The Election Generally
Finally grokking Trump — as a repudiation of Democrat attitudes and positions
I don’t recall how much, or even whether, I have written about my little epiphany in the last two weeks or so before November election.
I was “never Trump” since I first realized that his candidacy was serious in 2015 or 2016. I confess that I could not imagine anything other than a “tear it all down!” mentality motivating Trump voters. The way I avoided contemning them was to assume that there was some nobler reason that was invisible to me for some mysterious reason.
My little epiphany in the weeks before the election was that the evils of the Democrat party could make it plausible to vote against them, even if doing so meant voting for Trump.
I considered writing about this in last Thursday’s post, but I thought it would be tedious to try to name all the Democrat evils that could repel a voter. After I posted on Thursday, though, Mary Eberstadt kindly posted an item at First Things that listed many of them for me. As does this:
Although Eberstadt specifically refers to Democrat antipathy toward Roman Catholics and Catholic teaching, I’m in the same target zone, just as when I was a conservative Protestant in my beforetimes.
Were my vote determined solely by which party is likelier to persecute me and mine over the next four years, I could imagine voting for Trump, pretty darned confident that he’ll leave me and mine alone. (Even though this little blog has dissed him for 8 years, I don’t flatter myself that he’s noticed.) But my vote tends less toward short-term self-protection and more toward fiat justitia ruat caelum.
Still: the people have spoken, and what they said means I’m likely to be left alone at least until 2029. There’s some small comfort in that.
Is identitarianism a dying delusion?
David Brooks looks at many of the ways the pre-election expectations (of how groups would vote) were dashed.
Why were so many of our expectations wrong? Well, we all walk around with mental models of reality in our heads. Our mental models help us make sense of the buzzing, blooming confusion of the world. Our mental models help us anticipate what’s about to happen. Our mental models guide us as we make decisions about how to get the results we want.
Many of us are walking around with broken mental models. Many of us go through life with false assumptions about how the world works.
Where did we get our current models? Well, we get models from our experience, our peers, the educational system, the media and popular culture. Over the past few generations, a certain worldview that emphasizes racial, gender and ethnic identity has been prevalent in the circles where highly educated people congregate …
The crucial assertion of the identitarian mind-set is that all politics and all history can be seen through the lens of liberation movements. Society is divided between the privileged (straight white males) and the marginalized (pretty much everyone else). History and politics are the struggle between oppressors and oppressed groups.
In this model, people are seen as members of a group before they are seen as individuals …
In this model, society is seen as an agglomeration of different communities. Democrats thus produce separate agendas designed to mobilize Black men, women and so on. The goal of Democratic politics is to link all the oppressed and marginalized groups into one majority coalition.
…
But this mind-set has just crashed against the rocks of reality. This model assumes that people are primarily motivated by identity group solidarity. This model assumes that the struggle against oppressive systems and groups is the central subject of politics. This model has no room for what just happened.
It turns out a lot of people don’t behave like ambassadors from this or that group. They think for themselves in unexpected ways.
Why We Got It So Wrong (unlocked article)
Liberal democracy vs. populism
For those bewildered by why so many Americans apparently voted against the values of liberal democracy, Balint Magyar has a useful formulation. “Liberal democracy,” he says, “offers moral constraints without problem-solving” — a lot of rules, not a lot of change — while “populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints.” Magyar, a scholar of autocracy, isn’t interested in calling Donald Trump a fascist. He sees the president-elect’s appeal in terms of something more primal: “Trump promises that you don’t have to think about other people.”
Around the world, populist autocrats have leveraged the thrilling power of that promise to transform their countries into vehicles for their own singular will … What they delivered was permission to abandon societal inhibitions, to amplify the grievances of one’s own group and heap hate on assorted others, particularly on groups that cannot speak up for themselves. Magyar calls this “morally unconstrained collective egoism.”
