are one of the faithless, the knee-jerk coastal, urban elitist, blue state, foolish, it will scare the bejeesus out of you. "
Putting the focus on the truly important issue, the one that will affect our lives for years to come, how come hardly anyone ever engages in these comment threads, or comments on, my blog?
"The Republican party has purged itself of its radical nutcases. "
Yes, absolutely. That certainly explains Senatorial candidate Tom Coburn, and Alan Keyes, and Tom DeLay, for starters.
Speaking of Red/Blue, I wonder how many left/liberal bloggers actually live in Red States, as I do in Colorado, where, also being a swing state, we've been seeing the Manchurian-candidate-ish Swiftboat/POW ads on tv at just about every commerical break on every tv station every hour of the day, a dozen times a day per hour per station, every day, day after day, week after week, for a couple of weeks now.
Not being subjected to that, I fear that most Kerry-supporting bloggers are completely missing the impact the Vietnam charges continue to have where these ads are seen.
But then, the level of lying in the other Bush ads on constantly is as heavy as you'd expect. I gather that Kerry's health plan will lead to all doctors being killed and replaced by UN troops; or something like that.
"I keep hoping that a Kerry victory can let some tension out of the room, that people can back off and return to at least the possibility of a consensus politics."
I'm very depressed about all this, Timothy Burke; I tend to think this is as likely to happen as it did under Clinton. Didn't you know that Kerry is a traitor, a bad man, someone who led a KGB plot, and so on?
I fear for my country no matter who wins. Frankly, far more than at any time in the past four years; I've always been a fairly chipper, "we'll survive this, we always do" sort. I still think we'll survive it, but I fear the detours, and how many years it will take before we can ever start to truly come together culturally.
I hope this is just depression on my part for other reasons, and also because of the intensity of the pre-election. I doubt it, but I'll still hope.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 6:03 PM
elitist left-wing liberals are the ones that are "reality-based?"
ha, that is rich!
Posted by a | Link to this comment | 10-17-04 7:22 PM
acb325, I can't read the whole thing, because it starts with a faulty premise: that there's something schizoid about admiring the USA for its successes while also criticizing it for its failures. No, this is normal behaviour, and you don't need to convene a think-tank to examine it.
Uncritically accepting that the USA is the greatest nation that will ever be, and that nothing it does collectively can ever be wrong -- that is pathological, and how people get into that state despite all the examples from history to point out how seriously wrong this attitude is -- that is something that requires serious study.
The point of Suskind's article is that you can't define reality just by will alone if you intentionally blind and deafen yourself. You'll make a reality, but it won't be the one you were expecting.
Posted by AkiZ | Link to this comment | 10-18-04 9:03 AM
(completely tangential, but i'm testy)
I'm so tired of this "elitst liberal" crap. And of this "bi-costal urban liberal" stereotype. I'm tired of it from both sides. The only out-of-touch elites are the people who make these ridiculous claims, which goes doubly from conservatives, the only people who, in my experience, will demand qualifications before arguing with a person.
I'm from a "red state," (red this last election - not all elections) in mid-south America. It's a majority conservative, but not big a large majority. I know plenty of pickup-truck driving, tobacco-chewing, heavy-redneck-accent libruls. And I'm told there's lots of conservatives, especially powerful ones, in coastal, metro areas.
You know when they show those amazingly partisan liberal-hating conservative couples from utah? I bet their neighbors think they're nuts. We're all integrated, and we need to stop ignoring that. I do think our country is divided, but not as badly as the pundits and editorial writers (David Brooks is an effing moron) are trying to make it out to be. I can't go to any kind of family/social gathering, mine or my girlfriend's, without their being a mix of liberals and conservatives. Some joking and ribbing goes on, some debate goes on, but we get along as well talking about politics as we do talking about anything else. Give the "divided america" talk a break.
Posted by Michael | Link to this comment | 10-18-04 10:04 AM
I have to agree with Gary against Tim on this one. If Kerry's elected, I expect four years of constant attacks on his policies and character. I expect the attacks will be about as principled as the ones we got from Arkansas state troopers and swift boat veterans. Ron Brownstein explains it well.
And while I agree with Michael that the stereotypes and divisions between citizens themselves are overblown, the nastiness at higher levels is true, and likely to get worse.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 10-18-04 2:40 PM
Michael says "Give the "divided america" talk a break."
I'd be happy to, and you have a point, and I'm a bit purplish myself, but I've often lived in communities that are about 95% liberal in who's part of the crowd/comes to the parties, and sometimes lived in communities that are ditto for rather extreme conservatives. The extreme divisions aren't a hallucination, either, though they certainly can be over-stated in many specifics.
Posted by Gary Farber | Link to this comment | 10-18-04 7:12 PM
For the record, I endorse baa's negative view of the article (what a shock! Biden tells stories about Bush that aren't flattering!) while remaining neutral on the question of how close we're drifting to the end of democracy, etc.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 10-18-04 8:55 PM
Woo hoo! I'm vindicated!
And for the record, let me distinguish two thesis
a) we have overreacted to 9/11 in a way that is damaging to civil liberties
b) GWB = incipient totalitarianism/morlock dominaition because, you know, because
As it happens, I reject both a and b, although with a I could be convinced. I take suskind's article as an example of b.
Posted by baa | Link to this comment | 10-18-04 10:54 PM
a) we have overreacted to 9/11 in a way that is damaging to civil liberties
. . .
As it happens, I reject both a and b, although with a I could be convinced.
How about this:
Bush Seeks Limit to Suits Over Voting Rights
or this:
A Civil Liberties Scorecard, September 2002
Posted by Mitch Mills | Link to this comment | 10-29-04 10:52 PM