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Strategic Consequences of the Iraq War

“Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason.”                    

It would seem hard to argue that the war in Vietnam was not America’s worst foreign policy mistake in the post-WWII era.  It ended in a complete defeat with our enemy, North Vietnam, and its Soviet and Chinese allies, ousting the United States (complete with humiliating helicopter departures) and occupying the South.  It cost over 50,000 American lives and an unknowable number of Vietnamese, perhaps over a million in both North and South.  Relations with major allies were stressed and damaged.  At home, it tore the United States apart along generational and class lines, and permanently undermined public trust in government.  It cost Lyndon Johnson re-election, distracted the US from domestic reforms, and led to the Nixon presidency.  The prestige and morale of the US military were deeply compromised, and the military spent a decade rebuilding itself.  The huge cost of the war, financed by increased borrowing, hurt the US economy and contributed to the stagflation of the 1970s.  

Hard to argue.  But Ross Douthat, the moderately conservative New York Times columnist, thinks the Iraq War was worse.  At first glance this seems like an odd position.  American casualties were far lower, and Iraq today, though unstable and racked by corruption and violence, is intact and in many respects a US ally.  Far from being pushed out, the United States retains a small military presence to train the Iraqi military and assist in the fight against ISIS.  Domestically, the war quickly became unpopular but Bush was re-elected in 2004; with fighting done not by draftees but volunteers, Iraq never roused the same intense public opposition as did Vietnam.   

But Douthat points to the larger strategic context to make his case.  After Vietnam, where the goal was to stop the spread of communism and prevent Vietnam from becoming a Soviet and Chinese ally, the US eventually rebounded while the USSR and the global communist movement collapsed.  The United States emerged in the 1990s as the sole superpower.  Vietnam and China went to war in 1979 and remain bitter enemies.  Relations with major allies healed.  

America’s strategic goals in Iraq, however, were never realized.  Even today it is difficult to say exactly what the US hoped to accomplish, largely in my opinion because the underlying cause was emotional, a primal desire to respond to the attack on 9/11, to show ‘strength’ and ‘determination’.  Other reasons were given but this was the driving force.  

However, we can try to judge the war in light of three strategic goals that stand out, based on statements by US leaders and key war supporters:  1) end the threat to the US and the region from Iraq’s pursuit of WMD; 2) reduce the terrorist threat to the US, by ensuring that Iraq did not assist al-Qaida and other radical groups; and 3) create a democratic, flourishing Iraq to hem in Iran and be a catalyst for change in the Middle East.  Obviously the first goal was not attained, since Iraq had no serious WMD programs and was hemmed in by draconian international sanctions.  As for the other two, in most respects the invasion undermined their achievement.  And there were other serious strategic setbacks that were either ignored or not anticipated.  Today, 20 years later, we are still living with the consequences.  

Here is my own brief summary of what I see as the major strategic results, many of which are mentioned by Douthat.

Strengthened Iran.  For long-term US interests, perhaps no goal was more important than weakening Iran by putting a strong, pro-US democracy next door.  However, the opposite happened. The invasion removed Iran’s biggest threat in the region and gave Tehran immense leverage inside Iraq.  Iran was initially frightened at the US intervention, but the botched and lengthy reconstruction put US troops and civilians within range of Iranian proxies, in Iran’s backyard, where they were attractive targets. The violence and disorder of post-invasion Iraq helped discredit democracy and give Iran’s rulers an easy argument against liberalization and Westernization.  And the example of forceful regime change strengthened the perceived need to acquire nuclear weapons as a deterrent.  

Strengthened anti-US Islamic militants.  Just before the invasion, terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman was asked what Osama bin-Ladin’s likely reaction would be.  Hoffman said “It’s his dream come true.”  The American attack confirmed all of al-Qaida’s warnings about US aggressive intentions in the region and US disdain for Islam and Arabs.  Abu Gharaib and US detention practices destroyed trust in the US throughout the Muslim world. 

Terrorists conduct high-profile attacks largely in hopes of producing a disproportionate response that will radicalize moderates and bring in new recruits.  The 9/11 attack achieved all this and more. 

The lengthy US presence in the heart of the Muslim world catalyzed a new generation of jihadists, more brutal and extreme than before:  first Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI), then its follow-on, ISIS.  These new terrorist formations made large parts of Iraq deadly battlegrounds, incited sectarian civil war, sparked deadly attacks around the world, and eventually spread into Syria, Jordan, and beyond.  Today ISIS, despite US and Kurdish success at pushing it out of Mosul and other occupied territory, remains a dangerous presence not only in the Middle East but in Afghanistan and Africa.        

It is tragic and bitter that in fact Saddam had little contact with al-Qaida and no interest in helping Islamic militants, who were his mortal enemies.  The claims to the contrary within the US, used as a major rationale for the invasion, were largely manufactured by the Pentagon and other war supporters.   

Distracted US from Afghanistan.  At the time of the Iraq invasion, the US was of course already heavily engaged in Afghanistan.  After the extremely successful overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 there was at this point no serious resistance and the overall US presence was small.  Washington seems to have concluded that Afghanistan could safely be put on the back burner.  But US military and civilians in Afghanistan warned that a consistent and well-resourced effort was essential for stability and to prevent the growth of an insurgency—the Taliban were down but not out, retrenching across the border in Pakistan.  These warnings were largely ignored by policymakers determined to argue that invading Iraq would be cost-free.  As Iraq ramped up, resources and attention at the White House, the Pentagon, the intelligence community, shifted away from Afghanistan.

Largely as a result, in the years after the Iraq invasion the situation in Afghanistan deteriorated.  There is no way to prove that the tragic outcome in Afghanistan in 2021 would otherwise have been avoided.  But there is no doubt that there was a pattern of neglect during a critical period during which the Taliban re-emerged as a serious insurgent threat.  By the time Obama took office, the so-called “good war” in Afghanistan had become a crisis.  And unlike in Iraq, where a last-ditch “surge” of troops and resources in 2007-08 succeeded in averting a civil war, a similar effort in Afghanistan turned out to be too little, too late.  

Alienation of Moscow and Beijing.   We might forget that after 9/11, Russia and China were strong supporters of US counter-terrorist initiatives.  Putin gave his OK to a massive US logistic network for Afghanistan that went through Central Asian states seen historically as Russia’s sphere of influence.  Neither Moscow nor Beijing wanted al-Qaida to entrench itself in Afghanistan and were happy the US was taking the lead to rout it from the region.  

But Iraq changed this calculus.  It was seen as an act of US imperialism, not a necessary anti-terrorist step.  The stated rationales for US action were viewed as excuses to insert the US into the Middle East and gain control over oil resources.  The use of massive force in the name of regime change, done unilaterally and without UN approval, frightened Russia and China, who saw it as a proof-of-concept which might be directed at them or their allies.  In their eyes the US had become an unpredictable ‘rogue state.’ 

In both Moscow and Beijing it became easy to think that what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander. If the US superpower felt entitled to do what it wanted, where it wanted, why shouldn’t we?  There is a line from Iraq (and from Clinton’s intervention in the Balkans, and Obama’s in Libya) that runs towards Putin’s annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine, towards China’s build-up in the South China Sea and threats to Japan and Taiwan.    

Further, as the US floundered, the initial fear turned into a kind of contempt.  The US, for all its power, didn’t seem to know what to do or how to achieve victory.  It was expending its energy and resources and credibility on a secondary target.  Its military was being harassed and beaten by ragged insurgents with no modern weapons.  The US was seen as both out of control, and a paper tiger.  It was not invincible.  Here again we see how Iraq reinforced hubris in Russia, China, and other US adversaries.  This conviction of US decline was reinforced by the 2008-09 financial crisis—which some economists attribute in large part to the war—and the growing political and social divisions inside the US that the war in Iraq helped stimulate.

Distracted US from Big Power Threats.  The flip side of greater focus on the US in Russia and China, was the loss of focus in the US.  Trillions of dollars that might have gone to strengthening US capabilities in Europe and Asia instead went down the drain in Iraq.  The time and attention of key leaders, perhaps the scarcest of strategic resources, went disproportionately to Iraq.  Obama tried desperately to “re-balance” towards China, but Iraq, ISIS, and the Taliban constantly pulled his administration away. 

Russia and China, of course, were ecstatic that the US was squandering its money and attention and reputation, leaving them a much freer hand.  They had no incentive to help a distracted US overcome its self-inflicted wounds.  According to a Western historian who specializes in studies of intelligence, “The strategy that China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), its principal civilian intelligence service, took toward the United States after 9/11 followed a Chinese saying, ge an guan huo, which roughly translates as ‘watch the fires burn from the safety of the opposite river bank, which allows you to avoid entering the battle until your enemy is exhausted’”.

Frayed and weakened US standing in the world.  The Iraq intervention was opposed by many major US allies, including key states in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, who warned the US that toppling Saddam would strengthen Iran.  Many thought it violated basic tenets of international law, the UN charter, and global norms against aggression and forcible change of governments.  Others saw it as poorly executed, likely to fail and bog down the United States and its supporters in a lengthy conflict with no clear endpoint.  Germany and France, joined by Russia, broke publicly and forcefully with the US over the decision to invade. 

The Bush administration’s post 9/11 strategic doctrine seemed designed to justify unilateral action against any state the US deemed a potential threat.  The US was seen as willing to go it alone, without regard for countervailing views, even from its friends.  As Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.”

The unwillingness today of many states in the developing world to join the US in helping Ukraine and condemning Russia is in part a result of this experience.  In many capitals US appeals to international law, norms of non-aggression, and violations of human rights, ring hollow.  The invasion badly damaged a key source of US strength in international affairs, our claim to act not just in our own national interest but in the interest of international order and universal principles.   

Image of US strength and competence.  Iraq dealt a terrible blow to the reputation of the American national security establishment. The intelligence community in particular has never recovered from its strong claims about Iraq’s WMD programs.  Rightly or wrongly, it is also blamed for misjudging the strength of the resistance.  The US military, despite heroic efforts and sacrifices, made fundamental errors in failing to anticipate the kind of conflict it was waging, being consistently behind the curve in adapting to changes in the war, and moving slowly to train and equip Iraqi forces to take its place.  

At the top, the war was pushed and designed by leaders thought to represent the very acme of national security insight:  two-time Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, Vice-President (and former Secretary of Defense) Cheney, Secretary of State (and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) Powell, National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, and a host of other luminaries.  But rather than engaging in an honest evaluation of the risks, or putting together a campaign plan that reflected the views and experience of military professionals, this new incarnation of the Best and Brightest indulged its fears and followed its own private agendas.  In key areas they actively and deliberately misled their own government and the American public by cavalierly downplaying the costs and exaggerating the threat.  Glib analogies were made to successful US efforts at rebuilding Japan and Germany after World War II. 

Many experts advised that the US intervention force should be much larger and should anticipate the need to administer a collapsed state for a considerable time.  This advice was treated with contempt, especially by Rumsfeld, who was obsessed with showing the world that the military could win with a small, precise force able to get in and get out fast.

War proponents were opposed to ‘nation-building’ and refused to plan for it.  Neither military or civilian agencies possessed the language and cultural skills needed to cope with a broken society, especially when American administrators decided early on to disband the Iraqi Army and fire most Ba’ath Party members.  These decisions created a large, alienated, and furious opposition that morphed quickly into armed resistance.

Undermining domestic trust.  When the intervention quickly resulted in a growing insurgency and a failed state, an angry population, no WMD, and huge expenditures with no end in sight, public support understandably faded.  Abu-Gharaib raised questions about military discipline and our ability to conduct a messy low-level conflict while adhering to acceptable standards of human rights.  The elected leaders who had championed the war were discredited.  The cynicism and distrust that had taken root with Vietnam deepened. 

George Bush was re-elected in 2004 before the full picture had come into focus.  The partial success of the so-called ‘surge’ in 2007 salvaged some of his reputation, but he left office with many historians judging him among the worst Presidents in American history. (Luckily for Bush, the advent of Donald Trump has allowed him to appear decent and competent by comparison). The Republican Party, once a reliable supporter of US strength in the service of international order, is now split with an ascendant wing, led by Donald Trump—who campaigned by attacking the war and its supporters—highly critical of US engagement and alliances.    

Unlike Vietnam, public anger did not spill over into broad attacks on the military.  Americans generally supported ‘the troops’, if not their leaders.  The military was therefore not broken by Iraq in the way it was in Vietnam, but still endured huge costs in deaths, injuries, trauma, and morale as soldiers cycled through multiple tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan.    

Ongoing Impact on Foreign Policy.  Iraq continues to affect US willingness to engage in the Middle East and around the world.  No American decisionmaker wants to repeat Iraq by committing US forces in a ‘war of choice,’ and there is particular reluctance to intervene in the Middle East.  This reluctance is one reason Russia has been able to become a major player in Syria and the region. 

Major parts of the American public, on both left and right, are now instinctively suspicious of American national security elites.  They do not accept their claims to understand US interests or how to advance them overseas.  

Is Ukraine a Possible Turning Point?  Douthat suggests that US actions in support of Ukraine could repair some of the damage.  US intelligence was praised for its accurate advance knowledge of Russian plans and for revealing them to the world (though in some quarters these claims were quickly dismissed, because of the intelligence failure in Iraq). Unlike Iraq, Ukraine vs. Russia is seen by most Americans and our major allies as a ‘good war’ with clear objectives in defense of a worthy ally.  So far US support has been effective in enabling Ukraine to stand up to Russia.  NATO is back in business, led by the US; the countries most alienated by Iraq, France and Germany, are on board though questions remain about their willingness to stay the course.   

So, when I add it all up, I think Mr. Douthat has a point. In any case, when you can seriously argue whether something is ‘even worse’ than Vietnam, that’s pretty bad.

Thoughts on Hand-Off

It is with all this in mind that I recently read chunks of a new book, Hand-Off:  The Foreign Policy George W. Bush Passed to Barack Obama, a compilation edited by former Bush National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.  It consists of declassified transition memos written by Bush administration national security officials in 2008-09, designed to help the incoming Obama administration.  In each case a post-script has been added to analyze how well the original memo stands up. 

(Full disclosure:  I was on the National Security Council staff at this time and made comments on the Iraq memo, though I was not the principal author). 

Iraq.  Unsurprisingly, the memo on Iraq, written by Brett McGurk, does not dwell on the decision to invade or the difficult first years of occupation. It focuses on the positive results of the 2007 ‘surge’ and the prospects for improving stability, withdrawing US troops, and negotiating new agreements with the Iraq government.  

What about the retrospective commentary, written by Meghan O’Sullivan (Senior Director at the National Security Council for Iraq and Afghanistan from 2004-07)? Here there are some questionable ideas.  

The underlying narrative is that Bush handed Obama an Iraq on the path to success, and Obama blew it. O’Sullivan gives Obama credit for at first continuing Bush policies, but ultimately faults him for withdrawing US troops in 2011. This resulted from Iraq Prime Minister Maliki’s refusal to accede to the US demand that US troops be given immunity from Iraqi law, seen by Iraqis as an unacceptable infringement on their sovereignty. The essay, moreover, fails to point out that one reason Obama was not enthusiastic about keeping troops in Iraq is that at this same time he was greatly expanding US forces in Afghanistan to deal with deteriorating security, caused in large part by the Bush administration’s Iraq focus.

Obama is also blamed for ‘allowing’ Maliki to remain in office after controversial Iraqi elections in 2010.  However, it is not clear how the US would have determined the outcome without being accused of unacceptable interference in Iraq’s internal affairs.  America was of course suspected of pulling the strings on all Iraqi political decisions, and had to bend over backwards to try and show that Iraqis were genuinely independent.

It is fair to say that Maliki was persuaded to let the US ‘surge’ succeed 2007-08 only because Bush spent a huge amount of time and energy personally managing him. This was something that Obama and his team, focused on a global economic crisis and Afghanistan, were unwilling to do.  Left to his own devices, Maliki—a stubborn Shia sectarian—quickly indulged his suspicions and reneged on commitments to anti-terrorist Sunni allies who had worked closely with the US.  This contributed to the rise of ISIS and the eventual need to return some US forces to Iraq in 2014.

O’Sullivan asserts in defense of the original decision to invade that “From President Bush’s perspective, the military invasion of Iraq in March 2003 came only after all diplomatic avenues had been exhausted and where the alternative was to let Saddam Hussein defy the international community, the United Nations, and the United States without consequences—and to allow Saddam to continue to threaten the United States and the region.”  This ignores the reality that from the end of the First Gulf War in 1991 until 2003 Iraq was subject to withering economic sanctions (blamed for hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths from malnutrition and lack of medicines) and intense UN inspections to prevent the development of WMD and long-range missiles.  Extensive no-fly zones in the north and south prevented Iraqi forces from threatening the Kurds and major Shia cities.  Much of the damage done by US air attacks in 1991 was never repaired, and the country’s oil sector and basic infrastructure was close to collapse.  In short, the regime was under tremendous stress, and there was no prospect of Saddam being able to credibly threaten his neighbors, much less the US. 

O’Sullivan is further off-base in describing the post-invasion chaos.  She says “An unanticipated collapse of order and Iraqi institutions prevented the United States from being able to transition sovereignty to Iraqi political leaders, as had been done in Afghanistan.”  Far from unanticipated, a host of experts on Iraq and post-authoritarian transitions—including US intelligence analysts—warned about these exact consequences.  They also warned, accurately, that the Iraqi leaders that some in the US counted on to take charge, notably the notorious Ahmad Chalabi, were unreliable exiles with little support inside Iraq.

The discussion of “Lessons Learned” is a mixed bag.  There is acknowledgement that post-conflict stability and reconstruction are difficult tasks and that “significant efforts to rebuild countries should only be undertaken when truly vital US interests are at stake.”  Likewise with democratization:  “No society is incapable of democracy.  But the various layers of institutions, norms, and practices required for a sustainable democracy take considerable time to construct and remain perilously fragile long after they are initially established.”  

It is not explained, however, why these fairly obvious realities were not taken into account from the start.  In large part, I would argue, this is because pro-war advocates deliberately stoked fear while glossing over costs and difficulties that might have slowed the drive for war.  And President Bush had a strong personal conviction about the desire of all peoples for freedom that made him prone to optimism about democratization.                                   

O’Sullivan draws a more useful lesson that US foreign policy is “overmilitarized” and that civilian capabilities need to be better funded and integrated into military planning.  This is something the US should keep in mind as we supply Ukraine with weapons.  Ukraine’s ability to resist and become a stable democracy depend on strengthening its government institutions, civil society, and economy.  

Other Costs.  Does Hand-Off acknowledge the many other costs of the war such as the strains in our alliances, deterioration of relations with Russia and China, and distraction from Afghanistan?  Only in passing, judging from the essays on Afghanistan, Russia, China and Europe.

The Afghanistan discussion admits in several places that Iraq distracted policymakers and constrained US actions, though it is not clear how central this was to the deterioration of security.  While the section on “Lessons Learned” is well-done, it would have been useful to include an explicit recognition that it is irresponsible to take on two complex counter-insurgency/nation-building challenges at once.   