M. Gessen in the New York Times
Go stick your head in a cold Bulwark
A reader did not like Andrew Sullivan’s first post-election post:
When I opened your Dish email last Friday, I fully expected a big serving of both-sides-y handwringing — as in, “Trump is bad, but Harris is also bad, because wokeness/inflation/illegal immigrants … poor voters, what were they to do?” But I was also hoping for an acknowledgement of how terribly painful it is that the lawless kakistocrat has been reelected, more resoundingly than the first time.
Instead, I got a celebration of the multiracial, multiethnic coalition that brought us Clown Car Horror Show 2: Electric Boogaloo.
Not a single solitary goddamn word about all the reasons why Agent Orange deserved to lose. Attempting to overturn a free election in 2020? Inciting a mob to attack the Capitol? Running on “retribution” and promising to deploy the justice system against his political opponents? Routine use of crass, ugly insults and normalizing his surrogates’ use of same? Musing about how he wants to be “dictator for a day”? Wanting to fire government workers and replace them with incompetent sycophants? Never heard of it.
Sullivan responded:
In the immediate wake of the Trump victory, did we really need another account of why I didn’t vote for him? Especially when those arguments failed to work in the campaign yet again? Go read The Bulwark.
The Clown-Car Nominations
A sober lament
On Trump’s choice of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General:
The choice obviously isn’t meant to reassure anyone outside the MAGA base—or even those within it who are intelligent. It is an insolent appointment, guaranteed to cause trouble and meant to cause friction.
We are back to the Island of Misfit Toys. What a mistake. Mr. Trump often confuses his own antic malice for daring, his own unseriousness for boldness. How amazing that in the rosy glow of election, he will spend so much political capital and goodwill on confirmation fights he may well, and certainly deserves to, lose.
Shambolic Kakistocracy
[H]ere is a glimmer of hope: Team Trump’s most human failings may thwart some of their most evil plans.
Take, for instance, appointing Representative Matt Gaetz to be the Attorney General of the United States. If this is a sincere appointment — in other words, if it isn’t a head-fake to get the Senate to accept another candidate later, or a ruse to let Gaetz resign from Congress and avoid a damaging ethics report — it’s an example of self-indulgence thwarting malign intent. Gaetz is a buffoon. He has absolutely no qualifications to run the Department of Justice. Can he wander around firing everyone? Yes. Does he understand how the Department of Justice works in a way that would allow him to maximize its potential for abuse? No. Is he smart enough to figure it out? Also no. Is he charismatic enough to persuade insiders to help him use it effectively? Very much no. Gaetz as Attorney General will do petty, flamboyant, stupid things in clumsy ways. Some of those things will be very bad. But clown shoes are preferable to jackboots. We’d be in much more trouble if someone evil in a smart and competent way who understands how the machine works — say, Jeff Clark or Ken Paxton — took over. That would be terrifying.
Trump’s decision shows his tendency to vent his spleen. Appointing Gaetz owns the libs, humiliates the hated Justice Department, elevates someone who is a vulgar elbow-thrower like him, and is a thumb in the eye to the Republicans who hate Gaetz. It’s not a decision reflecting self-control; it’s a decision reflecting unconstrained anger and resentment. It’s like making your horse a Senator. The point isn’t that the horse will vote the way you want it to. The point is to humiliate the senate and show them you can do what you want. It’s bad, but it’s not smart bad.
…
[P]erhaps they will not be as bad as they could be because God, in His wisdom, has chosen to make these people weird freaks along the way to letting them run the place. This is a time to cherish every hope and embrace every ally. Trump and Trumpists are dysfunctional weirdos and that fact is our ally. Cold comfort is still comfort.
Popehat, Refuge in Kakistocracy
A vital pardon
Pardon Trump’s Critics Now
President Biden has a moral obligation to do what he can for patriotic Americans who have risked it all.
[H]istory is well and truly back. Even Francis Fukuyama agrees.
I suffer more from the humiliations inflicted by my country than from those inflicted on her.
Simone Weil, from a letter to Georges Bernanos.
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Tipsy Teetotaler ن 