Monday, October 1, 2018


                               WHY KAVANAUGH SHOULD NOT BE CONFIRMED

Who do you believe, Kavanaugh or Ford?  I certainly believe Ford; no one makes up a story like that with such details.  It rings true.  She has everything to lose by telling her story and nothing to gain. 

I am also willing to accept that Kavanaugh does not remember the incident.  After all, he was likely blind drunk when it took place.  And there are enough remembrances of others who knew him during his high school and college days to confirm that drunken partying was routine for him and his friends during those years.  Furthermore, why would he remember it - just another wild party with the usual girl chasing.  If it was a common occurrence why would one particular incident stand out?  Particularly a failure.  Certainly for the aggressor there would be no lasting psychological  impact.  He probably thought nothing of it and forgot about it the next day, particularly since there were no immediate implications.  I see no contradiction in her remembering and his forgetting.  And under those circumstances how can he do anything but deny, and deny vehemently. To even acknowledge the possibility that the attack took place and if so it was due to drunkenness and youth ("I didn't know what I was doing, and I apologize for my behavior.") would have been devastating to his chances of being confirmed (even with Republican Senators for whom misogyny is a way of life).

So, accepting that the incident took place as she describes it, is it enough to justify denying him confirmation?  Is this just a youthful indiscretion?  Excessive drinking, for example, can perhaps be considered youthful indiscretion when it involves only harm to oneself, but when it involves violent physical and emotional damage to others it no longer gets him the benefit of the doubt for the innocence of youth.  Even at the age of 17 or 18 he knows the difference between right and wrong.  Nor is there any issue of consensuality here.

Okay, but it was a long time ago, and there is no suggestion that he has led other than an exemplary life since then, or at least since his college years.  Shouldn't he get a pass for good behavior since then?  Isn't this analogous to restoring the right to vote to convicted felons who have served their time?  No, it isn't.  This is a nominee for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. The context makes a difference.  For such a position, there can be no statute of limitations.   The standards  have to be higher.  Any concerns about defects in character should be resolved against the nominee.  There should be no doubts.

The tone of Judge Kavanaugh's response to the allegations at the Senate hearings raises new concerns - those of judicial temperament and impartiality.  His bombastic attack on the Senators questioning him, his sense of entitlement based on his scholastic record, athletic prowess, hard work and career resume, his conspiratorial accusations that the allegations were a calculated and orchestrated political hit by Democrats, charging them with exacting revenge on behalf of the Clintons and outside left  wing opposition groups, his calling the allegations a grotesque and coordinated character assassination all raise questions as to his suitability to render reasoned, impartial and just decisions on the complex issues he would face as a Supreme Court Justice.  Is his channeling of Trump a vision of how he would judge on presidential power?  Does such a man belong on the Supreme Court, or, for that matter, on any court?  Under the pressure of the moment the true character of the man was revealed.

These outbursts also reflect the depth of his partisanship.  It was always known that he was a conservative.  That was to be expected, for better or for worse.  But this goes beyond conservative views.  This reflects an innate bias towards a tribal view of judicial decision making, of "us against them".
  


Thursday, June 21, 2018



                                        HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN HERE?


"[A] dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.  History will teach us, that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism, than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their career, by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing Demagogues and ending Tyrants."  "Publius", The Federalist I (Alexander Hamilton)

"You cannot fool all of the people all of the time, but you can fool enough of the people for long enough to do irreversible damage."  Joseph Schumpeter


It has been a little over a year since Donald Trump (or Agent Orange as Spike Lee refers to him) was inaugurated, but we continue to be inundated with analyses in the media of how and why his election happened.  It remains an obsessive topic of private conversation, at least among those who voted otherwise.  Although there are many explanations, none are entirely satisfactory, perhaps because the most likely are so unattractive and run counter to the essence of the American Creed, which, albeit only sporadically adhered to in unblemished form, in the main, for all its shortcomings, has been a successful experiment in pluralistic republicanism .  It's becoming clear that the election was less about who Trump is (we always knew the answer to that) than about who the American  people are.  Trump has been successful (and maybe this is his only true success story) in stirring up the latent shameful undercurrents of American society which have been with us from the beginning and erupt in times of stress.  As Camus wrote, with regard to the plague bacillus, "it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen chests".  Likewise the plague of ethnocentrism, racism and intolerance is always present in some segments of the population, ready to re-emerge given the right conditions.  Madison himself felt that there was more to fear from the power of the majority than from the government, and this after the colonies' war against the government of England. That's certainly been brought home to us in the last election, albeit by an artificial majority.

