Month: August 2023

The cultural right is convinced that Hollywood is determined to make America woke. Is there any truth to the allegation?

The ongoing strike involving actors and writers should tell us that Hollywood is not monolithic. The striking artistic types are mostly young, talented, and financially insecure; it is probably fair to assume that they are predominantly woke. Decisions regarding the films and TV shows that are actually made, however, rest in the hands of capitalists. They are not woke, on the whole; their only concern is making money.

In my experience, some TV shows and movies are, in fact, advertisements for wokeness; the capitalists agreed to make them because they perceived there was an audience for them that justified the investments. Most shows and movies, however, don’t have any messages touching on wokeness. The allegation, taken as a whole, is false.

The right thinks the federal bureaucracy is dominated by leftists; that’s why it’s a “deep state.” Does that make sense?

The key concept here is self-selection. It is highly likely, for example, that environmentalists are overrepresented in the EPA; why would someone with strong feelings about property rights want to work there? But what about the FBI, which is, of course, led by a Trump nominee? Does anyone seriously believe that rabid leftists are attracted to law enforcement as a career? Is that even slightly plausible?

Take the DOJ as another example. Lawyers are, by and large, a conservative group; they are affluent enough to have something to lose, and they practice in a field that revolves around precedent. The attorneys at the DOJ are required to follow and enforce the written rules, regardless of their personal predispositions about politics. There is no reason to believe they don’t.

Most of the jobs in the bureaucracy are occupied by powerless timeservers who don’t care one way or the other if the government is run by the right or the left. A few stray agencies have mission with ties to a particular ideology, as with the EPA and the FBI. Taken together, they don’t amount to anything like a “deep state” dominated by the left.

What the reactionaries actually object to is not a politically-driven “deep state,” but one that is predictable and bound by rules and clearly identified procedures. Trump doesn’t think he should be subject to any rules. That’s why part of his agenda is to eliminate guardrails and subject government completely to his personal whims.

It’s 2024. The trial has been going on for weeks. Smith’s team has put on a lengthy parade of witnesses to discuss what Trump did and what he said about the supposedly rigged election. Now it’s time for the defense to respond.

Trump testifies. How can he not, under the circumstances? He not only insists that he genuinely believed the election was rigged at the time; he goes on to argue that, in retrospect, the allegation was true. In other words, he makes his standard stump speech in the courtroom. Why wouldn’t he? What better evidence can he provide of his mental state at the time the alleged crimes took place? Why not kill two birds with one stone?

But now Smith’s team gets to cross-examine him. The weight of the world is on their shoulders. How do they perform under pressure? How does Trump respond in a forum that he cannot control?

We’ll know in about a year. Unfortunately, it won’t be on TV, so the base won’t believe it if he makes a fool of himself and is convicted. They will just assume he was railroaded by an Obama judge and a liberal D.C. jury.

In an article in New York Magazine that everyone should read, Jonathan Chait lays out a theme espoused by the New Right that apparently is gaining plenty of traction in the GOP mainstream. The gist of it is that the left has been quietly, but doggedly seeking control of all of America’s institutions over the past 50 years or so, and has succeeded. As a result, it is necessary for the right to take over and use the powers of government in order to restore our society to the way it was in the good old days. Chait, who obviously has some familiarity with Chinese history, calls this theory “The Long March.”

Based on Chait’s analogy, the logical questions you should ask are:

1. Who was the American version of Mao?
2. What was the American equivalent of the Chinese Communist Party?

There is no plausible answer to these questions, of course. “The left,” which extends roughly from me to Bernie Sanders, contains a wide range of opinions. “The left” had little money (at least, compared to “the right”), no plan, no organization capable of secretly infiltrating institutions, and no leader. To the extent that American political and cultural institutions reflect liberal thought, it is due to two things: self-selection; and the general, if belated, understanding that women and minorities in America got a raw deal over the last few centuries. In other words, “the left” won the hearts and minds of America by making it aware of past injustices, and the reactionaries want to use political power to overturn that victory.

I will be discussing the state of various elements of the supposedly corrupt liberal establishment over the next few days.

Ross Douthat has always had religion; now he wants to find history, too. That’s my field, not his. Having traveled to the UK and read a book or two, he thinks there is a direct line connecting the Jacobites to today’s right-wing populists. Is he right?

No, for two reasons:

1. The current dichotomy between the reactionary countryside and the progressive city has no relationship to Jacobitism. The Country Party arose in opposition to the Stuarts, not in support of them.
2. There was never any meaningful support for Jacobitism in England; it was a Scottish and Irish phenomenon based on nationalism. Is Scottish nationalism truly analogous to the battle between disgruntled white retirees and supposedly woke corporations and intellectuals? I don’t think so.

The historical analogy I would suggest to Douthat is between his friends in the New Right and the Ultras in the time of Louis XVIII and Charles X. Look it up.

The new indictment is clearly intended to legally advance the narrative of Trump’s threat to liberal democracy while avoiding questionable claims and unnecessary delays. That makes sense. On balance, I agree with the way Smith is handling the issue.

But this is the third indictment. Appalling as it will seem a few years from now, the drill is depressingly familiar to us. Trump will portray himself as the victim of the vengeful deep state; he will successfully make use of the indictment as a fundraising tactic; and there will be lots of GOP screaming about the politicization of the judicial system and vows of retribution.

And we know there is a fourth one in the offing. I’m becoming uncomfortably numb to the new routine. My guess is that the rest of America feels the same way.

The prominent culture warrior and DeSantis supporter Christopher Rufo had a column in the NYT a few days ago which made the following points:

1. His objective is to eliminate cancel culture in state universities and restore freedom of thought, not to enforce reactionary ideology on the students and faculty; and
2. It is appropriate for state governments to use their political and legal powers to make sure that state universities reflect the values of the voters.

Are his arguments plausible? Here is what I think:

1. The overall record in Florida makes it crystal clear that the ultimate objective is to stifle left-wing opinion, not just to create safe spaces for conservatives. DeSantis believes in a veto for reactionary hecklers, not freedom of inquiry.
2. While Rufo’s argument that educational systems should reflect the values of the voters makes sense, it raises questions that he doesn’t bother to answer. Why should the will of state voters control over both national and local voters, particularly in the case of secondary education? Should the financial power of the federal government be used to overturn the values of either blue or red state voters? What happens to education when the apparent opinions of the voters change? Aren’t the employees of educational institutions entitled to some say as to how they are run? If not, as a practical matter, how are all of them going to be kept in line and replaced, as necessary?

In short, these issues are far more complicated than Rufo would have you believe.

Having listened to me (LOL), DeSantis released an economic policy package yesterday. Having actually not listened to me, it is a collection of standard GOP talking points added to mindless attacks on China, woke corporations, and universities. It basically tells the donor class that he will leave them alone if they shut up, and it tells struggling reactionary workers that he has nothing to offer them. It is neither aggressively populist nor an imaginative effort to help business. In short, it is an opportunity lost.

DeSantis also told the world he thought abortion restrictions should be left to the states. In isolation, that is a perfectly reasonable position to take; in context, it is suicide. DeSantis needs the rabidly anti-abortion crowd in Iowa to vote for him; now, they will vote for Pence or Scott. He will be attacked from the left for signing a draconian abortion bill in Florida, and from the right for not supporting a national ban. Tactically, it makes no sense.

I think this is the end for DeSantis. I just don’t see how he can recover from this. Even his wife can’t save him now.