The Russia essay points to the many reasons that Russia in the post-Iraq period became increasingly aggressive and hostile to the West, culminating in its 2008 invasion of Georgia, 2014 annexation of Crimea, and 2015 intervention in Syria.  The role of Iraq is acknowledged but not discussed in any depth.  The tectonic shift is there only in the background:  “While the President’s strategy of personal diplomacy met with early success, disagreements with Putin following the Iraq War made this strategy more difficult.  Emboldened by rising oil prices and Russia’s rapidly growing economy, Putin quickly aligned himself with French and German leaders to oppose US “unilateralism” and establish a “multi-polar” world.” 

The memo on Europe admits that “The invasion…initially divided the United States from key European allies, especially France and Germany, and inflamed European publics.”  It says that cooperation on the Bush “Freedom Agenda” in Europe was ‘complicated’ by these disagreements, which were however supposedly largely overcome in the second Bush term.  By this time, however, the Iraq War had helped harden Putin’s opposition to NATO expansion.     Obama was received ecstatically by Europeans in 2009 largely because of his opposition to the war.

The analysis of China points out that, like Russia, China’s leaders initially saw terrorism cooperation after 9/11 as a potential turning point in relations: “President Jiang Zemin…told his advisors that the common fight against terrorism could cement his relations with President Bush in the same way that Deng Xiaoping’s common cause with his US counterparts against the Soviet Union improved relations in the 1980s.”  As with Russia, this honeymoon was short-lived as leaders concluded that the Iraq invasion showed the US ‘war on terror’ was a cloak for the expansion of US power.  China’s decisive turn against the US under Xi has many causes, but the Iraq War is certainly one that should have been discussed more extensively.

The Core Lesson.  So what is the real lesson here? Ultimately Hand-Off fails to come to grips with what I think is most important, the fatal mistake of making decisions based on fear and anger. These emotions can be valuable catalysts to action, but they distort one’s ability to calculate risks and costs.  After 9/11 American leaders wanted desperately to ‘do something’, and did not see the relatively quick and easy ouster of the Taliban as sufficient.  This was not enough to properly demonstrate America’s righteous anger.  For many Americans, it was hard to accept that the US could be hurt by a rag-tag group of militants half-way around the world.  Someone more powerful must be to blame, some major state actor, and Iraq filled the bill.

Fear and anger overlapped with the over-confidence that had built up in large parts of the American foreign policy community since the collapse of the Soviet Union.  That the United States was now the ‘indispensable nation’, that it stood alone as the arbiter of international order, that American-style democracy and free markets were the inevitable wave of the future; these and similar ideas had become deeply ingrained.  No other nation came close to matching US military capabilities.  Neoconservatives on the right, and neoliberals on the left, largely agreed that America had the power to do whatever it wanted without serious consequences.       

When fear and anger take center stage, there are always players in the wings ready to take advantage.  ‘Never let a crisis go to waste’ was the unspoken motto of neocons like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz— and paleocons like Dick Cheney—who had long wanted to oust Saddam as a way to remake the Middle East and demonstrate US power.  The 9/11 attacks were seized upon as the opportunity to market an agenda that had little to do with fighting terrorism.  This was done by relentlessly appealing to our fears.  George Bush, inexperienced in foreign policy, scared of what might come next, in need of a coherent strategy, was easy prey.

These reinforcing factors combined to warp all the major actors: the White House, intelligence agencies, the military, Congress, the press, and the public.  All moved in the same direction, towards interpreting Saddam as the key threat that must be destroyed, towards overestimating American knowledge and power, and towards underestimating the risks and costs, until we had collectively lost touch with reality. 

Useful analysis:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-invasion-of-iraq-20-years-later-intelligence-matters/

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/06/how-donald-rumsfeld-deserves-be-remembered/619334/

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Who is Winning the Russia-Ukraine War?

The correct answer may be, both Russia and Ukraine are winning.  

How can this be?  In wars, if one side is winning, isn’t the other side by definition losing?  

Yes, if we only look at the battlefield.  But let’s cast our gaze more widely, and ask what the impact of the war has been on the the two nations, on their sense of identity, their cohesion, and the power and future prospects of their leaders.  If we do that, I would argue, both are in some senses doing very well.

Of course Ukrainians would never choose to undergo a terrible war, with tens of  thousands of casualties, millions displaced, children abducted, cities reduced to rubble, electricity and water systems bombed in the middle of winter.  But the war has, according to Ukrainians themselves, created a nation out of disparate pieces.  It has cemented a unity and a clear direction, towards Europe and the West.  It has made their leader into an international hero and a symbol of Ukrainian character and heroism.  It is clear now that Ukraine will never again be Russian and that it will receive military and economic aid from the US and Europe for the foreseeable future. 

Ukraine’s future might, of course, be tragic.  It might lose the war, or be a permanent battleground.  But it will go down fighting.  And if it wins or at least holds on it will have achieved something glorious that will define it for the ages.  

What the war is doing for Russia is less glorious but no less profound.  Russia too would never have chosen to be humiliated on the battlefield, lose its main energy market, be hit with sanctions and made into an international pariah.  But tyrants almost always find wars useful to justify repression, the mobilization of society, and isolation from the outside world.  Putin is using the extended conflict to reshape Russia, moving decisively in directions he had already taken but had not, until now, had the ability to fully achieve. 

Since the invasion all vestiges of an independent press, independent civil society, and independent political forces, have been destroyed.  Hundreds of thousands of potential opponents have more or less voluntarily fled the country, leaving Putin that much more secure.  Russia’s imperial nationalist identity has been reinforced, and the split with the West made deep and permanent.  Society has now returned to Cold War levels of distrust of the outside world, combined with a paranoid search for internal enemies.  The military and security services are exalted as the defenders of the Motherland.  Western companies, possible vectors of  alternative values, have left Russia, leaving the field open for Russian competitors.  

Like many past lovers of war, Russian nationalists see war as enabling a kind of moral purification. The New York Times recently quoted Konstantin Malofeyev, a crazed ultraconservative businessman:  “Liberalism in Russia is dead forever, thank God! The longer this war lasts, the more Russian society is cleansing itself from liberalism and the Western poison.”

Both Ukraine and Russia, in distinct ways, have had their national pride and unity reinforced.  It is quite possible that Putin will see it in his interest to continue the war indefinitely.  Despite terrible losses, life for most Russians has remained normal.  Eventually the costs will hit home; Putin’s version of Russia is like the proverbial dinosaur, already dead but waiting for the signals to reach its extremities.  As the cemeteries fill up and sanctions take their toll Russians will revolt, but it may take years to catalyze genuine resistance.

Every generation of Russians seems to find a new way to commit national suicide.  Ukraine is now making a bid to escape from this destructive cycle, like an abused spouse who has finally said “I won’t take it any more!”  But a prolonged draining war could also be fatal, with Ukraine unable to realize the fruits of freedom and falling into anger and despair.  The positive effects of war have been realized; more war is not in Ukraine’s interest.  Outside support is vital to keep hope alive for Ukrainians, bring the war to a quick end, and make it clear to Russia that time is not on its side.

In Orwell’s 1984 constant war is a tool to maintain the system.  Who the war is against is unimportant—every few years the enemy changes.  1984 is now one of Russia’s best selling books, and its continued relevance is clear from the state’s official attempt to distort what the book teaches:

 “For many years we believed that Orwell described the horrors of totalitarianism. This is one of the biggest global fakes … Orwell wrote about the end of liberalism. He depicted how liberalism would lead humanity to a dead end,” Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, said during a public talk in Ekaterinburg on Saturday.  

No more Orwellian statement has ever been made.  And no statement has better demonstrated the continued strength and relevance of liberalism.

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Is Violence Necessary?  What “Ministry for the Future” Teaches Us About Combating Global Warming

The 2020 novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future, has been widely praised (it was one of Barack Obama’s favorites) for its portrayal of how the world finds the will to tackle climate change.  Robinson is a well-established science fiction writer who has addressed global warming in previous works.  Ministry is set several decades from now, when the UN has created a body, the Ministry for the Future, to think about longterm impacts and design policies to effect change.  It has little actual power other than what it can generate via publicity and seeding the system with good ideas.  Nevertheless it ultimately succeeds in prodding the global system to take action and bring emissions of greenhouse gases down to levels that avoid disaster. 

As a novel, Ministry is disappointing.  The writing is long-winded, the characters flat and uninteresting, and there are frequent digressions and mini-chapters crammed with supposedly relevant tidbits of science or technology or sociology.  However, the generally positive reviews and popular response are not because of the book’s literary qualities, but because unlike most “cli-fi,” Ministry paints a picture of success in coping with global warming.  Plenty of bad things happen, but mankind avoids the worst case, both planetary and political.  

Robinson tries to weave together every dimension of the problem, throwing into his mix major geo-engineering projects; economic tools (notably a new currency offered by major central banks); shifts in norms and culture; geopolitics; and some fairly serious violence and terrorism.  You might call Ministry a ‘novel of ideas,’ but that would not be quite right. The main issue is clear, the question is what to do about it.  It is chock full of facts and engineering options.  It is a novel not so much of ideas, as of information.  

The point of the book is not really to entertain.  It is to instruct and to offer a positive vision of how the pieces of a solution might come together.  Critics have correctly said that Robinson glides over many huge obstacles and downplays the strength and ruthlessness of the opposition.  But he offers enough specificity to make Ministry seem at least plausible and give hope to those fighting for global action.  

The most controversial piece of the ‘solution set’ that Robinson shows us is the value of violence, mostly in the form of terrorist attacks and threats.  In Ministry these are mostly aimed at industries or individuals responsible for greenhouse gas emissions.  Shadowy terrorist groups use drones to destroy airliners to stop polluting jet travel; they infect cattle with ‘mad-cow’ disease to cut down on beef consumption; board and sink fish-factory ships; blow up power plants; and hunt down billionaire arms-dealers and stab them in their beds.  Climate activists kidnap the rich, powerful attendees at Davos and hold them to draw attention to their cause. 

How important is this violence to the success of the fight against global warming?  It seems fair to say that it is a necessary though not sufficient cause.  It is perhaps inevitable that terrorist attacks and kidnappings and so on will stand out in a novel more than accounts of meetings between bureaucrats, so maybe they appear more important than they are.  But terrorism has real impact on global behavior.  Jet travel largely disappears.  Beef consumption craters.  Heads of oil companies and other bad actors are forced into hiding.  Shadowy non-governmental organizations use drone swarms to largely end the superpower monopoly on the use of force in international relations.  

Is this realistic?  Does an effective global movement against climate change need a ‘black wing’ able to threaten violence and conduct terrorist attacks? 

These are questions that some will answer purely on a moral basis with a decided ‘no’.  Many in the environmental movement are strongly opposed to violence.  But given the tremendous stakes for humanity, including the likelihood of immense suffering and death for hundreds of millions of people if global warming is not stopped or slowed, it is not clear that morality lies with an absolute rejection of violent means, if our best analysis tells us they are useful or even necessary.

That is the question to consider.  Is violence, in this case terrorism, likely to help reduce global warming?  Or is it more likely to do harm by alienating the public and calling forth intense government efforts to suppress terrorism and the movement it is associated with?  

There has been considerable research on the utility of terrorism as a means to achieve political goals, and for the most part it concludes that terrorism is not very effective.  For instance the very comprehensive work undertaken by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan for their 2016 book, Why Civil Resistance Works:  The Strategic Logic of Non-Violent Resistance, seems to show that “The rank ordering is something like this: nonviolent resistance is the most effective, followed by large insurgencies such as the Chinese Revolution or peasant rebellions, and the least effective is terrorism.”

There are a number of reasons, however, why we might need to think more carefully about the case of climate change before concluding that terrorist violence is a bad idea.  First, the climate crisis is categorically different than the cases considered by Chenoweth and Stephan, who included in their database only instances of government overthrow or territorial liberation.  The attacks in Ministry are not aimed primarily at discrediting or overthrowing governments. They are targeted at major polluting industries—airlines, the beef industry, fishing, shipping—and at individuals who own or run or support these industries.  The goal is to stop particular damaging activities.  There is no clear aim to change particular governments or states, or terrorize the general public.  The attacks on aircraft, for instance, target primarily private jets and business travel.

Maybe for this reason the world’s major powers do not exert their full force to stop these acts of terrorism and to destroy terrorist organizations and networks.

Second, the higher success rate for nonviolent methods may be misleading.  Insurgency and terrorism are often resorted to only after the failure of nonviolent strategies. The use of violence may be an indicator that peaceful protest cannot succeed against a given target.  Violence is therefore not a ‘less viable’ strategy, it is by definition a strategy used in the most difficult cases. 

And nonviolent methods may be chosen in the first place because those seeking change judge they are likely to work.  Usually this is because the target has weaknesses or vulnerabilities that can be exploited. It might be a fragile authoritarian regime with fissures in the ruling coalition and uncertain support from its security forces; or a democracy that allows a fair amount of room for political organizing and protest.  We all know that Gandhi and Martin Luther King were successful because they went up against democratic, open societies; they would have failed against a Stalin or Mao.  

There is no doubt that in Ministry—several decades in our future—peaceful protests and political activism have not been enough.  The book starts with a catastrophe in which tens of millions of Indians die from an unprecedented heat wave that literally cooks people alive.  Something more is needed, and the heat deaths precipitate radical responses on multiple fronts.  India undertakes a unilateral geo-engineering project to lower temperatures by injecting aerosols into the upper atmosphere, and the terrorist group Children of Kali emerges to attack people and institutions judged responsible for climate change.  

Third, there are many hybrid examples where a successful political movement has both an overt and a covert, violent side:  the Irish Republican Army and the African National Congress, to name two.  The American civil rights movement had elements that threatened violence or armed resistance.  American businessmen acquiesced in Progressive era and New Deal reforms in part because they were afraid that otherwise there would be a socialist revolution and they would be hung from the nearest lamppost.

The existence of a violent element, whether actual or only threatened, is often very important to the success of a peaceful strategy.  It allows the leaders using peaceful methods to appear relatively moderate, and to make the argument that unless demands are met, and speedily, violence will grow and peaceful leaders will be discredited.  

In Ministry it is clear that the violence perpetrated by the Children of Kali and similar terrorist groups is supported and coordinated secretly by people within the Ministry for the Future.  The head of the Ministry avoids probing too closely into the actions of one subordinate, who obliquely acknowledges what he is doing; she supports him but needs to maintain distance and deniability.    

The conflict being waged in our day around climate change, as in Ministry, is two-fold.

  • There is first a kind of civil war within industrialized, developed countries.  Powerful status quo forces want to continue burning fossil fuels and maintain a carbon-intensive economy and way of life.   Growing anti-status-quo forces want to stop using fossil fuels and transition very quickly.  
  • Second, there is a struggle between industrialized, developed countries and developing countries, which have not contributed to global warming and are bearing much of the cost and damage.  The developing world wants the rich, industrialized states to take the lead in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, pay developing states to transition to renewable energy, and if necessary feel some of the pain as well. 

Let’s look at these two different though parallel conflicts and ask whether terrorism is appropriate or possibly useful.  The short answer is ‘probably not’ for the civil war within advanced economies, and ‘maybe’ for the struggle between advanced and developing countries.  

Terrorists often have multiple goals for their actions.  There is an overarching strategic objective such as ‘socialist revolution’ or ‘evicting the United States from the Muslim world,’ but particular attacks often aim more narrowly at demonstrating resolve and capacity; recruiting new members; provoking over-reaction from the government; showing government weakness; or publicizing demands.

The relation between the stated strategic goal and the means used is crucial.  A goal that is extremely ambitious may be so unpopular or difficult to justify that no amount of effort or tactical success can make it viable; a good example might be the Red Brigades and other underground revolutionary groups in Europe in the 1970s and 80s, which carried out a number of spectacular terrorist actions but never generated much popular support for a Marxist revolution.  A modest goal may have more support, but violent means may seem out of proportion to the stated aim.  

Could climate terrorists in the developed world articulate a strategic goal that threads the needle to gain significant support while also justifying violence?  I think the answer is probably ‘yes’, but it would require very disciplined messaging and associated actions.  A successful argument would be that a. We are out of time. Global warming is not being addressed quickly or decisively enough, as shown by (floods, droughts, storms, sea-level rise, etc); b. This threatens our way of life and the future of our nations and communities; c. The obstacle to successful action is a minority of powerful political and economic interests; d.  Attempts to overcome this obstacle by normal channels have been exhausted; e.  Our goal is not to end capitalism or force you to become a bus-riding vegetarian; we are trying to save something approximating your present lifestyle.  

One could imagine an extremely focused campaign, like the one in Ministry, that targets mostly infrastructure and a small number of unpopular people, and refrains from major political demands.  But terrorism is not generally conducted under such controlled conditions—it tends to spill out to a broader range of targets, to spawn ever more radical splinter groups, and to escape the direction of sober leaders with limited aims.  In Ministry the senior official who has directed the ‘black arm’ ends up pleading with the Children of Kali  to call off their assassination campaign now that most of their objectives have been met—it is not clear if he is successful.  

The closest historic analogue for the violence depicted in Ministry would probably be the “eco-terrorism” of groups like the Animal Liberation Front and the Environmental Liberation Front.  These movements did not aim at government overthrow and conducted mostly vandalism or arson directed at property.  According to one study, only about 2% of all attacks were directed at people, and in no case (other than the Una-Bomber, who was a lone wolf without any affiliation with established groups or movements) were there fatalities.  The purpose was to gain publicity and cause economic damage to institutions such as research labs, logging companies, and fast-food restaurants.  (Because ALF/ELF actions did not target people and did not have an explicit political aim, it is not clear that they were acts of “terrorism” as generally understood.)

“Eco-terrorism” succeeded in imposing some economic damage on targeted companies and government institutions, and gaining publicity for animal rights and environmental protection.  It also provoked a strong backlash including a major FBI investigation and legislation specifically targeting animal and environmental rights groups.  In 2006 the FBI, in a truly comical overstatement, called ‘eco-terrorism’ the most dangerous domestic terrorist threat in the US.  If our leaders were willing to go so far against a minor threat, what would they do against the kind of attacks described in Ministry, which are far more disruptive and destructive than 9/11? 

Terrorism succeeds only if it gains broad sympathy and support for its cause.  A terrorist campaign conducted by groups in the developing world against developed states (perhaps with state support or at least acquiescence) might do this.  A campaign with limited goals—greater aid to developing countries, reparations for climate-caused damage, faster cuts in greenhouse emissions—could probably gain considerable sympathy from people in the target countries.  

Such a campaign would be very different from 9/11 and terrorist attacks against the West in the name of Islam.  These never had any chance of gaining support from sympathetic Western forces; in fact the strategic aim was to stoke mutual hatred and permanently divide the West from governments and peoples in the Muslim world.  Despite this, this terrorist strategy had considerable success.

