In 1932, most of the predictions made about what would happen if Hindenburg named Hitler chancellor were wildly overoptimistic.
My esteemed brother-in-law emailed me an excerpt from Richard Rorty’s 1997 book, Achieving Our Country. We are in trouble, but the scope of our troubles may depend on our ability to critically examine the forces that fed Trump’s candidacy beside bigotry, misogyny and the complacency of mostly white, privileged purists on the Left that never came around to stifling their reservations about the Clintons and the DLC. I say that as a white, privileged purist that spent months, finally convincing my father to come around and vote for Clinton.
Blaming Stein or Johnson is just as useful as blaming Nader. This world can’t wait for demographic shifts to save us either. Ironically, one of the truest statements made by Clinton may have undercut her ability to reach the portion of Trump supporters we needed to acknowledge. We will never win over the hearts of those Clinton intended to describe as deplorable, but we must recognize that most of Trump’s support already felt deplored.
Richard Rorty:
Many writers on socioeconomic policy have warned that the old industrialized democracies are heading into a Weimar-like period, one in which populist movements are likely to overturn constitutional governments. Edward Luttwak, for example, has suggested that fascism may be the American future. The point of his book “The Endangered American Dream” is that members of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers—themselves desperately afraid of being downsized—are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.
At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for—someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. A scenario like that of Sinclair Lewis’s novel It Can’t Happen Here may then be played out. For once a strongman takes office, nobody can predict what will happen. In 1932, most of the predictions made about what would happen if Hindenburg named Hitler chancellor were wildly overoptimistic.
One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. The words “nigger” and “kike” will once again be heard in the workplace. All the sadism which the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.
One has to wonder if there is any hope within institutional power to contain this disaster. I have little faith that there are sane Republicans left in Congress, the ploy to leave Scalia's seat vacant worked, the FBI is largely in the tank, Europe is fractured. How much damage will be done before he starts replacing Generals, stifling media, torturing and collectively punishing vast swaths of people and interning those to whom he promised retribution? Is our only hope that he cared more about winning than anything else and ultimately is too lazy to actually deliver on his frightening agenda?
No it is not. We must find our strength where we can. For me, this morning it has been hugging my wife and children even tighter, reaching out to friends who have already felt the trauma of this campaign to make sure they will be okay, to share my grief. And sweet music.
And then we must think. And speak. And act. We cannot wait to see what lies in store, but devote even more time to the greater struggles. Justice has not been lost because it has yet to be won. Fight on.
I’m flying to Bismarck, ND tomorrow morning, and on to Standing Rock. In the midst of despair, we will find our faith in one another by the very act of refusing to surrender.