Perhaps a good place to start is with the problem of terminology.  Political power resides with those who dictate the vocabulary.  The Republican Party for some time and Donald Trump more recently have proven themselves most adept in this regard and the mainstream media have become passive accomplices, purveyors of false equivalence. Our political vocabulary today is rife with misnomers that aid and abet what has become a hostile takeover, a non-violent "democratic" coup, of our government.  Regime change evidently begins at home.

                                                           
                                                Populism and Democracy

For instance, we are told that Trump ( as well as other leaders or leadership hopefuls in France, Poland, Hungary, Turkey and elsewhere in Europe) is leading a "populist" revolution, that is, suggesting a revolution of the people against what in a different era might be called the aristocracy or plutocracy. Nothing could be further from the truth.  The use of the term "populism" by itself is misleading.  It fails to distinguish what might be called populism of the left, i.e., positive populism, and populism of the right, i.e., negative populism. Trump's financial and political backers are anything but positive populists.  Populism of the left supports the concerns of ordinary people and their right to have control over their government, rather than a small group of political insiders or a wealthy elite, to achieve a better life for themselves, and in principle to see a broader and more equitable distribution of the economic pie, e.g., Bernie Sanders populism. In the US, historically the populist movement was a politically oriented coalition of agrarian reformers in the Middle West and South that advocated a wide range of progressive economic and political legislation in the late 19th century which eventually broadened its base to include labor and other groups (positive populists).

At a more abstract level, populism of the left speaks for "we, the people", that is, all of the people.  A more recent example of positive populism is FDR's New Deal.  If there is anything which Trump's movement speaks for, it is not "we, the people".  To the extent that there is any coherence to what might be called Trump policy, it favors the wealthy, and rule by oligarchy, banks, big business and financial entrepreneurs, precisely the groups that the historical populists of the left and any contemporary self respecting heirs to that tradition did and would oppose. Populism of the right, which is the populism of Trump, the Tea Party, the House Freedom Caucus and the rest of the Republican Party, represents a narrowing of the concept of "we, the people".  It is nationalist populism where majority rule is not tempered by the legal assurance of the rights of minorities, and of individuals.  Followers of this tradition attack both above and below.  They aim at a so-called "elite", which includes the educated, the intelligent, the academic community, scientists, artists, writers, teachers, journalists, secularists, government officials, etc. (but not the wealthy), what might be characterized as a meritocracy (these populists of the right seem to have an undying hatred for anyone who is not mediocre), but also at those who are economically below them or are otherwise different - the poor, African Americans, immigrants, Moslems, LGBT, etc.  They are about exclusiveness, not inclusiveness.  Populists of the right do not accept the right of all others to participate fully in society regardless of their background.  It is non-pluralistic populism.  Those not included are not part of the "people".

By associating the Trump movement with populism without highlighting this distinction, the mainstream media provide an undeserved positive imprimatur.  Trump and today's Republicans, to the extent they represent any form of populism, stand for right wing populism, for negative populism. Trump, with the unintentional help of such media, has skillfully sold himself as a man of the people, particularly what he posits as the neglected middle class.  Admittedly one would have to be pretty gullible to accept this characterization, but maybe naivete is one aspect of the stereotypical American character which does hold true.  America may be the land of the entrepreneurial, but maybe in part because it is also the land of the conman, the land of the "sucker born every minute".

In fact, even bona fide populism, that is, populism that is pluralistic, raises doubts.  Madison's view of populism was perhaps more realistic.  He believed that ordinary citizens lacked civic virtue; as noted above he feared the tyranny of the majority, so-called popular sovereignty, the same "popular sovereignty" advocated by Senator Stephen A. Douglas in support of a popular vote in the Territories to determine whether to be slave or free states. Madison was fearful of the character of the popular majorities that would rule the States and of the populist sentiment that would swirl through the body politic under the influence of the charismatic demagogue; the populism of the authoritarian leader who caters to the passion of the crowd while neglecting the bestowal of real benefits, such as health care, education, etc., which would truly improve the lot of the broader population; who embraces their negativism.  Whether representatives in a representative democracy would act as enlightened deliberators or simply act as agents for parochial interests was a great conundrum that republican constitutionalists had to address at the Constitutional Convention.