  • It provoked the US into over-reacting by invading and occupying Muslim countries.
  • US actions helped radical Islamic groups to recruit and expand, caused the US and its supporters to waste tremendous resources, and stoked deep fissures between the US and its allies.   

A terror campaign built around global warming and ecological collapse, however, could be quite popular among many in the West who sympathize with its aims.  If it was targeted carefully at Western oil and gas infrastructure, associated financial institutions, and some key government, industrial and financial leaders, while avoiding mass-casualty attacks, it might become viewed as a ‘Robin Hood’ venture, attacking the rich on behalf of the poor.  One can think of the popularity of Che Guevera and other revolutionaries in the 1960s.  By dovetailing with the broad aims of Western environmental and climate change movements, it could play an important role in persuading political and economic leaders that the status quo is untenable.  

On the other hand, it might reinforce suspicion of immigrants and create a backlash against assistance programs.  Anti-terrorist programs would expand, diverting resources while strengthening the national security apparatus in the US and many allies.  Attacks would likely be concentrated mostly against wealthy, democratic societies and major multinational institutions identified with the West, rather than police-states like Russia or China, leading to suspicions about the movement’s underlying intentions.    

Where does this leave us?  Advocating or intellectually justifying terrorism on behalf of climate action is clearly a last resort.  It could easily backfire and make progress less likely.  How desperate is our situation?  

Robinson describes himself as an optimist:  “And I want to mention that this notion of being optimistic, it has become a truism about me. I am science fiction’s or this culture’s great optimist.”  ‘Optimism’ is not a term usually associated with climate activism, but it may be more warranted than seemed possible only a few years ago.  Recent analysis suggests temperature projections are coming down due to a combination of factors; as climate expert David Wallace-Wells recently wrote:  “Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years.”  

We don’t want to jeopardize these trends.  But we can’t afford to slow down either.  The stakes are too high.  I for one would be happy if policymakers and central bankers and CEOs sitting around their tables were more than a little worried that failure to act might lead to a violent reaction.  They might consider that life can imitate art:  eco-terrorism in the 1980s and 90s was incubated by Edward Abbey’s 1975 novel The Monkeywrench Gang.  The vandalism of that era is a pale shadow of what might be in store.  If Ministry helps put that thought in their heads, I say:  good. 

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Republic or Democracy?

When I was a college freshman in 1970 I took an introductory class in American government at Claremont Men’s College.  The textbook we used was The Democratic Republic, written by a trio of fairly conservative, somewhat Straussian professors:  Martin Diamond, Winston Fisk, and Herbert Garfinkle.  The title sums up their view of the American system, which is a republic—a type of government where some important part of those ruled chooses representatives to govern—with democratic characteristics.  When the US was founded, ‘republic’ in most people’s minds meant first and foremost Rome in its early days  (‘republic’ is the Latin for ‘the public thing’) in which Senators were appointed by magistrates (Consuls or Censors) elected from a narrow group of aristocrats, and Tribunes with important but limited powers were elected by the plebs or ordinary citizens.  

What makes us democratic is that in America ‘those ruled’ means a majority of the citizens, or as Madison puts it in Federalist 39:  “It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic.”  How we have defined ‘the great body of citizens’ has of course changed and expanded since the US began, but the essential principle hasn’t changed.

That the US was both democracy and republic was not seen as something particularly controversial at the time, as far as I can recall.  Neither the US (or any other modern country) is a pure or direct democracy, where every citizen takes part in voting on legislation or deciding court cases, as in some  periods in ancient Athens, or in some small New England towns.  The constitution lays out a process of electing representatives who make decisions in the name of the voters.  There are important checks on what those representatives can do to avoid the infamous ‘tyranny of the majority’ feared by Madison.  Representation, separation of powers, constitutional protection of certain rights, and a large and diverse population: these were the key improvements in ‘the science of politics’ that Hamilton praised in Federalist 9.  It was hoped—no one at the beginning was entirely sure it would work—that together these would make democracy for the first time in history a stable, energetic, longlasting form of government. 

If this all sounds like pretty basic stuff that you learn in high school and no American could question, you haven’t been paying attention.  Conservatives for a number of years now, with increasing vehemence, have been declaring that the US is ‘A republic, not a democracy!”  They shouted this slogan at the capitol on January 6.  Perhaps the most extreme, Trumpist political figure in the US, Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor Doug Mastriano, is prone to screaming it regularly at rallies, to get the conservative faithful worked up. 

The operational reason for this is quite clear; it is an attempt to seem like a true-blue American while denigrating democracy and rule of the majority.  This would have seemed insane to Americans of almost any earlier time.  The only exceptions of course would have been southern separatists and racists, who denied human equality and hence the principle at the heart of our democratic experiment.  

Suspicion and dislike of democracy is now embedded in American conservatism and in the Republican Party, mostly because the majority of Americans don’t want what conservatism is selling:  economic inequality, privileges for the wealthy, government gridlock, religious zealotry, white supremacy, guns for everyone, and rule by a carefully engineered majority of black-robed unelected justices.  Conservatives, rather than adjusting their policies to appeal to the majority, are instead trying to keep the policies and rule as a minority by taking over key state offices that control voting results, and (they hope) soon reinterpreting the Constitution to allow state legislators to decide the composition of the electoral college. 

This effort is directed and powered by moneyed interests who want a weak state that doesn’t interfere in the accumulation and passing on of wealth—people who in effect want to become the ‘tyrannical nobles’ Madison warned us against.  It is producing a cascade of demagoguery, deception, intimidation, and manipulation of the American political system the likes of which we have never seen.

The ‘republic not a democracy’ slogan is part of an ideological campaign to give conservative voters an excuse for rejecting what a majority of fellow citizens prefer, as expressed by their vote.  It is the underpinning for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election and supporting the January 6 insurrection.  It gives a false sense of gravitas to “Great Replacement” and other conspiracy theories according to which today’s American majority, the diverse and increasingly non-white population living in big cities, shouldn’t be allowed to pick our country’s leaders because they are not ‘real Americans.’ 

I cannot improve on this explanation by Ryan McMaken some years ago:  

“The claim that the United States political system is “a republic, not a democracy” is often heard in libertarian and conservative circles, and is typically invoked whenever the term “democracy” is used in any favorable context. This claim is generally invoked when the user believes one of the following:

  1. ‘I don’t like your idea, and since it involves aspects that are democratic or majoritarian, I’ll invoke the republic-not-a-democracy claim to discredit your idea.’
  2. ‘A majority of the population appears to support this idea, so I will invoke the republic-not-a-democracy claim to illustrate that the majority should be ignored.’” 

It is a piece of demagoguery, not a serious argument.  The next time you hear someone say the US is “a republic, not a democracy,” please let whoever is spouting it know, in no uncertain terms, that it is bunk.

Interrogating the Silicon Valley Billionaires: The Shallowness of Techno-Optimism

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”   F Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

A coterie of tech billionaires and Silicon Valley high-flyers has swung hard behind Donald Trump.  Their reasons center around the supposed hostility of Biden and the Democratic Party to their techno-dreams. In particular they object to attempts to regulate cryptocurrency and to put some brakes on AI development.  Though many used to support Democrats, now they echo MAGA talking points about DEI and the intolerant ‘woke’ culture that they claim is stifling free speech and interfering with progress.  They threw money at the Trump campaign and in return have been allowed to seed the Trump administration with their followers and policy positions.

Behind these public positions, many tech-geniuses have become enamored of much more radical views.  They view democracy as inefficient and slow, needing replacement by a new regime modeled on the start-up culture that has produced our giant tech companies.  Imbibing ideas from people like reactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin and cryptocurrency advocate Balaji Srinivasan, they envision political systems that run on cryptocurrency, blockchains, and AI.  They toggle back and forth between pursuing utopias that stand outside all existing states—Peter Thiel’s Seasteading, Elon Musk’s Terminus on Mars, Srinavasan’s Network State—and plans for subverting and taking over the United States.  None of these would be democracies but would be run like corporations, top-down with a single enlightened ruler at the top. 

Here are some of the questions we should be asking about this puzzling turn of events.

First, WTF?   You folks scheming to overthrow America’s constitutional system are not the poor, the needy, the oppressed.  Quite the opposite.  You’re some of the richest, most successful people in the country.  You have made it to the top in the current democratic, two-party, ‘woke’ America—many of you sought this out by emigrating here—but that world is now somehow all wrong?  It needs wholesale replacement?  Something is badly off with this picture. 

Second, you want to run the country like a start-up?  You know, I assume, that the vast, vast majority of start-ups fail.  They go down for many reasons:  they don’t understand the market, they can’t hire good people, they underestimate costs, the founder turns out to be a pathological monster, someone else does it better, COVID changes the playing field, etc, etc.  Only a few turn into viable companies, and only a few of those become really successful.   

If this happens, it’s a shame, but there is isn’t much damage.  Some investors lose money that, hopefully, they can afford to lose.  The founders pick themselves up and go back to the drawing board.  But the US government?   We don’t have another one waiting in the wings.  Like 19th century anarchists, there is a hopeless romanticism at work that imagines that when government collapses, a thousand beautiful flowers will bloom.  But in reality, if this government, with all its flaws, goes under there won’t be any solid pad from which to launch the replacement. 

Third, even if the dream is realized, why is it better?  Why is it preferable to live in a super-efficient tyranny, rather than a messy, inefficient democracy?  The history of tyrannies is not exactly brimming with examples of efficiency and prosperity and stability.  Quite the opposite. 

But assume you can make the US like Singapore, with advanced AI taking it to the next level.  What is the argument that this will make people happier?   Or more narrowly, that it will accelerate the progress in technology that seems to be the be-all and end-all of this project?   You really think a dictatorship run by Elon Musk would be more likely to incubate great new companies and new technology?

Simply saying that because it resembles a big successful company it must be better, begs the question.  Companies have very simple and limited purposes.  They often dress them up to sound like they’re in the business of saving the world or realizing the customer’s innermost desires.    But they really aren’t.

Also, private companies are not, rhetoric aside, bastions of rationality and efficiency.  Have you not watched “The Office”?  They often do stupid things that lose money, damage the environment, cause people to suffer, and lead to bankruptcy.  People get sued and end up in court in handcuffs. 

Political systems have complicated and broad purposes.  They have to deliver something called Justice.  They have to protect Community, what we have in common.  Rights, what we protect against Community.  Dignity.  Equality.   Security, external and internal.  They have to create and maintain Legitimacy via some combination of performance, story-telling, historical narrative, and participation in selecting leaders and making decisions.  These inconvenient human needs don’t figure in the techno-utopian plans, which rest on  running roughshod over every human need if it gets in the way of greater productivity.

Fourth, why can’t the problems with our present regime be solved with reform rather than replacement? Have you tried?  No one denies that America’s constitutional system could use improvement.  If even part of the energy and resources and thinking devoted to overthrowing was devoted to improving, we might be in a much better place.  Put your ingenuity and money to figuring out how to fix the electoral system, make the Supreme Court fair, stop political corruption, make it easier to build things, ensure the benefits of technology and greater productivity benefit everyone.  Or is this not really in your interest?  Too tame?  Not enough opportunities to make big bucks? 

We should be more than slightly suspicious that something else is at work here.  The idea that the arena we are particularly good at should be the model for the whole society, that’s a pretty normal idea.  That’s how medieval barons and knights thought.  We are the best at hacking other people to death, so our world will be ordered to put hacking at the center.  The best hackers will rule and receive obeisance.  Hacking makes the world a better place!  Statues will be put up, pictures mounted on all the walls, operas and symphonies will sing the praises, of the great hackers.

In any society the people who are winners, the nobles or oligarchs or high priests, are, predictably, the ones who prate about ‘meritocracy.’  They believe in their bones that the current order is the right order and that they have triumphed in a civilizational episode of “Survivor.”   All that remains is for the losers to submit and recognize that the best have won.  This is why industrialists and financiers from the Gilded Age embraced eugenics and pseudo-Darwinian theories that placed people like themselves at the tip-top of the natural order.       

With this mindset, your goal is to keep upstarts from challenging your supremacy.  How might this happen?  One way, as Nobel Prize winning economist Simon Johnson points out, would be if the federal government were to spend lots of money and effort developing new technologies, as it has often done in the past.  These wouldn’t be patented and owned by today’s oligarchs.  So you might actually be in favor, somewhat counterintuitively, of cutting back sharply on government spending for science and R and D.  And you might also like high tariffs that protect your monopolies.  Hmmm….

One can’t read the books and Substack pieces and podcasts where the techno-utopian dreams are laid out without realizing that these ultra-rich, extremely clever folks have huge chips on their shoulder.  Just inventing things and starting companies and making money isn’t enough.  They don’t feel they are being sufficiently valued.  “We gave you all this and you aren’t grateful” seems to be a common feeling.

It rankles them that some people are less than enthusiastic about all these wonderful new toys. They aren’t convinced that all the social media and smartphones and automated systems, not to mention the coming era of cryptocurrency and AI, are unqualified goods.  They’re skeptical that the tech-bros with their genius brains but underdeveloped souls always know what’s best.  They are tired of constantly being the subjects of Silicon Valley’s latest science experiment.

Even worse, these unwarranted concerns were leading the Biden Administration to think about regulations and antitrust and holding hearings and taxing billionaires.  Asking annoying questions about where technology was going and what might go wrong.

The billionaires find this unacceptable, just the unwashed poking sticks in the humming wheels of progress.

The Techno-Optimist Manifesto

For fun, let’s look at one of the more famous statements of purpose, Mark
Andreessen’s “Techno-Optimist Manifesto”, published in 2023.  Andreessen is a very successful investor whose firm, Andreessen-Horowitz, sits at the center of the Silicon Valley start-up ecosystem.

Andreessen’s manifesto explains why he has become a huge Trump backer.  He donated heavily to Trump’s campaign, and after the election he started to spend a lot of time at Mar-a-Lago along with his friend, Elon Musk.  (If you want to hear a presumably intelligent man embarrass himself, listen to Joe Rogan’s interview with Andreessen shortly after the election, where both men fall over themselves to tell each other how much they love Trump and how blessed, blessed we are that he won.)

The gist of the Manifesto is that technology, plus capitalism, is the absolute best thing human beings have ever come up with, it is the cause of all our progress and greater wealth and abundance.  If we just let it do its thing it will continue to make us all richer and happier.  But (for reasons Andreessen never addresses) some people are skeptical.  They are the Enemy.

We have enemies.

Our enemies are not bad people – but rather bad ideas.

Our present society has been subjected to a mass demoralization campaign for six decades – against technology and against life – under varying names like “existential risk”, “sustainability”, “ESG”, “Sustainable Development Goals”, “social responsibility”, “stakeholder capitalism”, “Precautionary Principle”, “trust and safety”, “tech ethics”, “risk management”, “de-growth”, “the limits of growth”.

This demoralization campaign is based on bad ideas of the past – zombie ideas, many derived from Communism, disastrous then and now – that have refused to die.

Our enemy is stagnation.

Our enemy is anti-merit, anti-ambition, anti-striving, anti-achievement, anti-greatness.

Our enemy is statism, authoritarianism, collectivism, central planning, socialism.

Our enemy is bureaucracy, vetocracy, gerontocracy, blind deference to tradition.

Our enemy is the Precautionary Principle, which would have prevented virtually all progress since man first harnessed fire. The Precautionary Principle was invented to prevent the large-scale deployment of civilian nuclear power, perhaps the most catastrophic mistake in Western society in my lifetime. The Precautionary Principle continues to inflict enormous unnecessary suffering on our world today. It is deeply immoral, and we must jettison it with extreme prejudice.

There’s a lot more, but you get the idea.

There is of course much that is accurate in Andreessen’s picture.   The combination of science and technology and free markets—what he calls the ‘techno-capital machine’—has produced tremendous wealth and liberated much of mankind from want.  The turn away from nuclear power was a terrible mistake. 

It is however astonishingly blind, I am tempted to say deliberately blind, to the role of political and institutional structures in this process.  The rule of law, the sidelining of stifling oligarchies, the loosening of rigid class divisions, the empowering of ordinary people, the articulation and enforcement of free speech and a free press, the taming of religious sectarianism, and much more, have been essential to the progress he worships. 

Governments have sometimes stifled markets, but they have also delivered education and science and learning, aided infrastructure and trade and banking and on and on.  Government has again and again, through laws and regulation, made new industries safer and therefore more acceptable to the public.  They have prevented monopolies and trusts from destroying the progress Andreessen extols.  They have directed tremendous public resources towards research and science.  They have made the techno-capital machine acceptable by helping to ensure that its fruits benefit more than just a lucky few. 

Liberal democratic governments in particular have been the incubators of progress, and also its beneficiaries.  Liberal democracy, free markets, and technological progress have gone hand in hand.  The year 1776 famously saw both the Declaration of Independence and the publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.  Andreessen quotes from Wealth perhaps the most over-used and poorly understood sentences in the English language: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.”  Like so many he ignores the rest of Smith’s 750 pages where he tells us again and again that self-interest is dangerous and must be checked, and that rich businessmen always conspire to create monopolies and fleece the public.  For Andreessen, however, selfishness is something to be praised, and government is nothing but an obstacle in the way of Great Men.

Notice the timeline here.  Andreessen says we went off track 60 years ago, somewhere around 1973.  It was, somewhat surprisingly, during the Presidency of Richard Nixon that Congress created the Environmental Protection Agency. It was when the first Earth Day was held.  Awareness of the dangers of the techno-capital machine was growing and becoming institutionalized.  Andreessen is not specific about what caused this historical wrong turn, but we can assume this is what he has in mind. 

Of course we need to point to the obvious, that during the 60 years that we’ve suffered from this awful ‘demoralization’, the United States incubated an astonishing surge in applied technology, especially in computing and communications.  The new industries in these sectors have long overtaken the old manufacturing giants in value and influence.  Andreessen himself has thrived and grown rich off them.  True, we never built flying cars.  But maybe flying cars were a lame idea, compared to the internet. 

The wrong turn Andreessen wants us to lament doesn’t seem objectively to have derailed progress.  Maybe—gasp!—it helped progress by convincing the public that we could let technology go forward while being confident that someone, somewhere was watching out for its dangers and downsides and doing something about them.

Andreessen laments, for instance in this fawning 2025 interview, that productivity growth has dropped from its heyday in the first 2/3 of the 20th century.  He imagines this is because of his ‘enemies.’  There are many explanations for this, the most convincing being Robert Gordon’s analysis in The Rise and Fall of Economic Growth, that this was an abnormal time when the global economy was absorbing genuinely revolutionary technologies—electricity, the internal combustion engine, powered flight, indoor plumbing, antibiotics, radio and television, nuclear power.  These were the ‘low-hanging fruit’ for human ingenuity. It is unrealistic to expect this to continue, and for all the hype around the computer and software revolutions, they have not been nearly as transformative.       

The real difference between productivity then and now is that ‘then’, in the good old days, increases in productivity translated to higher wages and a higher standard of living for ordinary people.  Today, productivity growth is disproportionately grabbed by those who are already rich. Rising inequality is the result.  But this doesn’t seem to concern Andreessen, nor does it seem to occur to him that it might be a drag on progress.        

Finally, we can look at Andreesen’s attempt to articulate what this is all about, what vision of human nature or human good he has in mind. Here he stumbles, in a revealing way.  He wants  abundance, material security, and ultimately absolute freedom and power: 

We believe that technology ultimately drives the world to what Buckminster Fuller called “ephemeralization” – what economists call “dematerialization”. Fuller: “Technology lets you do more and more with less and less until eventually you can do everything with nothing.

We believe that since human wants and needs are infinite, economic demand is infinite, and job growth can continue forever.

Andreessen goes on to cite the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche to underscore his vision.  He quotes Nietzsche’s warning about the ‘Last Man’ of our modern age who has no great goals, no higher yearnings, who seeks only material abundance and comfort and security.  This is what Andreesen says he wants to avoid.  But his techno-capital machine is precisely what Nietzsche despises and sees as creating the Last Man.  What Andreesen and his fellow tech enthusiasts are asking for is to get to the Last Man as fast as possible. 

Andreessen says, correctly I think, that “the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits.”  Nietzsche, however, is not interested in peaceful productive pursuits. He thinks they make us weak and boring.  He is calling on us to raise armies and start religions.

There was, however, another famous 19th century thinker who was in fact enamored of technology and, in his way, of capitalism.  His name was Karl Marx.  Marx of course wanted to transcend capitalism but he was clear-eyed about its great creative power.  In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels are rhapsodic about what capitalism has accomplished. In only a century it “has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together… rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life…put an end to all feudal, patriarchal arrangements…all that is solid melts into air.”  All this ‘creative destruction’ makes possible a future of technology and unlimited abundance, when man will no longer need to labor but can paint in the morning and fish in the afternoon. 

Andreessen hates communism, by which he means Leninism, for its top-down planning and rejection of the profit motive.  But the vision he and others have for the future is far closer to Marx than Nietzsche: a single-minded surge towards abundance and unlimited wealth, stewarded by a small elite of enlightened experts.  Eventually human beings will merge with their technological creations and we will find ourselves at the true end of history. 

We believe intelligence is in an upward spiral – first, as more smart people around the world are recruited into the techno-capital machine; second, as people form symbiotic relationships with machines into new cybernetic systems such as companies and networks; third, as Artificial Intelligence ramps up the capabilities of our machines and ourselves.

Andreesen has read too much Ayn Rand, a Nietzschean who tries to make his teachings compatible with capitalism.  Rand’s novels exalt the great inventor-businessman, a superior being whose work benefits us all, but who does what he does only for the love of the challenge, of the difficulty, of the fight.  This is the picture Andreesen has of himself and his Silicon Valley friends.  They are the ones who by their striving and sacrifice and genius make things for the rest of us.  Governments—especially democratic ones—are creatures of the Last Men who want only to tear down the great ones, loading them down with Precautionary Principles.   

In a section titled “Becoming Technological Supermen,” Andreesen quotes—slyly, without naming the source—from the 1909 Futurist Manifesto:  “To paraphrase a manifesto of a different time and place: ‘Beauty exists only in struggle. There is no masterpiece that has not an aggressive character. Technology must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.’”

Perhaps Andreesen wants us not to notice that the Futurists were precursors of Italian fascism.  A few paragraphs later in their Manifesto, we read this:  “We want to glorify war—the only cure for the world—militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.  We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice.”

Mr. Andreesen and the other pseudo-Nietzscheans around him are playing with fire.  They throw out names and ideas that they don’t understand, in the name of a supposedly apolitical agenda that would throw aside every guardrail, every voice of caution, every consideration other than unrestricted progress. There is no question that anything resembling democracy is intolerable.  They want nothing to oppose them, and they want to be lauded and rewarded as they smash and grab their way through the lives of ordinary Americans.   

Andreessen says there can be left-wing and right-wing supporters of his manifesto.  He is otherwise silent on politics.  But he does say:

We believe America and her allies should be strong and not weak. We believe national strength of liberal democracies flows from economic strength (financial power), cultural strength (soft power), and military strength (hard power). Economic, cultural, and military strength flow from technological strength. A technologically strong America is a force for good in a dangerous world. Technologically strong liberal democracies safeguard liberty and peace. Technologically weak liberal democracies lose to their autocratic rivals, making everyone worse off.

It sounds like Andreessen is a fan of liberal democracy.  But it is not clear that his blueprint for techno-capitalist progress is compatible with liberal democracy, or any democracy.  A society ordered around Andreessen’s model would have to abdicate almost all public supervision and control over private business.  His perfect meritocracy  would honor a few supermen, and ignore or denigrate those who don’t measure up. 

Many of the people close to Andreessen, who share his support for Trump and for unrestricted technological progress, are very clear about their rejection of democracy.  Peter Thiel said in 2009 that he doesn’t think freedom and democracy are compatible.  Curtis Yarvin (quoted approvingly by Andreessen in this 2025 interview) has frequently said a type of monarchy is needed in America, which should get over its aversion to dictators.  Trump himself, of course, has made clear that he rejects democracy, except when he wins.

It used to be taken for granted that democracy, and the free exchange of ideas at the heart of liberalism, were essential to America’s economic and technological success.  It was why we out-competed the USSR.  Andreessen doesn’t mention any of this.

Andreessen and his pals are up to their eyeballs in various libertarian schemes to separate from the United States of America.  Musk wants to go to Mars, Thiel wants to live in the middle of the ocean, Jeff Bezos envisions orbiting cities, Srinavasan (a former general partner at Andreessen-Horowitz) wants to create ‘network states’.  It may or may not be a coincidence that a project backed by Thiel, Praxis, is eying Greenland as the place to build a libertarian utopia; or that Trump has appointed as our Ambassador to Denmark—charged with implementing Trump’s demand that Denmark hand Greenland to the US—Mr. Ken Khouri, a co-founder of Paypal along with Thiel. 

These people who want desperately to leave America behind, who think America is a hopeless mess of pinkos and technophobes, are not interested in making America a better place.  They are looking to strip-mine America to get the money and power to realize their techno-libertarian dreams.  Their thinking is as shallow as their self-image is inflated.  In Donald Trump they think they have found a vehicle for their dreams, someone they flatter in public but in private doubtlessly scorn. 

We will see who is using who.  In The Prince, Machiavelli describes the actions of Cesare Borgia, who on conquering Romagna put in charge a cruel man to restore order.  He was understandably deeply unpopular.  After he had ensured Cesare’s rule:   “One morning, Remirro’s body was found cut in two pieces on the piazza at Cesena, with a block of wood and a bloody knife beside it.  The brutality of this spectacle kept the people of the Romagna appeased and stupified.”

Follow the Crypto

Follow the money, political sophisticates have said for decades.  But today, we need to follow not just money, but a particular form of money, cryptocurrency. 

In what follows, I will try to avoid sounding like Charlton Heston, shouting futilely “Soylent Green is people!”  But I think that’s the truth.  The coup of the Silicon Valley billionaires is well-advanced.  That it is taking place in plain sight makes it not less, but more alarming.*

As has been well-documented, Donald Trump was until recently not a fan of the bitcoin mafia.  Only a few years ago, in 2021, he called crypto a ‘scam’ and ‘a disaster waiting to happen.’   In this he was, for once, on target.  There is room for disagreement about the potential value of this artificial ‘currency’, but I am persuaded by people like Paul Krugman and Bill Gates that it is, in fact, a scam, a variation on the classic pyramid scheme.  By this I do not mean that it can be improperly used as a pyramid scheme, but that it is inherently and unavoidably and knowingly a pyramid scheme, designed to make early investors rich by fleecing latecomers, what Gates calls “the Greater Fool theory.” 

In addition it is also, undeniably, a major source of funding for illegal activities ranging from drugs to human trafficking to pornography.  It is a vehicle of choice for celebrities and public figures looking to make a quick buck.   It has been at the center of major scandals, such as the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX.  Creating, or ‘mining’, cryptocurrencies requires huge amounts of energy and is a major reason for increases in electricity demand, requiring new generating capacity and greater use of fossil fuels, all over the world.    

But in the last several years Trump has changed his tune.  He has become a full-throated booster, promising to end the Biden administration’s efforts to regulate crypto and make the US the “crypto capital of the planet.” His campaign received huge donations from the crypto industry, which also donated heavily to defeat candidates in House and Senate races perceived as ‘anti-crypto’.  According to the New Yorker, “Pro-crypto donors are responsible for almost half of all corporate donations to pacs in the 2024 election cycle, and the tech industry has become one of the largest corporate donors in the nation. The point of all that money, like the attack on Porter [Representative Kathy Porter of California], has been to draw attention to Silicon Valley’s financial might—and to prove that its leaders are capable of political savagery in order to protect their interests. “It’s a simple message,” the person familiar with Fairshake said. “If you are pro-crypto, we will help you, and if you are anti we will tear you apart.”

Trump chose a Vice-President, JD Vance, who is close to Silicon Vally crypto enthusiasts, in particular Peter Thiel, who financed his Ohio Senate campaign.  After choosing Vance, NPR reported that “Trump’s Vance pick has drawn praise in crypto circles, with investors hoping for lax regulations of the digital currency. In his latest federal financial disclosure, Vance reported that he owns between $100,000 and $250,000 in Bitcoin.”   After picking Vance Trump quickly gained the backing of crypto entrepreneur Elon Musk and a host of other Silicon Vally crypto investors and backers.  Trump’s new crypto-czar,  Silicon Valley investor David Sacks, is a charter member of Peter Thiel’s “Paypal Mafia,” which includes Elon Musk.  His appointment was welcomed enthusiastically by the crypto industry, according to The Hill.

Trump just announced the creation of a ‘crypto reserve’, where the US Government is directed to buy crypto from five designated vendors, with the coins set aside to supposedly be used in a financial crisis or to pay down government debt.  State governments are moving to allow pension funds and other public organizations to invest in crypto.  This is despite crypto’s notorious volatility and the lack of a mature regulatory regime to safeguard crypto investors.  Why?

Trump’s enthusiasm is partly due to the opportunities crypto offers to make money and to receive donations/bribes anonymously.  The World Liberty Fund gives the Trump family 75% of its revenues.  Controversial businessman Justin Sun recently bought $75 million worth of Liberty tokens—a purchase he publicized on social media.  On February 26 the SEC announced it was dropping its civil fraud case against Sun for manipulating the price of another crypto token.   

Trump is also benefiting from $tRUMP, a ‘memecoin’ which has been marketed to his supporters and could potentially be worth billions of dollars, though investors could take huge losses if Trump decides to cash out.  Trump imitator Javier Milei, the libertarian President of Argentina, is being investigated for fraud after he endorsed a memecoin that rose in value and was then ‘dumped’ by early investors. 

For the Silicon Valley crypto enthusiasts who played a huge role in getting Trump elected, however, crypto is much more than a way to make money.  It is a vehicle for weakening and eventually replacing democratic governance altogether.  Crypto is the opening wedge in a campaign to have private mechanisms replace key government functions. These private mechanisms would respond to market forces and replace outmoded democratic systems.  Of course, they would be shaped not by a majority of citizens with each person having an equal vote, but by those with the most money. 

Here is how Mike Brock, a close follower of Silicon Valley’s ever-morphing ideological landscape, describes it in his recent piece “How Silicon Valley’s Corrupted Libertarianism is Dismantling American Democracy.”

”…figures like Thiel [Peter Thiel, influential reactionary techno-theorist and JD Vance’s former employer and mentor] began to see cryptocurrency not just as a new financial instrument, but as a tool for fundamentally restructuring society. If traditional democracy was hopelessly corrupt, as Yarvin [Curtis Yarvin, a formerly fringe monarchist and anti-democrat blogger who has become influential in tech circles] argued, then perhaps blockchain could enable new forms of governance built on immutable code rather than fallible human judgment. This vision found its perfect technological expression in Bitcoin.

From Yarvin’s early writings during the financial crisis to today’s constitutional crisis, we can trace a clear intellectual evolution. What began as abstract criticism of democratic institutions has become a concrete blueprint for dismantling them. But the key accelerant in this process was cryptocurrency—it provided both a technological framework and a psychological model for opting out of democratic governance entirely.”

Who is Curtis Yarvin and why does he matter?

 Yarvin is a blogger and programmer whose ideas have gained a lot of traction with people like Thiel,  Musk, Marc Andreesen and other Silicon Valley heavyweights.  JD Vance is a fan.  Yarvin attended Trump’s inauguration and was seen hanging out with various movers and shakers.  This brief summary of his views from a recent piece in the Patreon blog, “The Philosophy Behind Doge:  Curtis Yarvin and the Butterfly Revolution,” makes him sound like the villain in a bad Marvel comic, but it’s pretty much on target:

·       Accelerationism: the belief that capitalism and technology must be massively sped up and intensified to destabilize existing systems, cause a collapse, and ultimately create radical social transformations

·       Techno-Utopianism: the belief that unbridled technology can create the perfect society— at least, for those who control it

·       Monarchism/neo-monarchism: the belief that absolute power should be wielded by a single sovereign

Yarvin has outlined publicly the process for making this happen, which requires a populist who calls openly for concentrating power in the Leader (Trump), and then picks a smart CEO (Musk) to execute the plan.

As we watch Elon Musk take a chainsaw to the federal government, his larger purpose is clear.  He and his fellow billionaires certainly want to reduce government for classic conservative reasons, to reduce their own taxes and weaken regulation and oversight.  But this is not the primary goal.  Musk’s DOGE cuts are minute and will do nothing to meaningfuly lower spending or reduce the deficit, the ostensible reasons.  The real purpose is to gain access to government networks in order to replace existing institutions with proprietary code, AI, and cryptocurrency.  According to Forbes, “Musk has confirmed he wants to put the U.S. Treasury on a blockchain, the technology that underpins bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—including Musk’s pet project dogecoin.”

Trump’s transition team was heavily funded by Musk and other Silicon Valley billionaires, according to the New York Times.  The transition operation was responsible for identifying and vetting who would fill key government positions.  The Trump transition was entirely funded by private donors, unlike previous transitions, and Trump has not disclosed who they were despite a pledge to do so.   

A love of ‘efficiency’ and hatred for the messiness and slowness of democracy is the through-line explaining the techno-elites embrace of Trump.  Trump shares with them a contempt for democracy, and is easily manipulated.  He is the ‘useful idiot,’ the battering ram who will accelerate the transition to a new order, designed and run by super-wealthy genius elites.

Scorn for democracy and love of efficiency, we should recall, was the leitmotif of fascism and communism during their heydays in the 1920s and 30s.  The future belonged to centralized, top-down systems that would run rings around the decadent liberal democracies.  The trains would all run on time.  Millions in America and around the world were mesmerized by Mussolini’s Italy, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s USSR—great states in the hands of pulverizing leaders who could sweep away opposition and modernize and rationalize everything overnight.   

It is men with this same vision who are now at the throats of the American people.  These are businessmen who have grown fat under the awful democracy they despise, but are now turning on the system that nurtured them.  Unlike in the 1920s, this time, they believe, technology is up to the task.  Crypto is the bright shiny object, but AI is the One Ring to rule them all.  The willingness of Trump to let the techies pursue AI without obstacles and to fund the massive new energy sources required to build advanced AI models was what drew Silicon Valley to his side. 

In a recent Ezra Klein interview with Ben Buchanan, Biden’s top advisor on AI, Klein and Buchanan agreed that radical breakthroughs in AI are coming very soon, probably within the next three years.  We will see something like AGI or Artificial General Intelligence.  If this happens on Trump’s watch, in an Administration stuffed with AI and crypto advocates, we can have no expectation that there will be adequate safeguards or planning to take account of the repercussions.  The people who believe that the correct approach to everything is “move fast and break things” will be in charge. 

These forces are taking over the MAGA movement and have bent Trump to their will.  They will be hard to stop unless America’s leaders and thinkers first wake up to the magnitude of the threat. 

*I recognize the picture I’m painting here may be exaggerated.  Maybe there is no Silicon Valley tech billionaire conspiracy and they all just switched to Trump to get less regulation and because they hate wokeness.  Maybe Musk really just wants to make government more modern and efficient.  Maybe Curtis Yarvin’s thinking is what it seems, a wild sideshow, not central to how the Thiels and Musks really think.  Maybe AI isn’t on the verge of a breakthrough to AGI or anywhere close to being able to run big public agencies.  Maybe Trump plans to dump Musk and his brethren after they finish their dirty work.  It’s always possible to connect the dots in a misleading way.  I would say, though, that there is enough information pointing in the same direction to demand we pay attention.

Three-and-a Half Overlapping Forces

The Trump administration can now be seen to consist of three distinct but overlapping forces.  What they have in common are two things:  a rejection of democracy, and a commitment to regime change here in America and around the world.  They are aided by support, or at least acquiescence, from the traditional business class.

First is Trump himself and the personality cult that engulfs a large chunk of his supporters.  Trump is an extreme narcissist who cannot distinguish between reality and what he wants reality to be.  He believes he deserves to rule because he is Trump; no other reason is required.  He has made it crystal clear that he accepts democracy if and only if he wins, i.e. he does not accept it. 

Trump’s idea of the proper regime does not extend beyond one where he rules, and everyone else bends to him.  We can call this a ‘personalistic’ regime, or a ‘cult of personality’, or whatever.  It is a frequently observed way of ruling that Americans used to guffaw at when we saw it in Africa or Latin America or Nazi Germany or Stalin’s USSR or Mao’s China, but which many Americans now think is needed here.  

Some degree of narcissism is expected in anyone who aspires to lead, but extreme versions frequently win out precisely because of their absolute faith in themselves and their right to rule. This pathological egotism, which most of us would run from in anyone we met in our personal life, convinces many people from a distance that this is a ‘real leader.’

The advantage of coalescing around a person rather than an idea or a program is that it papers over disagreements.  The disadvantage is that it subjects society to the whims of the ruler, whose idiosyncratic preferences are unchallengable.  In the extreme cases this results in gas chambers and Cultural Revolutions.  In Trump’s case it is more likely to result in widespread corruption, a permanent erosion of the rule-of-law, and the loss of America’s standing in the world.   Bad enough, but we should prepare for worse: “appetite comes with eating.”

Second we have right-wing ideologues, such as Vice-President Vance and Steve Bannon and the scribblers at the Claremont Institute.  These people reject democracy because they believe the proper regime type is nationalist/fundamentalist rule, grounded not in majority preferences or the genuinely liberal principles of America’s founding, but in some mystical, historical ‘true America’ that must be rediscovered and restored.   This mystical America embodies a crabbed version of Christianity, a cherry-picked set of  ‘European’ or ‘Western’ values, deep suspicion of science and professional expertise, and, not coincidentally, rule by white men.  If the democratic process fails to uphold the correct regime, so much the worse for democracy.