People in a democracy, whether representative or direct, are often the slaves of perverse demagogues who know how to manipulate and flatter them.  In a democracy the people often have no real conception of what liberty is and their rule can be harsher than that of the worst tyrants.  As Bret Stephens has put it, "... a diabolical ideology gains strength not because devils propagate it, but because ordinary men embrace it."  He quotes Bertolt Brecht: "as he put it after the war, 'The womb is fertile still, from which that crawled'".

Perhaps then it is democracy itself which is the curse, unless we distinguish between liberal democracies (ours still?) and illiberal democracies, such as those in Hungary, Poland and Turkey with their authoritarian overtones.  This type of democracy is the majoritarian democracy, which places higher value on the interests of the majority than on the rights of others, which Madison and other of the founders feared.

In any event, branding the Trump movement as "populist" gives it a more appealing face to voters who are otherwise dissatisfied with what they perceive, rightly or wrongly, as their neglected status in society.

Trump's form of populism is a movement which incites and embraces the worst instincts of human nature - white nationalism, racism, religious intolerance, ethnocentrism, homophobia, misogyny, violence - which musters the darker forces of our nature to achieve electoral success.  In short, everything which goes against the grain of what our textbooks tell us that America stands for. By clothing these passions in the nomenclature of populism, we provide cover for the dark side of human nature. Is this the true nature of America?  Does populism of the right trump (no pun intended) populism of the left?  We'll see.  There is more in our history to support this view than we like to admit.  (Examples: virtual eradication and forced relocation of Native Americans; the nativism of the Know Nothing Party before the Civil War; the original KKK; Jim Crow; the Chinese Exclusion Act; Attorney General Mitchell Palmer and the Red Scare after WW I; the second coming of the KKK in the 1920s; the internment of Japanese-Americans in WW II; McCarthyism; to name just a few)

There is, of course, another consideration which underlies and supports the above, that is, ignorance. The Trumpists and their alt-right acolytes stand for the dumbing down of America.  Perhaps we can't blame the Republicans alone for this.  For a long time we have been aware that Americans are breathtakingly uninformed, even when it comes to their own history and form of government, and seemingly unconcerned about it.  From the beginning of the Republic, it was understood that democracy would only work if the polity was educated.  On this premise, over the years the U.S. has been a leader in broad-based public education, but for the extreme right today it has low priority and has become a target because it is "liberal" and "secular".  In reality, education is anathema to their program which relies on irrationality and ignorance for its success.  58% of Republicans think that universities have a negative effect on the country, presumably because these institutions value skepticism, not credulity, and are committed to the exercise of reason rather than the recitation of dogma.

The less people know, the more obdurate they are in upholding what they think they know.  It is the ignorant person who, being credulous, has no doubt about anything and becomes violent and ferocious when challenged.  This plays into the hands of right wing demagogues.

One is reminded of Learned Hand's Spirit of Liberty speech in which he said, "The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right ...."

A subset of this dumbing down is the rejection of professionalism, experience and expertise.  This assumes that the people know as well as, if not better than, the experts (who are the "elite"), perhaps because they think they can look it up on the internet.  It is all part of the anti-intellectualism in American life written about by Richard Hofstadter.  This has been around for a long time but seems even more pervasive today.

What about Trump's support system, the establishment Republican Party?  How does it fit into this paradigm?  Has it transformed itself to support Trump solely as a matter of political expediency now that his presence in the White House enables its policy objectives?  Doubtful. The Party has been on this same path of populism of the right, although somewhat less overtly, for a long time, at least since Nixon's Southern strategy and the decamping of racist Southern Democrats to the Republican Party. Quite simply, it is the path to electoral success, perhaps the only path, for a party that is programatically, intellectually and morally corrupt. Trump's victory has been exploited by a political party which refuses to distance itself from what is, in fact, a white, religiously intolerant, nationalist, racist government.  If Trump hadn't come along, Republicans would have had to invent him, and they certainly have tried their best, e.g., Palin, Cruz, Santorum, Bachman, Huckabee, Bannon, Buchanan, etc.  Let us recall that conservatives in Weimar Germany made the gargantuan mistake of seeing Hitler as a  useful tool for rousing the populace.