The nationalist ideologues see Trump as the vehicle for their program, which requires foisting unpopular ideas onto an unsuspecting public.  Their models for the best state are Hungary, or even Russia, where speech is controlled, political opposition is suppressed, and the state promotes ‘traditional’ moral and religious values.  Most Americans don’t want this, so the ideologues try to pretend they are populists acting on behalf of ‘the people’—meaning of course the ‘real people,’ not those liberals who are communists and traitors.

They are in fact plotting to take control of the state to promote their undemocratic preferences.  Strengthening the executive to carry out this plot has been a longstanding goal.  To do this they need scapegoats, so issues that could with a small amount of good-will be resolved by negotiation and compromise—DEI, transgender athletes, and dog-eating immigrants—have been whipped up as a smokescreen to divert attention.

Third, and most recently, we have the billionaire technocrats.  Elon Musk is at the forefront, but followed closely by other Silicon Valley titans.  These people reject democracy on familiar Randian grounds—the naturally best and brightest should rule, without interference from the grubby masses.   

What Musk seems to have done is conduct a friendly takeover of Trump (whose worship of money and rich people makes him highly susceptible to manipulation) in order to reshape government, replacing civil servants and Congressional direction with AI.  Instead of the Constitution and its antiquated institutions, we should give authority to automated systems in the name of efficiency.  These will be supplied—surprise—by Musk and his peers, for boatloads of money.  This will supposedly allow us to save money while bypassing or ignoring any annoying restrictions imposed by elected officials and the people behind them. 

Implementing this model will give our genius technocrats free rein to reshape government to prioritize the unchecked development of new technologies, designed to enrich and empower the genius technocrats.  They want government to get out of the way—actually, to throw money at them—as they pursue their dreams of living forever, going to Mars, and accelerating the wholesale replacement of human beings by AI and robots.

These three forces are joined uneasily to another more familiar force, the wealthy 1%, which has labored for decades to direct the Republican Party towards low taxes, weak regulation, and the maximum leeway to use money to influence politics (“corporations are people”).  Weakening the state is a longstanding conservative goal that partially aligns with Trump’s preferences; while the 1% wants a state less able to stand up to the private sector, Trump wants a state stripped of any autonomy that can serve as an untrammeled vehicle for his will.   

It would be going too far to say these ‘traditional Republicans’ want a full-scale change of regime.  What most want is leeway to pursue their private business interests.  But what matters is that they have capitulated to Trump, with only token resistance.  Despite a variety of unpleasant Trump policy preferences, like tariffs and mass deportations, there is no longer any opposition.  Undermining the rule of law and creating a kleptocracy would seem to run against the self-interest of the business class, but the holy grails of lower taxes and weaker government are too potent.

Ironically the traditional 1%, which labored tirelessly to make it as easy as possible to buy politicians, has now been outflanked by people with even more money.  The world’s richest man can exercise dominance by threatening to fund primary candidates, forcing elected officials to bow down to Trump’s most unqualified, flame-throwing loyalists.   Business interests that would prefer more stability and less drama are powerless.

The threat to democracy was of course often pointed out in the 2024 election campaign, but failed to move enough voters, who were more concerned about the price of eggs.  They have, sadly, sold their birthrights for a mess of pottage.  I believe nevertheless that many Americans would turn around, in time, once they see what is being done.   

Whether we have time is the question.  The three forces are united for now in a strategy to move very fast and solidify control before opposition is able to coalesce.  Once Cabinet positions and thousands of subordinate posts are filled with loyalists, including in the armed forces, the FBI, and the Intelligence Community, resistance may be futile. It is vital to throw as much sand in the gears as possible.

(For a slightly different but similar analysis, I recommend this piece by Dani Rodrik:  “The Coming Showdown in Trumpworld”.  Rodrik emphasizes the likelihood that the different forces will start fighting one another; the question is what will happen then.  But I agree with his conclusion that no matter who wins, the average American will be the loser.)

Vance’s Munich Speech:  Why Global MAGA is Now a Priority

On February 14 our new Vice-President, JD Vance, gave his first major overseas address (see text below).  It was at the Munich Security Conference, a very prestigious annual gathering of Europe’s senior foreign policy and defense leaders.  Senior representatives of the US Government, from both the Administration and Congress, have regularly attended over the years.

The audience was waiting to hear how the Trump administration meant to deal with the war in Ukraine and more generally with alliance burden-sharing, tariffs, and other key national security and foreign policy issues.  But Vance threw them a curveball by talking almost entirely about domestic European politics.  Most of the speech was a tut-tutting, finger-pointing criticism of how Europe was supposedly suppressing free speech and political expression, and this was going to make it hard for the new US administration to cooperate with them.  “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected president Trump.”

Given Trump’s predilection for using tariffs, and threats to seize actual territory, like Greenland, as bargaining chips to advance other policy goals, this sounds like a not-so-veiled threat:  if you don’t shift in the populist direction we like, bad things will happen.  We will call your governments illegitimate and use this as a pretext for pursuing our own narrow interests.   

Why is it that an administration that was until recently described as ‘isolationist’ or ‘inward-looking’ has become aggressively interested in controlling territory and re-shaping the world in its own image?  One might have thought that Trump could care less about what kind of domestic governance or human rights record other countries have.  Isn’t this one of the advantages that the dictators he clearly envies, Putin and Erdogan and Xi, have in conducting their foreign policies?  Doesn’t that make it easier for the US to pursue its “America First” strategy?  But no, it turns out the MAGA movement is not at all indifferent to how our friends, from Canada and Mexico to the EU, run their internal affairs.   

There are I think three main reasons for this turn.

First, there is the Musk angle.  Musk shares with other US tech companies challenges doing business in Europe, but has adopted a much more confrontational approach.  He has been voluble about supporting right-wing parties in Europe, notably the AfD in Germany.  He regularly attacks Britain’s Labor government.   

From his standpoint the EU is a major roadblock to Twitter/X, just as it has been to Meta and Google.  It tries to enforce all sorts of annoying rules about transparency and monopolistic pricing and policing hate-speech, the kind of things that have now gone by the boards in the US.  Musk could face hefty fines if the EU finds he has been tweaking Twitter/X to favor the AfD or Trump.  It would be wonderful to weaken the EU and get rid of these obstacles.

And Musk calculates that if he can influence the success of right-wing movements, they are likely to be grateful when they come to power—just as here in the US.  Musk is angling, for instance, for a multi-billion telecom contract in Italy, whose right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni is a big fan.  Unlike most business leaders, who try to remain relatively neutral politically, Musk has now gone all in on one side, gambling that this will pay off for his business interests.

Vance tries in his speech to make light of Musk’s influence:  “Even when people express views outside your own country, and even when those people are very influential — and trust me, I say this with all humor — if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.”  But of course there is no comparison between the impact of a teenage private citizen, and the richest man in the world who controls a major social media platform and multiple companies with huge investments in Europe, and has the ear (if not other parts of the anatomy) of the US President.   

Second, electing right-wing populists to the European Parliament, or to positions of power in major countries like Germany and France, would be very advantageous for the broader Trump agenda.  Vance’s speech is full of paeans to the virtues of allowing ‘the people’ to speak their mind, and the risk of suppressing them:   “Now, to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old, entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election.” 

Notice the bottom line here, “win an election.”  The Trump administration is very clearly trying to get certain election results and is using arguments about suppressing speech  as its excuse for blatantly attempting to interfere in Europe’s internal affairs.    

The hypocrisy of this argument is clear from looking at the results of actual populist victories in Europe.  Vance is one of many in the MAGAverse who sings the praises of Victor Orban’s Hungary.  Orban’s regime is, to say the least, not an exemplar of ‘free speech’ or the liberty of everyone to organize politically and speak their mind.  Media, unions, civil society, and opposition parties have all been muzzled.

More generally, a weaker Europe, unable to speak with one voice on issues of trade and economic relations with the US, is very much in Trump’s interest.  Hungary’s example applies here too, as an anti-Brussels, pro-Moscow Hungary embedded in the EU and NATO—supported at times by Slovakia and Poland—has frequently blocked or weakened united action.  A Europe with strong nationalist leaders, suspicious of Brussels and one another, will be easy to manipulate and play off one versus the other.

Vance begins his speech by pointing to Romania, where the Supreme Court in December  canceled an election at the last minute after uncovering evidence of massive Russian interference.  This was supposedly an example of illegitimate opposition to the genuine will of the people:  “Now, we’re at the point, of course, that the situation has gotten so bad that this December, Romania straight up cancelled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbours. Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections. But I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage, even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.”

Here we see Vance saying the quiet part out loud.  Anyone who argues that populism, in Europe or the US, is supported by Russia or serves Russia’s interests is a. Acting against the genuine will of the people, and b. Trying to prop up a weak government that deserves to die.  No point trying to protect or strengthen Romania; just let it go under.

In other words, what Russia wants for Europe, and what Trump wants for Europe, end up being the same thing.  The Romanian election, that Vance implies was stolen by Romania’s ‘outside neighbors’, was about to be won by an obscure, right-wing, anti-NATO candidate who surged in popularity after an infusion of Russian financing.  This would have been a huge win for Moscow’s goal of weakening Europe.  Both Putin and Trump want a divided continent run by leaders who sympathize with models of personalistic, oligarchic rule.

Third we have straightforward ideological imperialism.  Many in Trump’s orbit see themselves as bearers of a new political and cultural dispensation, one that, like all true believers, they want to spread far and wide.  But this is not just the animal spirits of missionaries who want to save souls; it is also a cold-blooded strategy for preserving their new order.  

Every regime understands that it is far safer to be surrounded by similar regimes, or by those that its citizens and elites see as much worse.  Sharing a 3000 mile border with a liberal-democratic Canada is a great strength for the US—as long, of course, as the US is itself a liberal democracy.  But if it isn’t, Canada automatically becomes a threat.  As the US diverges, soon the border will stop being open and nominal; both sides will find reasons to control movement and trade, to restrict the flow of information and ideas, to portray the other side as suspect and dangerous. 

A free and liberal and prosperous Canada would over time offer Americans an unwelcome example of how we ourselves could live.  Hence it is in Trump’s interest to make it the 51st state, or failing that, to make sure it is clearly subordinate and doesn’t prosper.  One way will almost certainly be to support an indigenous MAGA movement in our next door neighbor.  We can probably expect to see Vance soon give a similar speech in Ottawa.

Similarly with Europe.  To have Europe writ large, or major European states, sustain prosperous and secure liberal democracies is dangerous.  Best if the continent comes to resemble Hungary.  Or falls apart in vicious internal strife, beset from abroad by Russia and from within by radicals—whether right or left wing hardly matters.  Supporting in a variety of ways Europe’s new-right, while undermining European alternatives, will therefore almost certainly be a foreign policy priority for the Trump administration.  This will be seen as essential for preserving MAGA rule in the US. 

Allowing Ukraine to be snuffed out is also consistent with MAGA’s longterm survival.  It shows that powerful, ruthless autocracies will win in the long-run.  Weak states—nota bene, Canada, Mexico, Panama and others—are advised to make their peace with more powerful neighbors.

This calculation is the same as made now by Putin, Xi, and many others.  Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014 when a popular uprising threatened to move Kiev decisively towards the EU and its liberal democratic norms.   Chinese leaders, especially Xi, want desperately to remove Taiwan as a model of democratic rule.  In both cases the existence of alternatives embodied in peoples with similar cultures, languages, and histories—living literally next-door—gives the lie to arguments that only one-man, autocratic rule can succeed. 

For the same reasons, Americans who want to remain free have a huge stake in supporting the survival of genuine liberal democracies abroad.  Canada, Europe, Japan, Australia—these are battlegrounds where our own future will in large part be decided.  In most of these arenas right-wing populist movements already exist and are gaining strength.  Trump’s victory has been catnip to this trend, convincing many that history is on their side.

Americans need to remain connected to the outside world.  MAGA is dismantling our instruments of soft power, like USAID, Voice of America, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.  We can expect a sustained attack on the ways Americans connect to other people and provide accurate information about American life, and on the ways Americans know about the outside world.  The goal will be to give the impression that Americans are united around Trump and his populist nationalism.  People around the world need to know that this is not true.         

  

Vance Munich speech text Feb 13 2025

One of the things that I wanted to to talk about today is, of course, our shared values. And, you know, it’s great to be back in Germany. As you heard earlier, I was here last year as United States senator. I saw Foreign Secretary David Lammy and joked that both of us last year had different jobs than we have now. But now it’s time for all of our countries, for all of us who have been fortunate enough to be given political power by our respective peoples, to use it wisely to improve their lives.

And I want to say that I was fortunate in my time here to spend some time outside the walls of this conference over the last twenty-four hours, and I’ve been so impressed by the hospitality of the people even, Of course, as they’re reeling from yesterday’s horrendous attack. And the first time I was ever in Munich was with my wife, actually, who’s here with me today, on a personal trip. And I’ve always loved the city of Munich, and I’ve always loved its people.

I just want to say that we’re very moved, and our thoughts and prayers are with Munich and everybody affected by the evil inflicted on this beautiful community. We’re thinking about you, we’re praying for you, and we will certainly be rooting for you in the days and weeks to come.

We gather at this conference, of course, to discuss security. And normally we mean threats to our external security. I see many, many great military leaders gathered here today. But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, and we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defence, the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. What I worry about is the threat from within. The retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values: values shared with the United States of America.

I was struck that a former European commissioner went on television recently and sounded delighted that the Romanian government had just annulled an entire election. He warned that if things don’t go to plan, the very same thing could happen in Germany too.

Now, these cavalier statements are shocking to American ears. For years we’ve been told that everything we fund and support is in the name of our shared democratic values. Everything from our Ukraine policy to digital censorship is billed as a defence of democracy. But when we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard. And I say ourselves, because I fundamentally believe that we are on the same team.

We must do more than talk about democratic values. We must live them. Now, within living memory of many of you in this room, the cold war positioned defenders of democracy against much more tyrannical forces on this continent. And consider the side in that fight that censored dissidents, that closed churches, that cancelled elections. Were they the good guys? Certainly not.

And thank God they lost the cold war. They lost because they neither valued nor respected all of the extraordinary blessings of liberty, the freedom to surprise, to make mistakes, invent, to build. As it turns out, you can’t mandate innovation or creativity, just as you can’t force people what to think, what to feel, or what to believe. And we believe those things are certainly connected. And unfortunately, when I look at Europe today, it’s sometimes not so clear what happened to some of the cold war’s winners.

I look to Brussels, where EU Commission commissars warned citizens that they intend to shut down social media during times of civil unrest: the moment they spot what they’ve judged to be “hateful content,” or to this very country where police have carried out raids against citizens suspected of posting anti-feminist comments online as part of “combating misogyny” on the internet.

I look to Sweden, where two weeks ago, the government convicted a Christian activist for participating in Quran burnings that resulted in his friend’s murder. And as the judge in his case chillingly noted, Sweden’s laws to supposedly protect free expression do not, in fact, grant — and I’m quoting — a “free pass” to do or say anything without risking offending the group that holds that belief.

And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons in particular in the crosshairs. A little over two years ago, the British government charged Adam Smith-Connor, a 51-year-old physiotherapist and an Army veteran, with the heinous crime of standing 50 metres from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own. After British law enforcement spotted him and demanded to know what he was praying for, Adam replied simply, it was on behalf of the unborn son.

He and his former girlfriend had aborted years before. Now the officers were not moved. Adam was found guilty of breaking the government’s new Buffer Zones Law, which criminalises silent prayer and other actions that could influence a person’s decision within 200 metres of an abortion facility. He was sentenced to pay thousands of pounds in legal costs to the prosecution.

Now, I wish I could say that this was a fluke, a one-off, crazy example of a badly written law being enacted against a single person. But no. This last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law. Naturally, the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime in Britain and across Europe.

Free speech, I fear, is in retreat and in the interests of comedy, my friends, but also in the interest of truth. I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe, but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation. Misinformation, like, for example, the idea that coronavirus had likely leaked from a laboratory in China. Our own government encouraged private companies to silence people who dared to utter what turned out to be an obvious truth.

So I come here today not just with an observation, but with an offer. And just as the Biden administration seemed desperate to silence people for speaking their minds, so the Trump administration will do precisely the opposite, and I hope that we can work together on that.

In Washington, there is a new sheriff in town. And under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer in the public square. Agree or disagree? Now, we’re at the point, of course, that the situation has gotten so bad that this December, Romania straight up cancelled the results of a presidential election based on the flimsy suspicions of an intelligence agency and enormous pressure from its continental neighbours. Now, as I understand it, the argument was that Russian disinformation had infected the Romanian elections. But I’d ask my European friends to have some perspective. You can believe it’s wrong for Russia to buy social media advertisements to influence your elections. We certainly do. You can condemn it on the world stage, even. But if your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.

Now, the good news is that I happen to think your democracies are substantially less brittle than many people apparently fear.

And I really do believe that allowing our citizens to speak their mind will make them stronger still. Which, of course, brings us back to Munich, where the organisers of this very conference have banned lawmakers representing populist parties on both the Left and the Right from participating in these conversations. Now, again, we don’t have to agree with everything or anything that people say. But when political leaders represent an important constituency, it is incumbent upon us to at least participate in dialogue with them.

Now, to many of us on the other side of the Atlantic, it looks more and more like old, entrenched interests hiding behind ugly Soviet era words like misinformation and disinformation, who simply don’t like the idea that somebody with an alternative viewpoint might express a different opinion or, God forbid, vote a different way, or even worse, win an election.

Now, this is a security conference, and I’m sure you all came here prepared to talk about how exactly you intend to increase defence spending over the next few years in line with some new target. And that’s great, because as president Trump has made abundantly clear, he believes that our European friends must play a bigger role in the future of this continent. We don’t think you hear this term “burden sharing,” but we think it’s an important part of being in a shared alliance together that the Europeans step up while America focusses on areas of the world that are in great danger.

But let me also ask you, how will you even begin to think through the kinds of budgeting questions if we don’t know what it is that we are defending in the first place? I’ve heard a lot already in my conversations, and I’ve had many, many great conversations with many people gathered here in this room. I’ve heard a lot about what you need to defend yourselves from, and of course that’s important. But what has seemed a little bit less clear to me, and certainly I think to many of the citizens of Europe, is what exactly it is that you’re defending yourselves for. What is the positive vision that animates this shared security compact that we all believe is so important?

I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people. Europe faces many challenges. But the crisis this continent faces right now, the crisis I believe we all face together, is one of our own making. If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. Nor for that matter, is there anything that you can do for the American people who elected me and elected president Trump. You need democratic mandates to accomplish anything of value in the coming years.

Have we learned nothing that thin mandates produce unstable results? But there is so much of value that can be accomplished with the kind of democratic mandate that I think will come from being more responsive to the voices of your citizens. If you’re going to enjoy competitive economies, if you’re going to enjoy affordable energy and secure supply chains, then you need mandates to govern because you have to make difficult choices to enjoy all of these things.

And of course, we know that very well. In America, you cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail. Whether that’s the leader of the opposition, a humble Christian praying in her own home, or a journalist trying to report the news. Nor can you win one by disregarding your basic electorate on questions like, who gets to be a part of our shared society.

And of all the pressing challenges that the nations represented here face, I believe there is nothing more urgent than mass migration. Today, almost one in five people living in this country moved here from abroad. That is, of course, an all-time high. It’s a similar number, by the way, in the United States, also an all-time high. The number of immigrants who entered the EU from non-EU countries doubled between 2021 and 2022 alone. And of course, it’s gotten much higher since.

And we know the situation. It didn’t materialise in a vacuum. It’s the result of a series of conscious decisions made by politicians all over the continent, and others across the world, over the span of a decade. We saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city. And of course, I can’t bring it up again without thinking about the terrible victims who had a beautiful winter day in Munich ruined. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and will remain with them. But why did this happen in the first place?

It’s a terrible story, but it’s one we’ve heard way too many times in Europe, and unfortunately too many times in the United States as well. An asylum seeker, often a young man in his mid-twenties, already known to police, rammed a car into a crowd and shatters a community. Unity. How many times must we suffer these appalling setbacks before we change course and take our shared civilisation in a new direction? No voter on this continent went to the ballot box to open the floodgates to millions of unvetted immigrants. But you know what they did vote for? In England, they voted for Brexit. And agree or disagree, they voted for it. And more and more all over Europe, they are voting for political leaders who promise to put an end to out-of-control migration. Now, I happen to agree with a lot of these concerns, but you don’t have to agree with me.

I just think that people care about their homes. They care about their dreams. They care about their safety and their capacity to provide for themselves and their children.

And they’re smart. I think this is one of the most important things I’ve learnt in my brief time in politics. Contrary to what you might hear, a couple of mountains over in Davos, the citizens of all of our nations don’t generally think of themselves as educated animals or as interchangeable cogs of a global economy. And it’s hardly surprising that they don’t want to be shuffled about or relentlessly ignored by their leaders. And it is the business of democracy to adjudicate these big questions at the ballot box.

I believe that dismissing people, dismissing their concerns or worse yet, shutting down media, shutting down elections or shutting people out of the political process protects nothing. In fact, it is the most sure-fire way to destroy democracy. Speaking up and expressing opinions isn’t election interference. Even when people express views outside your own country, and even when those people are very influential — and trust me, I say this with all humour — if American democracy can survive 10 years of Greta Thunberg’s scolding you guys can survive a few months of Elon Musk.

But what no democracy, American, German or European will survive, is telling millions of voters that their thoughts and concerns, their aspirations, their pleas for relief, are invalid or unworthy of even being considered.

Democracy rests on the sacred principle that the voice of the people matters. There is no room for firewalls. You either uphold the principle or you don’t. Europeans, the people have a voice. European leaders have a choice. And my strong belief is that we do not need to be afraid of the future.

Embrace what your people tell you, even when it’s surprising, even when you don’t agree. And if you do so, you can face the future with certainty and with confidence, knowing that the nation stands behind each of you. And that, to me, is the great magic of democracy. It’s not in these stone buildings or beautiful hotels. It’s not even in the great institutions that we built together as a shared society.

To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice. And if we refuse to listen to that voice, even our most successful fights will secure very little. As Pope John Paul II, in my view, one of the most extraordinary champions of democracy on this continent or any other, once said, “do not be afraid”. We shouldn’t be afraid of our people even when they express views that disagree with their leadership. Thank you all. Good luck to all of you. God bless you.

NO OTHER HAND

Recently the nation has been transfixed by the cold-blooded murder of Brian Thompson, a health care executive, in Manhattan.  The killer, a young man whose exact motive is unclear but who apparently was upset at how the insurance industry makes huge profits by denying care and exploiting people who are poor and sick, has been lionized in some quarters.  He is seen as ‘heroic’ for standing up to this flawed industry and drawing attention to America’s for-profit healthcare system.

I, like many others, agree that our healthcare system is awful.  But most of us can also agree that shooting insurance company executives is not the right response. 

Mr. Mangione is an example of something we frequently face.  How do we judge the actions of someone who has a genuine grievance or an understandable cause for anger, but who goes too far? 

This is the dilemma we face in judging Trump supporters.  Yes, there are real grievances.  But electing Trump is the political equivalent of shooting someone.  It goes too far.  

For many years now Americans have been treated to an extensive series of “on the one hands” about Trump and the MAGA movement.   Recently many of these are coming from liberals and Democrats eager to say “I told you so” or otherwise explain their defeat.  I have absorbed many, many—so many—books and articles and supposedly even-handed analyses imploring us to please, please, open our minds and hearts to understand.  Understand how angry blue collar workers are about de-industrialization.  Understand how rural Americans feel left behind.  Understand how badly high prices are hurting the American dream.  Understand how annoying it is to listen to coastal jackasses lecture endlessly about racism and colonialism and gender identity. 

Yes, there is plenty we need to understand.  But contrary to the adage, to understand all is not to forgive all.  The question is, do these supposed sins and grievances justify Trump?  Not ‘explain’ him.  Justify him. 

When a pitcher who has just been shellacked goes in the dugout and breaks his hand on the watercooler, it’s not hard to ‘understand’ why it happened.  But it’s still a childish tantrum.  When a man who has been laid off and doesn’t know how he’ll feed his family goes back the next day and guns down his boss and six co-workers, it’s not hard to ‘understand’.   He still deserves arrest and punishment.

If the American people and their various political and cultural leaders really cared about  the problems facing them, they had many options other than picking perhaps the worst human being in the country to be President.  They could have picked a different leader.  There are plenty of decent conservatives to choose from.

They could have pursued serious reforms.  They could have fought against the obscene role of money in politics.  They could have fought for changes in the electoral system to make it more responsive and fair.  They could have fought for an equitable tax system to reduce inequality and fund the public programs needed to make life bearable for today’s precariat, like childcare and infrastructure investment. 

They could have fought for universal healthcare, to cut out the insurance middlemen who profit off our illnesses and injuries, and answer to private equity rather than patients. Instead they chose a leader— a whole movement— who is against all these things.

Instead they have indulged in a multi-year tantrum.

Choosing Trump once can perhaps be ‘understood’.  It was possible to think that the Presidency would change him for the better, or that he meant to carry through on plans to create jobs and build infrastructure.  But he proved to be worse than most could imagine.

If you chose him again in 2024 you chose a man who in broad daylight tried to steal an election he lost, and has lied about it every day since.  The effort of shell-shocked liberals and centrists to try and justify the decision to vote for him, much less the decision of elected officials and public figures to support him, is insulting and condescending.  If any voter in America was unaware of Trump’s behavior on January 6, it was because they didn’t want to know.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice….

There are two possible ways to defend voters.  One is to say they’ve been deceived and manipulated by a horribly cynical and one-sided propaganda campaign.  Which they certainly were.  Over many years a huge system of bloviators and falsifiers, of algorithm-driven social media giants and billionaires, has grown up to fight tooth and nail against every needed reform and adjustment.  Instead their message has been to inflame opinion against existing institutions and preach the soft revolution of populism rather than the hard work of reform.  In most cases they are aligned with the billionaires and big corporations who continue to want what they have always wanted, lower taxes and fewer regulations and weaker unions.  A message that ‘the system is broken’ makes it easy to sell radical measures to shrink government and upend institutions.   

Understandable, yes. But justifiable, no. In the entire history of the human race, it has never been easier to get access to reliable information or to hear different opinions.  We can make a thousand excuses.  But I think we should have the honesty to say that here in 2024 the voters know exactly what they’re doing.  Many of them simply do not value democracy and honesty and the hard-won knowledge and expertise embodied in our institutions, over other things they hope to get from Donald Trump.  Trump is as well known as anyone in public life can be known.  If you support him you cannot claim you don’t know exactly what you’re getting. 

The second defense might be to say that all available remedies have been tried and exhausted, so Americans are justified in carrying out a kind of ‘1776’, a revolution prompted by a ‘long train of abuses’ without any reasonable way to push back.  There is some truth here as well.  Studies consistently show that the preferences of average voters are ignored in favor of the preferences of wealthy donors.  This has been enabled by conservative court decisions such as Citizen’s United and the overthrow of Chevron deference, and other policy choices—which are of course pushed by wealthy donors, in a vicious cycle that ratchets up the power of money.

Largely as a result serious reforms have been impossible, or turned into half-measures, like the Affordable Care Act, which originated with the Heritage Foundation as a fix that would be acceptable to the right.  Inability to solve problems is then held up as proof of the need for a strong man and bypassing rules and norms.

One might say that if Americans have been systematically deprived of needed reforms by the opposition of the rich and powerful, they have the right to be angry and lash out.  Even if they lash in the wrong direction.

Understandable, yes.  But justifiable, no.  The problem with this defense is that in Donald Trump, voters have endorsed, not rejected, the same legal decisions and policies that disenfranchise them.  They have voted for oligarchy, now unashamedly emplaced with the Trump 2024 cabinet of billionaires and the co-presidency with Elon Musk.  Whereas in 1776 Americans stood against oligarchy and inherited privilege, they now seem to yearn for it.  Self-rule is too hard, is the message.  Better to turn decisions over to someone who tells you “I alone can fix it.”  

A scene from “Fiddler on the Roof” has recently been playing in my mind.  You remember Tevye has three daughters who get married, one after the other, always to someone about whom Tevye has reservations.  Each time when he is asked for his blessing, he goes through an internal dialogue—“On the one hand, on the other hand”—racking up the pros and cons of the match.  For the first two he ends up going along, and each marriage is successful.  But in the third case his daughter wants to marry a Russian gentile, someone who isn’t even Jewish.  Here again Tevye starts the dialogue, but he can’t continue:  “No!  There is no other hand!”  And he walks away from his daughter.  

This too should be a case where “there is no other hand.” 

Post-Election Thoughts: What Does ‘Resistance’ Look Like?

Recently a friend asked, in the wake of a church service that invited us to join the  “Resistance,” what this means.  What does ‘resistance’ to MAGA look like?

Three threats seem to me to matter above others: 

1. Moves to change the processes for taking or holding power, such as weakening or co-opting institutions like the courts, the press, the military, and the civil service, or altering voting rights.  This can also take the form of corruption and favoritism designed to buy support from businesses, billionaires, schools, media and other organizations.  If successful, these actions would permanently damage American institutions and make the US an ‘illiberal democracy,’ like Hungary—or worse.

2.   Using state power to attack vulnerable people and groups—immigrants, LGBTQ, women, environmentalists.  Especially damaging would be actions against ‘disloyal’ regions or organizations or individuals, as Trump has frequently promised. This can take the negative form of not using state power to stop local governments or ‘private’ groups from intimidating, threatening, or attacking the same targets.  The use of coercion and violence  takes away fundamental freedoms and destroys the conditions for self-government.

3. Big Lies, brazen denials of fact or of science and expertise; creating and amplifying false narratives and conspiracy theories.  These measures are designed to destroy the possibility of principled opposition to authoritarian rule and make it easy to mobilize supporters around an invented reality, whether the infallibility of the Leader or the unqualified evil of his opponents.

Here are some ways to make ‘resistance’ concrete.

Create Communication Capacity.  MAGA is going to move quickly on many fronts to consolidate power and attack its enemies.  We have to strengthen all our resources to collect and track information, to share it openly, to fight through the tremendous noise and confusion and distraction of today’s information systems.  Subscribe to reliable news sources.  Donate.  Build up strong local, independent platforms.  Speak up in the face of falsehoods.

But. Since the election I have been bombarded with demands for money from a dozen news organizations, all saying they are more important than ever.  I know they will help me and people like me understand what is going on.  But I do not see how any of them will do what we so desperately need, which is penetrate the iron information wall around MAGA supporters.  The most important initiative for true patriots, whether liberal or conservative, should be, as Jennifer Rubin recommends, a comprehensive effort to create new ways to reach the public, which is being blasted by disinformation and influencers.  I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but it doesn’t look like conventional journalism. It isn’t enough to interview and research and paint an accurate picture; the facts have to be delivered behind enemy lines. Pete Buttigieg is good at this.

Strengthen bastions of resistance.  These might include blue cities; liberal places of worship; colleges and universities and think tanks and local newspapers.  These are especially important in places that are very ‘red’.  I think it is a mistake to concede geographic regions or rural America or any other sector.  It is a MAGA goal to create a monolithic image of an irresistible force that takes over not just the commanding heights but state legislatures, school boards, county councils, all local units of self-governance.  But in every part of the country there are opposing voices and we have to raise them up. It’s lonely out there in MAGA country, but you should know you are not alone.

Fight like hell, but strategically.  Battles must be picked with care.  We will wear out quickly by reacting at full volume to every outrage.  Getting ahead of the curve is vital by identifying the most dangerous MAGA initiatives early and rallying political, legal, and popular opposition.  Particularly valuable will be to take advantage of actions and statements that contradict what MAGA supporters imagine Trump will do.  Many of those who voted for Trump have no idea what his actual policies are.  When tariffs and deportations and tax cuts cause inflation, when appeasing Putin produces more war, when MAGA zealots go after the ACA and Social Security, these are good opportunities to put forth different policies.  When Trump declines into un-hideable senility, this will also be an opportunity. 

Find some leadership.  The progressive eco-system is splintered and lacking in any recognizable co-ordinating or directing mechanism.  In part this is the result of decades of complacency and believing that the march of history is on our side.  Now that our butt has been kicked it is time for some discipline.  We need to encourage the emergence of a small number of leaders and spokespeople who can become the face of opposition and set strategy that prioritizes the three threats described above.  Part of this will be to say ‘no’ to grassroots demands to include Every Good Thing in the agenda.  Representative Wiley Nickel’s proposal for a Democratic ‘shadow cabinet,’ like in Great Britain, is a good start.  But work outside the Democratic Party is also needed.  There is an opening to build something new.

Practice civil disobedience.  Protests and marches do not have the power of even small, but consistent, acts where people are willing to go to jail or risk police violence.  The lunch-counter sit-ins and Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights Movement only involved a handful of people but had tremendous impact.  We need doctors and nurses who are willing to perform abortions in red states, and face the consequences.  We need churches willing to hide immigrants.  When Trump’s Justice Department tries to arrest political opponents, 1000 people should surround them.  When Trump pardons January 6 participants, 1000 people should lie down at the prison exits.  When tracts of public land are opened for drilling, environmentalists and tribes should get in the way.

Build the alternative.  Some hope that MAGA depends on Trump and once he dies or disappears, MAGA will fade.  Maybe.  But it has lasted eight years, and if it consolidates power during a Trump presidency, it may not go anywhere.  The world is full of movements that began with popular leaders and then morphed into coercive police states.  Chavezismo in Venezuela has outlasted Chavez, like Peronism in Argentina, and Castro’s communism in Cuba.  Iran is a theocracy long after Khomeini, and China a one-party state long after Mao. 

It’s hard to beat something with nothing.  What are we offering instead?  It can’t just be ‘not Trump,’ which failed badly in this election.

Americans are consumed by distrust towards existing institutions.  Among the G7 major industrialized countries the US has the least trust in the major organs of government.  On the right this has moved from distrust of government to distrust of science, business, schools, and democracy itself.  If liberals position themselves as the defenders of the status quo, but with a few tweaks, we will lose.  We must be ready to argue for fundamental change and identify where we are prepared to challenge accepted processes and institutions.  But the change we want must be constructive, not the political nihilism characteristic of MAGA.

Absolutely critical is an economic plan that speaks to working class anxieties.  The Biden  plan to build from the ‘middle out’ was I think sound, and he managed to put in place some of the key building blocks:  industrial policy, anti-trust, unions, consumer rights, higher taxes on the rich, limited protectionism. His approach was a radical rebuttal to the failed neo-liberal model of unrestricted globalization and financialization, which I think most Americans reject. 

What Biden never managed to do was convey that he was in fact radical.  He couldn’t overcome the trauma of inflation and reach a working class audience.  I do not think this means the basic approach is wrong, but it needs a new framework and a convincing spokesperson.

I believe a strategy to systematically reduce divisions and tensions in America and restore trust is a winning program that can gain traction over the next several years.  We must name and target the institutions and accepted ways of doing business that are tearing us apart.  Such a strategy should include programs to mix Americans together, such as a national service program; affordable housing and zoning changes so people of different classes live in the same neighborhoods; and re-invigorated public schools that bind communities together.  Even in this red wave, voters rejected initiatives to expand school vouchers and undermine public schools.

Voter disgust with institutions has manifested on the right with eagerness to elect outsiders and extremists who promise to just blow things up; lack of experience, contempt for decent behavior, and embrace of conspiracy theories are features, not bugs.  But throwing out the bums and replacing them with worse bums is not real change. Liberals should instead prioritize electoral reforms as the best way to really change the status quo:  open primaries, ranked-choice voting, independent redistricting commissions, people’s assemblies.  Maybe now that Republicans won the popular vote there can be bipartisan support for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to reform the Electoral College, so the electoral votes always line up with the winner of the popular vote.  An aggressive fight against Citizen’s United and big money in politics would, I believe, be a difficult but very popular campaign.  The Supreme Court is increasingly unpopular and a target ripe for criticism and reform. 

Avoid condescension. We must resolutely avoid the alienating puritanism that so many Americans find offensive.  Admirable efforts to fight racism and end discrimination against women and the LGBTQ community have too often led to efforts by activists to police pronouns and set impossible litmus tests for allies.  MAGA feeds off the view that extremists are in charge of our universities and cultural institutions and using them to impose their ideas on the rest of us.  Liberals should not be vulnerable to ads that seem to align Democrats with taxpayer funded sex change operations for convicts. 

If not this strategy, then something else.  But something. Something that addresses root causes, not symptoms.

Pre-Election Thoughts: The Tangled Ball of Twine

Only two days to go and I am cautiously, very cautiously, optimistic about the election.  Trump continues to foul his own nest, and Kamala is steady if less than inspiring.  But it is deeply depressing to think that close to half of Americans are willing to play Russian roulette with our democracy and make a choice that is so dangerous for the country, so at odds with basic human decency, and, as far as I can tell, not in the interest even of his supporters.

Over the past eight years I, like many, have wrestled with the reasons for Trump’s popularity and his ability to take over an entire political party and retain unbridled enthusiasm among millions of Americans.  It is a challenge, because it is hard not to become angry, frustrated, and often deeply embarrassed at the beliefs of many of one’s fellow citizens.