                                                     
                                                Liberalism vs Conservatism

Here we have another problem of terminology which obscures our political vision, that is, the definitions of "conservative" and "liberal".  The Republican Party has done a clever job of demonizing the term "liberal" as threatening, and promoting "conservative" as America's political standard, which it claims for itself.  In short, conservative is good, liberal is bad, and the Democratic Party is liberal. According to the journalist and academic Thomas Edsall, "Trump's success, such as it is, has been to accelerate the ongoing transformation of traditional political competition into an atavistic struggle in which each side claims moral superiority and defines the opposition as evil." Liberalism has been equated with radicalism, with revolution, with foreign "isms" that would destroy America's past and its traditions; on the other hand conservatism has been equated with patriotism, the Constitution and good old fashioned Norman Rockwell Americana.  These terms have thus become the signposts which signify where one stands in society.

Furthermore, by denominating the differences between the Parties in such terms, a false impression is created that their differences are ideological, and thus just competing approaches to problem solving, which gives them a cover of legitimacy when in fact they represent fundamental differences in standards, values and concepts of civic virtue.

The sad fact is that most Americans have little idea of where these terms come from or what they mean.  As descriptive terms they are meaningless in today's political environment.  In truth, these terms are not mutually exclusive, and both Parties could be characterized as fundamentally both liberal and conservative in the original sense of these words.  (As Adlai Stevenson said, "The strange alchemy of time has somehow converted the Democrats into the truly conservative party of this country - the party dedicated to conserving all that is best, and building solidly and safely on these foundations.")  That is, both Parties could have been so characterized until about 40 years or so ago when the Republican Party became neither liberal nor conservative insofar as its actions were concerned.  It became instead the Party that believes it can not only stop but reverse change and believes that modernity is a dirty word, the Party that harks back to an illusory utopia and ignores the trajectory of history. As per William Buckley, speaking for the Republican Party, the conservative mission is to stand "athwart history, yelling stop.''   It has rejected the traditional liberal values of tolerance and freedom and adopted the illiberal values of conformity and coercion.

How did this happen?  First of all, it is useful to distinguish between two or perhaps three strands of conservatism as defined by the political psychologist Karen Stenner - "laissez faire conservatives", "status quo conservatives" and "authoritarians", although it is questionable whether this latter group should be classified as conservatives.  They would seem to fit into what Richard Hofstadter, writing in  1954, a different era, classified as "pseudo-conservatives ... because its exponents, although they believe themselves to be conservatives and usually employ the rhetoric of conservatism, show signs of a serious and restless dissatisfaction with American life, traditions and institutions."

Laissez faire conservative are not conservative in any real sense.  They can better be identified as classical liberals or libertarians.  They favor free markets and are pro-business, and oppose intervention in the economy and efforts to redistribute wealth.  They have nothing in common with authoritarians who are not generally averse to government intrusion into economic life.

Status quo conservatives are those who are psychologically predisposed to favor stability and resist rapid change and uncertainty.  They are in a sense the true conservatives, the heirs of Edmund Burke, epitomizing a recognition of the limits of human reform and a skepticism about far-reaching public initiatives.  Status quo conservatism is only modestly associated with authoritarianism.

In contrast to status quo conservativism, authoritarianism is primarily driven not by aversion to change but by aversion to complexity; in a nutshell, authoritarians are simple-minded avoiders of complexity more than close-minded avoiders of change.  This distinction matters because in the event of an authoritarian revolution, authoritarians may seek massive social change in pursuit of greater oneness and sameness, willingly overturning established institutions and practices that their psychologically conservative peers would be drawn to defend and preserve.  In Hofstadter's characterization, the "pseudo-conservative is a man who, in the name of upholding traditional American values and institutions and defending them against more or less fictitious dangers, consciously or unconsciously aims at their abolition."

Based on her studies, Stenner concludes that one-third of the population qualify as authoritarians.  Another survey found that 64% of white working class Americans have an authoritarian orientation, including 37% who are classified as "high authoritarian".  82% of white working class evangelical Protestants have such an orientation.

The Republican Party of the past was conservative in that it represented laissez faire conservatives and status quo conservatives.  They differed from liberals, as represented by the Democratic Party, more as a matter of degree than of kind.  But the new Republican Party shifted to the authoritarian mode which comports with populism of the right in appealing to those with authoritarian tendencies who now comprise the Republican base, which has been further cultivated by Trump.

Trump himself is too shallow and non-reflective, or just plain ignorant, to think through or understand any of this, but his natural predilection toward a Hobbesian world view, where if a person blocks you, you knock him down, no matter who he is, and his perverted personality play perfectly into the hands of the new Republican Party.  Thus, as noted above, their acquiescence in his bad behavior. Trump really has no positive agenda in the normal sense (he is capable of adopting any belief according to political expediency) or, indeed, any interest in governing.  He understands nothing of our history or of the necessary preconditions of our democracy.  He is motivated by a petulant envy of Obama.  He is an unscrupulous provocateur, driven solely by the need to see his name in headlines every day ( a Trump logo on the White House?), whether for good or bad, regardless of the consequences for the country, and, like a spoiled child acting out with temper tantrums, the need to get his own way, a monomaniac whose singular obsession is himself.  As was said of Huey Long when he was a young boy, he will do anything to attract even unfavorable attention (there are other more frightening similarities, but Long at least pursued progressive policies).  Trump himself, according to the New York Times, told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals.  Narcissism raised to the infinite power.

His apologists would have us believe that he is merely a fabulist, but as Adam Gopnik has written, there is a difference between the fabulist and the fraud - "The fabulist wants to convey the dramatic experience of events, while the fraud wants to convey a false evaluation of them.  The fabulist wants to dramatize himself; the fraud to deceive others." Trump wants both.  Selling snake oil is his business model.

The kindest thing that can be said about him is that although he's a phony, he is a real phony because he honestly believes all the phony junk which he believes, to echo Martin Balsam's character describing Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's.  This seems to be what passes for genuineness and authenticity in certain circles these days.

Trump has, in his mind, created an image of himself, based on his warped personality, which dictates his "policy" decisions which have the sole aim of reinforcing that image, i.e., toughness, strength, power, infallibility, etc.

British historian Alan Bullock depicted Hitler as a charlatan, a manipulator, an opportunist entirely without principle.  Sound familiar?

Given that he has no positive vision, the only way for him to attract attention is to tear down everything that preceded him, to attack norms and standards of long standing, to destroy what exists and to diminish anyone who stands in his way with ad hominem insults and inuendo and outright lies. He is a con artist who gets his highs by nose thumbing on a grand scale; as a person of no virtues he can build himself up only by tearing down others and their accomplishments, including his predecessors. That catches people's attention, makes headlines, appeals to people who can only express themselves through violence and destruction in their personal lives.  To have plans, to build for the future, to have imagination, has no immediate payback; it takes time to see the results which in fact may be problematic.  To knock down what already exists has immediacy and visibility and symbolizes power.  And, sad to say, one gets as much attention by hurting people and taking something away from them as by helping them, particularly if one can characterize them in a demeaning way and classify them as the "other".

Maintaining liberal democracy depends as much on following recognized and accepted customs and traditions and procedures and standards of conduct, both written and unwritten, and the exercise of restraint and toleration, as on observing the Constitution and statutes.  In this sense, it is a government of men or women, not merely a government of laws. Trump makes a point of flouting such practices in his quest for personal authority and autocracy.

Again according to Edsall, Trump is determined to leave the destruction of democratic procedure as his legacy.  He is a nihilist who seeks to trample, to trash, to blight, to break and to burn.  He fully believes and acts on the adage - the strong always take from the weak.  This could well be the watchword of the Republican Party.

Trump has become a cult leader of a movement that has taken over a political party - and has specifically campaigned and acted on a platform of one-man rule.  He views the government as a personal fiefdom.  His narcissism is perhaps well illustrated by Barbara Tuchman, as quoted by the historian Jon Meacham, referring to "wooden-headedness" in statecraft: "assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring any contrary signs".  As she wrote, wooden-headedness was best captured in a remark about Philip II of Spain: "No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence."  As Paul Krugman has said, "invincible ignorance", or, in another context, zombie economics.

Remember Senator Joe McCarthy?  Jon Meacham on McCarthy: "A master of false charges, of conspiracy-tinged rhetoric, and of calculated disrespect for conventional figures (from Truman and Eisenhower to Marshall), McCarthy could distract the public, play the press, and change the subject - all while keeping himself at center stage. ...  He thrived on a dangerous, but politically alluring, combination: hyperbole and imprecision. ... McCarthy was an opportunist, uncommitted to much beyond his own fame and influence."