I have encountered many, many explanations for Trump’s success.  Here are some of the most common:

·      Working class anger at de-industrialization and loss of jobs and opportunity

·      Resentment at ‘coastal elites’ and their disdain for the values and lifestyles of the less-educated

·      Shift of the Democratic Party from a working-class base to an educated professionals base, leaving a large class of Americans without a political home

·      Racism, nurtured over decades by Republicans and energized by Obama’s election

·      Sexism, energized by Hillary’s campaign and declining prospects for young non-college-educated men

·      Fear that traditional values and way of life associated with white, Christian dominance are disappearing

·      Dislike of political correctness or ‘wokism’ imposed by educated elites

·      Christian, especially evangelical, politicization and willingness to make politics an essential part of religious identity

·      Trump’s unique personality combining celebrity status and unfiltered language, saying what people ‘really think’

·      Right-wing media’s stranglehold on its audience and willingness to display rank partisanship

·      Social media’s ability to silo and magnify opinions

·      Outside intervention on Trump’s behalf by Russia and other foreign actors

·      Loss of trust in institutions accelerated by Iraq/Afghanistan, the financial crisis, the opioid crisis, failure to stem rising immigration

·      Vulnerability of traditional institutions—media, business, courts, parties—to bullying, the ‘big lie’ and constant norm violations

·      Big money in politics financing longterm efforts to enable minority-rule (via electoral system, control of courts, one-party primaries, gerrymandering, exploiting political veto points such as the filibuster).

I too would love to find the ‘one thing’ that explains the Trump phenomenon, but looking at this list makes it clear to me (even though these overlap to some extent) that there is no single cause.  So there probably isn’t any ‘silver bullet’ to counter it.  Instead we have a tangled ball of twine that needs to be carefully and systematically unwound. 

The closest we might have to a fix is if Trump himself is the necessary catalyst for the MAGA movement, and without him it will splinter and weaken.  This is possible, but more likely I think is that after some jockeying a new leader will emerge to take advantage of the same underlying factors.

Even if Harris wins there is a big job ahead to address these sources of dissatisfaction, and just as important, to be perceived as addressing them.  Biden has done wonders to boost American industry and create blue collar jobs, but has gotten little credit for it.  Some of these are bad things that need to be confronted.  Some are real problems that need to be solved.

Take immigration.  Trump has seized on this as his #1 issue and made it the source of all our problems.  Crime? Immigrants.  Drugs? Immigrants.  Rent too high? Immigrants.  Terrorism? Immigrants.  No job? Immigrants.  Pet disappeared?  Immigrants. Immigrants are ‘them’, dark-skinned outsiders changing your culture, your language, who your kids sit next to in school. 

And they’re here because the rich elites want them here.  Business wants cheap labor, at ‘your’ expense.  Liberals want more immigrants to vote Democratic.  Haven’t liberals said for decades that a larger minority population will produce a permanent Democratic majority?  Well, that’s their plan.

At a certain point any society—even one that is relatively open to immigration and is proud of its history of absorbing newcomers, like the US—will be uncomfortable with high levels of immigration that don’t seem to have any end; in fact seem to be increasing.  In the ‘golden age’ of immigration to the US, the post-Civil War period up to WWI, when we put up the Statue of Lady Liberty with Emma Lazarus’s great poem at her feet, the percentage of foreign-born population in the US peaked in 1890 at 14.8% and stayed there through 1910.  

In 2024 for the first time the foreign-born population exceeded those levels, reaching 15.6%.  In-between the US saw a huge backlash that produced tight restrictions on immigrant numbers beginning in the 1920s and continuing until the Immigration Acts of 1965 and 1990.  The foreign-born percentage in the US dropped to a low of 4.7% in 1970, meaning it has tripled in the last 54 years. 

The backlash after WWI was part of a nativist trend that saw the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan, isolationism and refusal to join the League of Nations, and a sharp turn away from the progressive economic policies of the first decades of the 20th century.  The lesson here is not that slamming the door on immigration is good policy, but that when people perceive that there are no serious limits on immigration, they will react negatively and will be receptive to broader illiberal movements.  The prudent course is to preserve both a high level of immigration and support for liberal government via restrictions that are humane and broadly acceptable. 

Easier said than done, when immigration has become a political football and one side is not interested in compromise. But liberals I think failed to anticipate the need to defang this issue and its potential to fuel demagoguery.  Not just here, but also in Europe, where immigration has been the catalyst for the resurgence of far-right parties.  We could take a lesson from Denmark, a bastion of social democracy which has adopted a tough stance on immigration that is boosting support for its Social Democrat prime minister.

Let’s hope for the best on November 5.  And if we get it, the number one priority should be doing our best to reduce the polarization and distrust that has taken hold.  It will take deft leadership, constant communication, and strategic thinking. 

Herodotus and the Last Man

I had read Herodotus’s Histories several times in the past, but only excerpts of what is a lengthy and detailed story.  Previous readings had focused on the ‘main event,’ the war between Greeks and Persians. But Herodotus takes his sweet time getting there and regales his readers with lengthy excursions, stories of great wars and campaigns, and lengthy accounts of barbarian religious and sexual customs.  While also describing many actions of the Greeks, he spends less time with them, probably because as a Greek writing in Greek for Greeks, he assumes they are already familiar with their own world.  He wants to inform his audience of things strange and unfamiliar.

This summer I took a seminar at St John’s in which we read the ‘whole thing,’ an adventure that I don’t think anyone in the class, including the tutors, had ever undertaken.  What do we learn from the whole that is perhaps less evident from focusing on the Persian invasion of Greece?

The Histories begins with the famous statement that his book is written “so that the great and wonderful deeds—some brought forth by the Hellenes, others by the barbarians, not go unsung; as well as the causes that led them to make war on each other.”  Herodotus does not distinguish between Greeks and barbarians; both are worthy of respect, and both provide lessons for his readers. 

It ends, some 700 pages later, with a pithy lesson supposedly imparted by Cyrus, the founder of the Persian Empire—the Persians being the primary ‘barbarian’ discussed in the book.  On hearing a proposal that the Persians should conquer more fertile and better lands, Cyrus warns that if they do so “they should prepare to be rulers no longer, but rather to become subjects under the rule of others.  This was so, he said, because soft places tend to produce soft men; for the same land cannot yield both wonderful crops and men who are noble and courageous in war.  And so the Persians agreed with him and departed, leaving him alone.  They had lost the argument with Cyrus, and chose to dwell in a poor land rather than to be slaves to others and to cultivate the plains.” (9.122)

Now this last sentence of the book is quite astonishing, since a good part of the previous 700 pages has been devoted to detailing how Cyrus and the Persians did indeed conquer the ‘plains’—the immensely wealthy Babylon on the Euphrates, and then the most fruitful land of all, Egypt, where bountiful crops grow just by throwing seed into the fertile Nile mud.  What would make Herodotus say something so obviously untrue? 

The theme of interaction between ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ peoples is a recurring one in the Histories.  Early on King Croesus, rich ruler of Lydia, a powerful kingdom in Asia Minor, is warned not to start a war with the Persians, who live in a rocky, poor country.  Such people are used to hardships and fighting.  Further, if you defeat them, what do you gain? Croesus doesn’t listen and is beaten, becoming a prisoner—and loyal advisor—of Cyrus.

The Persians themselves do not seem to learn the lesson.  Much of the Histories recounts all the times the Persians mount expeditions against exactly the kind of poor, warlike, unappetizing enemies that it seems you should avoid.  Cyrus himself, after making Persia wealthy via victory in Babylonia, decides to march against the remote Massagetians, a nomadic people living in what is now Central Asia.  Herodotus tells us that by this time Cyrus is convinced of his invincibility.  To conquer them he takes the advice of Croesus, who recommends a strategem in which the Persians lay out a tremendous feast with wine and delicacies, which the poor Massagetians won’t be able to resist.  When they are drunk and distracted, the Persians can easily defeat them. (1.207)

Croesus’s plan works, up to a point, allowing the Persians to destroy one-third of the Massagetian army and capture the queen’s son (who kills himself rather than remain a prisoner). But this only enrages the Massagetians, leading to a great battle—Herodotus calls it the greatest ever held between barbarians—that the Persians lose and in which Cyrus is killed.  New-found Persian wealth and luxuries are not a solid basis for defeating poor, hardened tribesmen.

Cyrus’s more than sightly mad heir, Cambyses, successfully conquers Egypt but then gets it into his head to attack the far-off Ethiopians, a people who pose no threat and about whom he knows nothing. After sending spies ahead who report among other things that the Ethiopians live tremendously long lives, he mounts a huge campaign but, consumed by rage, fails to equip his army for a march through the desert.  When they run out of food they resort to cannibalism and are forced to turn back. 

In the most detailed of his Persian campaign stories, Herodotus describes the assault by Cambyses’s successor Darius against the Scythians, another nomadic people living to the north of the Black Sea.  Darius attacks, supposedly to punish them for an earlier Scythian incursion into Persian territory (which took place well before Persia itself had been formed).  Herodotus tells us that Darius’s decision was shaped by Persia’s flourishing, with many troops and ample revenues.  Darius pulls together an enormous force of 700,000 men from all over the empire and marches them across the Hellespont, around the Black Sea, and deep into the northern steppes in a fruitless attempt to bring the Scythians to battle and win a victory. 

Herodotus foreshadows this failure when he tells us “The Scythians were more clever than any other people in making the most important discovery we know of concerning human affairs, though I do not admire them in other respects.  They have discovered how to prevent any attacker from escaping them and how to make it impossible for anyone to overtake them against their will.  For instead of establishing towns or walls, they are all mounted archers who carry their homes with them and derive their sustenance not from cultivated fields but from their herds. Since they make their homes on carts, how could they not be invincible or impossible even to engage in battle?”  (4.46). In short, the Scythians have no cities, no accumulated wealth, and live only to fight and resist.  Darius is astonishingly blind to the nature of his enemies.

These unsuccessful campaigns provide the backdrop for the most unsuccessful of all, the eventual Persian invasion of Greece, initiated under Darius and continued under Xerxes, his successor.  The Persians are ignominiously beaten not once, but twice.  The Athenians throw back Darius’s forces at Marathon; then the much larger invasion under Xerxes is defeated at sea by the Athenians, at Salamis, and on land, at Plataea, by a Spartan-led Greek army. 

From these prior endeavors we can see that the decision to attack the Greek mainland is consistent with Persia’s history of campaigns against peripheral peoples.  The Greeks are not particularly wealthy; they live in a rocky and poor country, as anyone who has visited Greece can attest.  Darius is moved to attack not out of any serious strategic calculation, but out of annoyance at Athens for instigating a revolt of the Greek states in Asia Minor which results in the destruction of Sardis.   Xerxes is urged to continue by advisors who tell him “it is unreasonable that the Athenians have inflicted great evils on the Persians but have paid no penalty for it.”  (7.5). Herodotus tells us that Xerxes’ uncle Artabanos tries to dissuade him by pointing to the previous failures against the Massagetians, Ethiopians, and Scythians, but is thwarted by divine intervention in the form of dreams sent to Xerxes telling him he must invade.  (7.18)

The Greeks, while they are capable of mustering significant military power, especially at sea, are divided into a multitude of competing city-states, often fighting one another.  They would only be a danger to Persia if they united, which is highly unlikely.  Unless of course they had a common enemy.

In short, the Persian threat creates the threat to Persia. Persia fails to use its most powerful weapon to divide the Greeks, mainly money; the Greeks are highly susceptible to being bought off, and a canny enemy can easily play on their mutual suspicions.   The Persian commander Mardonios is advised by his Theban allies to “Just send some money to the most powerful men in their cities.  You will thus divide Hellas against itself…”.  But Mardonios “out of foolish pride” doesn’t listen.  (9.2)

 Herodotus describes in detail how the Greeks, especially Athens and Sparta, the two greatest powers, can’t get their act together even as the Persians are at the gates.  How many times do the Spartans arrive with too little, too late, because they are waiting for the omens to be favorable; or maybe because they wouldn’t mind that much if the Persians took out the Athenians.  How many bitter arguments over which city should be in the lead and who has the right to the top position on the battlefield. 

The Athenians, at least, are willing to give way to Sparta when necessary to achieve common action, even though in the first invasion they basically fight off Darius on their own, and when Xerxes invades they watch the Spartans retreat to the Peloponnese without any thought for Athens. (8.3)   Greek division is just barely overcome to create a united front against the Persians at key moments. 

Persian self-satisfaction and confidence in their numbers leads them into a series of mistakes, both moral and strategic.  Under Darius they are beaten at Marathon; under Xerxes at Salamis and Plataea.  In one of history’s most famous examples of hubris, Xerxes orders the sea to be whipped after a storm destroys his boat-bridge at the Hellespont.  Hundreds of thousands of troops are lost, and hundreds of ships, and Xerxes has to beat a humiliating retreat that culminates, according to one account given by Herodotus, in ordering senior Persians to leap in the ocean to lighten the ship in a storm.  (8.120)

What have we learned from Herodotus’s detailed accounts of Persia flinging itself into massive attacks against marginal enemies?  Since the same pattern is repeated under Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius and Xerxes we can conclude it comes from something deep in Persia’s strategic position or self-understanding. 

It seems that engaging in unprofitable battles for questionable gains is something Empires frequently do. Once established, frontiers have to be defended, distant allies must not be allowed to lose, and the Imperial Power has a reputation to uphold. Emperors find it easy to imagine that their money, numbers, and superior armament make them invincible.  From Scythia and the Germanic forests to Vietnam and Iraq, the logic is consistent. 

It is also possible that Persia’s Kings see these campaigns as a way to avoid the danger pointed to by Cyrus, the ‘softness’ that accompanies becoming wealthy and successful.  Once Persia becomes rich, it might be wise to make sure Persia’s elite does not lose its original warrior spirit.  Regular campaigning keeps these virtues alive; it also occupies the time and talent of those who might otherwise become disgruntled schemers against the King.  Darius at one point justifies the Scythian campaign as necessary to keep his people occupied. 

Xenophon, writing after Herodotus and with his own extensive knowledge of Persian ways from his service during one of Persia’s internal wars, addresses this issue in his Cyropaedia, or Education of Cyrus.  After Cyrus’s initial victories that create the Empire, Xenophon’s Cyrus considers how to rule, saying “I know that if we turn toward easygoingness and the pleasure seeking of bad human beings, who believe that laboring is misery and living without labor is happiness, I say that quickly we will be but of little worth to ourselves and quickly be deprived of all good things..It is a great work to gain an empire, but it is an even greater work to keep one safe after taking it” (Cyropaedia VII 5).  Cyrus tries to keep his key supporters in trim with regular training and lots of hunting. 

Empires once established can take a long time to die.  Their riches and power cushion them, and they often find a second wind under new rulers who undertake needed reforms.  As Herodotus portrays it, failure, even on a colossal scale, does not seem, at least immediately, to threaten either the empire itself or even the position of its Kings.  Defeat in war on the periphery does not lead to the overrunning of the imperial core, or the revolt of subjugated peoples, or embolden internal enemies to move against the King, at least not successfully.  These are all frequently observed consequences of military failure in other cases.  Xerxes makes it back to Susa, his lieutenants straggle home.  The Empire lasts another 150 years. 

Herodotus of course is not aware of the course of Persian-Greek relations over this period, during which Persia becomes closely involved in the internal politics of Greece.  But he can tell that the aftermath of the wars with Persia will be a test for the Greeks as much as the Persians.  As Darius’s fleet is bearing down on Greece, he tells us that this portends a period when “more evils befell Hellas than in all the other generations prior to Darius.  Some of these evils were caused by the Persians, but others by the leading states of Hellas waging war for political domination among themselves.”  (6.98).

Athens creates its own sea-based empire, building on fear of Persia among the Greek states of Asia Minor and the Aegean islands.  Its rising power alarms Sparta, which responds, as Thucydides meticulously describes, by seeking to subdue Athens in a 20-year extended struggle.

Persia, having learned from its defeats, stops trying to conquer the Greeks and adopts an ‘offshore balancing’ strategy of weakening Athens and Sparta by intervening regularly on one side or the other, using money and arms and occasional direct support.  It helps engineer Sparta’s ultimate victory over Athens in the Peloponnesian Wars.  The Empire goes through multiple succession crises, and loses control of Egypt among other setbacks, but stabilizes and has a lengthy period of internal growth under the 45 year reign of Arataxerxes I.  The King’s Peace achieved under Artaxerxes II in 387 BC marks an acknowledgement of Persian dominance over all of Asia Minor.    

In the end, though, the Persian fear of the Greeks proves prophetic.  The Macedonians, a people ironically often allied with Persia, gather strength.  One hundred and fifty years after Salamis, Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great conquer and unite the Greek city-states.  Then Alexander, apparently motivated in part by a desire to avenge the Persian invasions, brings down Persia and makes Greek culture and language dominant throughout the Near East, ushering in the Hellenistic Age.  

But Alexander, like the Persians, can’t stop fighting, often against the same kind of peripheral nomads that proved irresistible to Cyrus and Darius.  He and his Greeks become possessors of the great wealth and luxurious habits that have overtaken the Persians; more than once his own followers object to Alexander’s adoption of Persian ways.   When Alexander dies, his Empire breaks apart into warring dynasties.  The Alexandrian successor-states become bywords for corruption and decadence. 

What exactly happens when a poor, hardened, and god-fearing people suddenly achieves great wealth and power?  Is it ever possible not to be corrupted and, eventually, give way to the next round of poorer, harder, more disciplined successors?  Persia, Alexander, Rome, Byzantium, Baghdad, Spain…the list is long.  Ibn Khaldun devoted his great medieval study of politics, the Muqaddimah (much of it drawing on the history of the same lands once occupied by Persia and Alexander), to these same cycles of rise and decline.  The wealthy, organized urban centers generally have the means to fend off the warlike tribes of the desert; but every so often the tribes find a leader, they unite, and the cities fall.  For a time the new rulers hold on to their old ways and stay strong, but inevitably their wealth and security softens them, they lose their edge, and the cycle repeats.   

Is the United States, or the West more generally, subject to the same arc?  Many have thought so and predicted the end of liberal democracy, or of modernity as a whole.  Nietzsche famously described in the late 19th century the despicable “Last Man,” the soulless product of a modern society that prioritizes comfort and security, and called for his replacement.  Influenced by Nietzsche and similar thinkers, fascists and communists alike claimed in the 20th century that the capitalist democracies had become corrupt and weak and ripe for the taking.   

The decadent democracies however somehow rallied to fire-bomb the cities of their fascist enemies in World War II and force them to surrender unconditionally, then out-spent and out-maneuvered their Cold War communist adversaries.   Perhaps fundamentally new developments—industrialization, scientific progress, mass democracy—allow modern powers to resist the seemingly inevitable cycles of the past.  Nevertheless, the same arguments are heard now from Moscow and Beijing.  Your time is up, is their message.

Nothing lasts forever, and it may be that this time the enemies of liberal democracy have found a winning formula.  Using new media and technology, they have become adept at deepening fissures of race, inequality, and culture inside their adversaries, and instilling distrust of the institutions—government, the press, the schools, science—that provide the glue for liberal societies.  China in particular has taken aim at what it sees as the West’s source of strength, its advanced technology, and dedicated itself to dominating the new realms of quantum computing, AI, and renewable energy. 