And Edward R. Murrow on McCarthy: "The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies.  And whose fault is that?  Not really his.  He didn't create this atmosphere of fear, he merely exploited it - and rather successfully.  Cassius was right. 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.'"

As Mark Twain is often credited with saying, "History doesn't repeat itself but it often rhymes."  Trump is the second coming of McCarthy.

Thus the agenda of the Republican Party and Trump's compulsive, obsessive drive for publicity and attention mesh very well together, but in neither case does it have anything to do with conservatism; far from it.  It is just a label.  Trump wants revolution, that is, the overthrow of anything that anyone who came before him can claim as theirs.  True conservatives build on what went before, making modifications where necessary, perhaps more slowly and less experimentally than progressives, but nevertheless open to reform.  Burke was a reform whig.  That is not Trump's way. Nor is it the way of today's Republican Party, which, in its marginalization of its laissez faire and status quo conservative wings and its appeal to its authoritarian base, would prefer to destroy the accomplishments of the social legislation of the 1960s and the New Deal and recreate the world of the robber barons.  That is reaction and destruction and radicalism from the right, not conservatism.

Burkean conservatism, to the extent that it was based on a fear of revolution, more particularly the radicalism of the French Revolution, and on the hereditary element of the British Constitution, is no longer relevant.  And although Burke accepted an aristocracy, it was an open aristocracy based on social mobility that reflected a pluralistic society, what today may be compared to an open meritocratic elite nourished by equality of opportunity.  What he did fear was mob rule and its destructive force, which he foresaw as the outcome of the French Revolution. As Alan Ryan, the political theorist and historian, has pointed out, as a reform whig Burke looked to government to provide efficient and corruption free administration, promote security and prosperity for everyone, and include economic interests beyond those of the traditional aristocracy.  He shared Adam Smith's view of the benefits of free trade.  He was a believer in progress.  It was utopian rationalism which he attacked, not reasoned argument.  He feared both royal despotism as well as populist pressures which could likewise lead to despotism. The Republican Party of today is not the party of Burkean conservatism.  One can reasonably assume that Burke would more likely equate Trump and the Republican Party, particularly its Tea Party and Freedom Caucus factions, with the destructive radicals of the French Revolution.

As for liberalism in its classical form, it advocates sovereignty of the people and liberty under the rule of law with an emphasis on economic freedom.  In this form, subject to preservation of the rights of minorities, it has been embraced by both the Democratic Party and, in the past, the Republican Party.  Today it incorporates what might be called welfare capitalism which has been endorsed more strongly by the Democratic Party, but also by the Republican Party, albeit to a far lesser extent (they, that is, the laissez faire branch, adhered in large part to laissez faire economics, i.e., leave businesses alone and success at the top raises all boats), up until the time of the Reagan administration (surprisingly, perhaps, there was much progressive legislation during Nixon's administration but probably due in large measure to the fact that Congress was controlled by the Democrats).    If our political system was functioning as it should Democrats and Republicans would be working to find the balance on a case by case basis within this paradigm.  However, in today's era of dysfunction the Republican Party seeks only to maximize the individual freedom of its wealthy backers and their corporate allies, focused on non-interference with their private projects without regard to any deleterious effects on the common good, by manipulating its authoritarian base.  Thus, the Republicans have rejected their inherited ties to liberalism, and for that matter, in large part, laissez faire and status quo conservatism, in favor of plutocracy and oligarchy, or plutarchy.  As the only way to achieve this goal, they have descended to the depths of hypocrisy and charlatanism by appealing to the authoritarian instincts of a substantial portion of the populace.  Thus, a combination of plutarchy and negative populism.

In any event, the liberal/conservative distinction is a red herring or straw man created by the Republicans. This is not really what divides the Parties. The issues which divide the Parties today, and for that matter the populace, are only marginally related to liberalism and conservatism as usually understood.  Those terms become just a misleading ideological excuse to justify Republican policy positions which are based not on liberalism or conservatism but on appeals to the pathological tribalism and identity politics of their base and on the interest politics of their financial backers. Conservatism has become the clan logo which is attached to status issues which appeal to the Party base, which is comprised largely of rural whites with limited education who feel most comfortable with a static, authoritarian, conformist and hierarchic society based on revealed truth as opposed to reason and science, and which have been packaged together, as an indivisible platform, with interest issues which satisfy the wealthy financial and corporate backers of the Party.