Like the ancient Greeks, winning has allowed latent divisions to surface and become toxic.  Post-Persian War Greece splintered between democracy and autocracy, with external powers regularly boosting their preferred faction to weaken and take over target cities.  Within most democracies there now exist growing movements whose leaders look to the world’s tyrants as models. 

As the title suggests, Francis Fukuyama’s oft-cited 1992 treatise on the victory of liberal democracy and market economics, The End of History and the Last Man, pointed back to Nietzsche.  He warned that success in winning the Cold War could be followed by  profound dissatisfaction with the ensuing era of peace and consensus.   The decades since have confirmed his fears.  Forty years of neoliberalism have created an atomized, individualistic citizenry that is prickly in defense of its rights and has little use for, or understanding of, the common good.  Wealth and technology undergird a highly capable military, but also a joyless consumerism that is bemoaned but seems inescapable.  A sluggish politics mired in factionalism and corruption appears unable to respond to today’s challenges, whether climate change or immigration or inequality. 

In response, many have turned to extreme nationalism or religious zeal or fealty to One Leader, looking for purpose and direction.  This is the modern version of Cyrus’s warning.  If you conquer the plains, be ready to become weak.  Your riches will not save you forever.  Be ready, if you lose your footing, to be enslaved, if not from without, then from within.           

Netanyahu’s Drive to Bomb Iran

We are at the one year anniversary of the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023.  Israel’s response has been to effectively destroy the Gaza strip and make it uninhabitable for the foreseeable future.  Just recently it has carried out high-intensity attacks in the north against Hizbollah, including killing Hassan Nazrallah, Hizbollah’s charismatic and influential commander.  Israel is also bulldozing large chunks of the West Bank and has given a green light to settlers to intimidate and displace Palestinians. 

So far Hizbollah and Iran, Hizbollah’s patron, have not responded effectively.  Iran has (twice now) attacked Israel with missiles, but these have mostly been shot down, with US help.  Hizbollah is reeling from the loss of its communication system (Israel detonated thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies in a devastating intelligence operation), intense strikes on Hizbollah missile complexes near the border, and the loss of Nazrallah and other top leaders.

Where does this leave us?  Israel has for a long time, since it annexed the West Bank and Gaza after the 1967 war, had three basic strategic choices. 

1.        Accommodation. Reach some kind of accommodation with Palestinians, either a 2-state solution or even a one-state solution, that gives Palestinians enough autonomy that most give up demands to return or to destroy Israel, and outside supporters, especially Iran, lose influence. 

2.        Apartheid.  Expel or subjugate Palestinians, and make the West Bank and Gaza de facto if not de jure part of Israel; in effect, an apartheid state. 

3.        Mow the Lawn.  Do neither, but depend on tactical, military superiority to ‘mow the lawn’ and keep Palestinians, including Hamas; and Hizbollah and other Iranian proxies, weak and unable to seriously threaten Israel.  

The necessary condition for all these strategies is continued unconditional support from the United States.  While the official US position has been to support Accommodation, US support has been essential for Mow the Lawn, which Israel has largely followed for several decades.  While Apartheid is strongly opposed by Washington, it is unlikely that the US would act to prevent it, provided Israel can cast this as unavoidable, and can pursue it without major repercussions from regional powers. 

In the 30 years since the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 Benjamin Netanyahu has been Prime Minister for over 16 years.  During his tenure Israel has paid lip service to Accommodation, while in practice moving slowly but firmly to implement Apartheid.  This is partly because of Netanyahu’s own convictions, and partly his need to build governing coalitions that rely more and more on extremist parties.  Netanyahu’s worldview is largely adopted from his father, a close associate of Jakob Jabotinsky, the militant founder of Likud who advocated for a powerful Jewish state and defense force able to coerce Arabs into submission. 

Israel is frequently described as ‘tactically proficient, but strategically deficient’.  It pulls off spectacular intelligence and strike operations, assassinating enemy leaders and destroying militant and Iranian bases and facilities.   With less success, it also conducts occasional longer-term invasions and occupations, as in Lebanon in 2006 and now in Gaza.  These are all part of Mow the Lawn, at least in public discourse; that is, designed to keep Israel’s enemies at bay and eliminate their capability to attack Israel.  Israel’s tactical superiority allows it to avoid choosing clearly one strategy over another. 

During the ‘Netanyahu era’ Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank has expanded, to the point that an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank is now hard to imagine.  The response to 10/7 has made Gaza a moonscape with no prospect that Palestinians, even if fighting stops, would be able to restore even the inadequate infrastructure and services they enjoyed before.  Netanyahu’s ruling coalitions have become progressively more extreme and more dominated by religious nationalists determined to achieve the goal of “Greater Israel”. 

Netanyahu himself is preoccupied with political and personal survival and sees continued war as staving off any reckoning for the October 7 catastrophe.  He is also obsessed with the Iranian nuclear threat and sees his legacy, and his chance for redemption, tied to successful strikes that eliminate Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.  Killing Nasrallah has already improved his image; a successful strike on Iran would make him a hero at home and divert any criticism about Gaza and the hostages.  It would also make it easier to ramp up pressure on Palestinians and satisfy the demands of his right-wing coalition partners.

Israel’s high-profile attacks on Hizbollah are designed to force Iran to respond, giving Israel an excuse to carry out a direct attack on Iran.  US participation is part of the plan, since Israel’s own capabilities are probably insufficient to cripple Iran’s hardened nuclear sites.  Israeli military leaders have publicly claimed they have unilateral means, but Iran has been moving key facilities deeper underground and Israel lacks the really heavy bombs, and the long-range bombers to carry them, that only the US Air Force owns.

Netanyahu’s strategy is therefore to use escalation with Iran to box the US in, so Washington is forced to participate in a direct attack on Iran which Israel can claim is legitimate self-defense to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon.  (Iran is now judged to be able to enrich to weapons-grade uranium within a few weeks, and construct a working nuclear device within a few months to a year; Netanyahu was a fervent opponent of the nuclear agreement negotiated under the Obama Administration, which would have slowed Iran’s nuclear development, and which President Trump abrogated soon after he took office). 

Crippling Hizbollah is the necessary condition for this strategy.  Iran has built up Hizbollah for years largely to deter Israel.  Just as North Korea successfully prevented the US and South Korea from attacking the North’s nuclear facilities by threatening to use artillery and rockets to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire”, Tehran wants to use Hizbollah’s thousands of missiles near Israel’s border to keep Israel and the US at bay. 

It is not clear how much firepower Hizbollah has left, but Israel has already destroyed a lot on the ground, badly hurt its ability to communicate, and killed many top leaders.  Israel may now feel that it has reduced the threat from Hizbollah to a tolerable level, and that the time to attack Iran is now, before Hizbollah can recover. 

The US is now the wildcard.  Participating in attacks on Iran’s nuclear program would be a huge escalation with unpredictable outcomes.  Every major country in the region could be affected, and while most would be happy to see a weakened Iran, there would be deep unease at the prospects for a regional war.  Iran would likely attack or threaten oil facilities in the Gulf as well as tanker traffic, causing oil prices to skyrocket, an unwelcome development just before US elections (though perhaps welcome to Netanyahu, an unabashed Trump supporter).  US personnel and facilities in Iraq and the Gulf would be at risk.  Iran’s allies, Russia and China, would assail the US as a warmonger.

However, a number of US strategists and military experts are calling for the US to take part in an attack on Iran.  President Biden has said he is against Israeli retaliation on Iran’s nuclear sites, but it is unclear what recourse the US has if Israel decides to act.  The unknown is whether Israel has the capability, or thinks it has the capability, to be successful on its own.  Netanyahu may ultimately decide to settle, for now, for a more limited retaliation.  But Netanyahu’s political survival now coincides, in his own eyes, with destroying what he has consistently said is the greatest threat to Israel’s survival, an Iranian bomb.  And Hizbollah’s weakness won’t last forever.  I think it is certain that if Trump is re-elected, Netanyahu will lobby relentlessly for an American green light to attack Iran, sooner and not later.   

Attacking Iran would be Mowing the Lawn on steroids, a tactical move that, if successful, might make Israel safer in the short term but would be likely to worsen its longterm security.  Under a different leadership, a triumphant Israel might feel willing to accommodate Palestinian interests.  But this is not how Netanyahu and his partners would respond—they would feel free to put their weight on the Palestinian neck. 

Netanyahu hopes an Iranian defeat might lead to the overthrow of the ayatollahs, and he recently appealed to Iran’s people to throw off their rule.  But it is more likely that Iranians would rally behind the regime, which would continue its support of surrogates and seek new ways to attack and undermine Israel.  Israel’s horrific punishment of Palestinians is giving Iran’s anti-Israel stance new traction in the region.  Israel’s diplomatic isolation would increase.   And the US would become more deeply identified with the most aggressive and violent Israeli actions. 

Project 2025 and the Hillsdale-Claremont Axis

A lot has been written about Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation project to turn the Federal government inside out and make it subservient to Donald Trump.  Most of Project 2025 consists of detailed critiques of government agencies and suggestions for ‘reform.’  But ProPublica recently got its hands on training videos for Project 2025 that go beyond this to try and offer general principles for conservative activists.  The first two of these in particular are overviews of conservative thought that seem meant to give a veneer of depth and principle to the MAGA movement.  They reveal some important things about the worldview of influential intellectual defenders of MAGA.  Trump himself has no discernible ideology, but a variety of ideas are competing for primacy and these videos give us clues as well as possible avenues of attack.

The first thing one notices is that both lectures are delivered by administrators of Hillsdale College, Matthew Spalding and Christopher Malagisi.  Hillsdale is a private Michigan school that purports to offer a deep education in the Western tradition, but in practice serves as a finishing school for reactionary culture warriors.  Hillsdale has successfully entrenched itself in conservative circles as an educational model; Florida governor DeSantis, for instance, said when he decided to blow up and remake the progressive New School, that he wanted instead to have a ‘little Hillsdale.’ Hillsdale and its supporters see themselves as engaged in a longterm project to change American culture, using higher education as the vehicle to create a cadre of conservative thought leaders and activists.  [1]

Matthew Spalding, who delivers the opening lecture, has a picture perfect resume for his role as articulator of MAGA thought.  He got his education, all three degrees, in the Claremont system.  He is a fellow of the Claremont Institute, publisher of the reactionary Claremont Review, and was also a Vice-President at the Heritage Foundation.  In short, he has spent his entire adult life ensconced in the Hillsdale-Claremont axis, which is the epicenter of ‘serious’ conservative philosophizing.  Its members see themselves as the defenders of Western culture against the circling hordes of multiculturalists, relativists, and secularists.  (The President of Hillsdale since 2000, Larry Arnn, was previously the President of the Claremont Institute). 

In his presentation, Spalding paints a flattened and selective picture of the ideas and institutions of the American Founding.  It is central to the Hillsdale-Claremont ideology that America’s unchanging essence was, and should still be, adherence to a view of human rights derived from natural law, that is, from permanent and unchanging truths discoverable by reason.  As his co-conspirator Mr. Malagisi tells us, the point of conservatism is to defend ‘American exceptionalism,’ meaning adherence to the truths discovered in 1776. 

Essentially, according to Spalding and Malagisi, all was well in America for its first 125 years as we maintained our devotion to these timeless verities.  The evidence of our faithfulness was that during this time we kept the central government small and weak.  But then we Fell.  For reactionary thinkers there is always a fatal turning point, a moment of eating the apple, that has to be discovered and remedied to put humanity back on the correct path.  

Spalding and Malagisi tell us exactly what caused the United States to fall:  the Progressive Movement.  Starting in the late 1800s American elites abandoned the True Faith and, influenced by foreign ideas (those damn immigrants!), began to have heretical thoughts. They began to imagine that some of America’s wealth should be taxed and used by government to solve social problems.  They began to imagine that women could take part in public life.  They began to imagine that the dominance of the economy and politics by titanic corporations should be challenged. 

Hillsdale’s enemies are Theodore Roosevelt and, especially, Woodrow Wilson.  Wilson is impugned for wanting to expand government and make decisions based on science and expertise.  He was, after all, an academic and a political scientist.  Social scientists are, in the Hillsdale-Claremont vision, the snakes in the garden, the tempters offering knowledge of good and evil. 

In the Hillsdale-Claremont account, the Progressives were not just Americans who advocated for reforms to meet the new challenges of the industrial age.  They were traitors to America’s founding ideas and the Constitution.  They did not believe in unchanging Natural Rights.  Instead, influenced by new scientific approaches to the study of man and society, they embraced a view of human beings as more malleable, shaped in key respects by their upbringing and environment, and hence capable of changing for the better.  But many of the obstacles to a better life were beyond the ability of individuals to deal with.  Rugged individualism was not going to clear the slums, improve factory working conditions, educate the poor, challenge Jim Crow, or do away with corrupt political machines.  Government intervention was needed to help people help themselves.

Hillsdale’s hero is—Calvin Coolidge.  Coolidge and his Republican cohorts of the 1920s tried to put the genie back in the bottle.  Less government, and less expectation from the public that government would intervene to help them.  Lower taxes.  High tariffs.  Silent Cal whispering ‘no’ to government programs. 

Unfortunately, a la Spalding and Malagisi, the Depression came along, Franklin Roosevelt got elected, and America went whole-hog down the Progressive path.  The modern conservative movement is largely a noble attempt to undo the New Deal and the assumptions about the role of the state that go with it. 

This view of our history surfaced during the Trump administration, when Trump commissioned a report to counter the 1619 Project.  The 1619 Project was a historical analysis sponsored by the New York Times that placed slavery at the center of the American story.  The Trump response was the “1776 Report”, a historical study executed by a group that didn’t include any actual historians, but did include Charles Kesler of the Claremont Institute, and Larry Arnn from Hillsdale.  Their report made similar arguments about Woodrow Wilson and the Progressives, who were astonishingly singled out as threats to democracy on a par with fascism and slavery. 

What do we get from this, other than a good laugh at the idea of chiseling out Teddy Roosevelt’s face from Mt. Rushmore and replacing him with Calvin Coolidge?  What we learn is how truly reactionary, how truly at odds with the modern world, the MAGA worldview is—and also how much this vision informs today’s conservative practice. 

The America before progressivism was a country where property rights were king, the businesses and trusts and financial powers of the industrial age dominated public life, and courts and politicians deferred to their interests.  Conservative legal scholars look wistfully back to the era exemplified by the 1905 Lochner Supreme Court decision, which struck down a state law that limited working hours on the grounds that it violated the ‘freedom’ of employers and workers to engage in contracts.  Today’s originalist-dominated Supreme Court has been busy doing away with government powers to regulate the economy, while declaring that corporations are people and elevating property rights at the expense of the rights of workers and citizens.

Before progressivism, states in the South, and not just the South, freely and unabashedly denied basic rights to African-Americans, Jews, Asians, Native Americans, and women.  MAGA supporters today are up to their eyeballs in schemes to restrict voting access, criminalize abortion, demonize immigrants, and undermine all forms of affirmative action.

Before progressivism, government jobs were filled by patronage rather than merit.  Today, Trump and his supporters declare proudly they will stack the federal system with political loyalists.

The irony is that conservatives despise progressivism as equivalent to socialism (Trump and his supporters now routinely call even standard-issue liberals ‘communists’), when it was the Progressive movement and its New Deal and Fair Deal successors that saved us from socialism.  The ability of American progressives to recognize and, however imperfectly, remedy some of the injustices of modern capitalism and ‘rugged individualism’ helped convince the majority to support reform rather than revolution.  It fended off the extremism that overwhelmed many European states in the first half of the 20th century.

The Eisenhower-era Republican party seemingly accepted the basic parameters of the New Deal, promising a future of political and economic harmony, or at least civil disagreement.  Government, business, labor, and civil society would work together for the common good.  It is this ‘capitulation’ that Goldwater, Reagan and now Trump reject.  No compromise, they say.  It’s war to the death. 

By rewriting history to declare Progressivism un-American, a threat equivalent to fascism, MAGA’s ideological explainers want to justify sweeping steps to undo 125 years of the expansion of government power, in the name of restoring freedom to American citizens.  Even if this expansion has been broadly popular and resulted in dramatic improvements in people’s lives, including the expansion of the basic human rights the Hillsdale conservatives say they want to protect.  

Since America has strayed so far from its true self, we might need a strongman to make things right.  We might need to intervene to ensure elections don’t give us the wrong result.  We might need to use the military to put down protests.  We might need to fire all the bureaucrats and dismantle government agencies and use the Justice Department to go after our enemies.  Whatever it takes.

Don’t be fooled by the seemingly reasonable presentations by Hillsdale professors in their book-lined studies.  The Hillsdale-Claremont axis is, after all, the home of Michael Anton, the author of the infamous “Flight 93” essay in 2016, which argued that voting for Trump was comparable to passengers choosing to swarm the cockpit against al-Qaida hijackers, even if it meant certain death.  It is the home of John Eastman, the lawyer who masterminded the fake electors scheme designed to overturn Biden’s win in 2020. 

This claim, that the existing liberal order is hopelessly corrupt and failed, is an essential part of the fascist mentality.  It justifies any action in response, however illegal or immoral.  Trump’s drumbeat of pessimism and lies about the terrible state of our country, about how crime and immigration and woke liberals are destroying America, provides the counterpoint to the arguments of Hillsdale’s ideologues.  Never mind that the United States is the richest, most powerful state in human history, a magnet for millions around the world, for 250 years a functioning if flawed democracy, an engine of new jobs and opportunity.  These realities must be ignored to justify dismantling existing institutions and substituting the rule of a Leader who embodies the popular will.   

We should be aware that Hillsdale’s “American Exceptionalism” is not the only set of ideas circling around the MAGAverse.  There are white nationalists and outright fascists; religious zealots who look to Victor Orban’s Hungary as a model for the use of government power to advance a Christian state; and Silicon Valley libertarians who find democracy contemptible and outdated.  Professor Spalding gently rebukes them and tries to claim all these ideas need to be grounded in American natural law principles.  But they are allies, working together against their common liberal enemies.

Project 2025 is, however, not a standard-issue conservative plan to shrink the state.  It is a plan to take over the state and use state power to implement sweeping change in culture and governance.  The relatively moderate professors in these videos who celebrate decentralization and individual rights can be seen as ‘useful idiots’—the Mensheviks to MAGA’s Bolsheviks, destined to be ignored and, come the revolution, sent quickly to the gulag.

[1] I am a graduate of St. John’s College, which really does offer the education in Western thought that Hillsdale pretends to provide.  The Hillsdale approach is a distortion of genuine liberal education—Hillsdale is to St. John’s what the Upside Down in “Stranger Things” is to the real world.  To have a school that purports to defend Western civilization shill for Donald Trump is of course hilarious, but also threatens those who are serious about genuine engagement with our best traditions.  Hillsdale wants to weaponize the study of Western thought by making it seem that it supports one side in today’s political debates.  This is false and a betrayal of the tradition that Hillsdale claims to defend.