If the Party that fulminates against blacks, moslems and immigrants also votes against free trade, control of global warming, financial regulations and pollution controls, for example, uneducated whites, particularly rural whites, will go with them because they see themselves as fellow members of the same cultural group, even if those issues are race or ethnicity neutral, all under the false rubric of conservatism.

For instance, why is gun regulation considered a liberal cause. If one must characterize this as liberal or conservative, it would seem that this would be a conservative approach.  The NRA types would seem to be the radicals.  But by labeling gun control as liberal, the NRA and its Republican enablers attempt to remove the issue from an objective rational analysis of the balancing of individual rights and community safety and make it a partisan Party issue of "us against them".

Abortion and contraception: liberal or conservative? They don't fit well into either category.  If anything, "pro-choice" could be considered libertarian (laissez faire conservatism) which ties in nicely with the Republican professed desire for individual freedom, liberty, etc., while "pro-life" represents government interference in private choice, anathema to a traditional laissez faire conservative Republican outlook. Republicans try to squirm out of this conundrum by claiming "personhood" for the unformed embryo. Contraception is more of the same.  To the extent that the Republican view can be considered to be driven by ideology, it is that of religious orthodoxy (although I would be surprised to find any reference to abortion or contraception in the Bible; the reaction thereto is of fairly recent vintage), not any conservative policy criteria.  It is an appeal to their authoritarian base and their desire to regulate moral behavior.  Similarly, for the benefit of the Republican original meaning/intent constitutionalists, there would appear to have been no prohibitions in the US on abortion at the time of the ratification of the Constitution.  The contradictions of the Republicans' so-called conservatism is exposed by their opposition to contraception which would reduce the occurrences of abortion, to say nothing of their lack of concern about the gun deaths of school children and others.

Same sex marriage:  again not so clearly liberal or conservative.  To the extent that this represents a significant change in established and historical traditions and practices, opposition can be considered as status quo conservativism.  But such opposition is at the same time a rejection of the concept of individual liberty and laissez faire conservatism which Republicans are constantly flaunting.  Nevertheless, a complicated issue.  However, one suspects that for Republicans this is less a matter of defending custom and tradition than one of homophobia and religious orthodoxy, of authoritarian intolerance of the other and desire to regulate moral behavior and impose conformity.

Voting rights: it would seem obvious that this is not an issue as to which there is a liberal or conservative view.  Everybody who meets the statutory criteria should be allowed to vote.  What could be more American than voting - one person, one vote, etc.  This was at the heart of the "republican" principles of the founding generation.  Although admittedly the franchise was originally limited to white male property owners, the original concept has taken us way past that.  How can the Republican attempts to restrict voting rights be characterized as conservative and Democratic attempts to preserve such rights as liberal?  It doesn't fit.  What does fit is the Republican's perceived need to disenfranchise groups which are not disposed to vote for them.  That is chicanery, not conservatism.

Immigration: the issues surrounding legal immigration also do not easily fit into a liberal/conservative dichotomy.  They raise questions as to the benefits and costs to the US economy and workers, both short term and long term, and, as to certain types of immigration, families, etc., humane considerations.  If anything,  reasonable immigration rules should appeal to a conservative mentality; this is an American tradition-we are and always have been a nation of immigrants.  True conservatism of the Burke variety (status quo) defers to traditional customs and practices. Certainly there have been ups and downs in US immigration policy, but the overall trend has been towards openness.

As to how to deal with illegal immigrants currently residing in the US, again considerations of humanity which have little to do with being politically liberal or conservative, should dominate.  Was not amnesty granted to the defeated Confederates soldiers who tried to destroy the Union?  What about the pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio after having been convicted of criminal contempt?  An analogous example is that of courts of law and courts of equity.  They have been merged today in most States, but the separate principles still prevail.  The touchstone of equity is fairness and its principles are used to help adjust situations where the law's unbending character leaves an unfair result, where a threatened future action is likely to cause irreparable harm.  Adhering to such longstanding precedent would seem to be in the "conservative" mold.

As to refugees, humane considerations and American tradition should provide the guiding principles. But in fact Republican policy is based on appeals to authoritarianism and its intolerance of the other and concerns as to voting patterns of immigrants.

Nobody disputes stopping illegal immigration; the issue is what works best - pragmatism, an American tradition.

Religion in politics: the issues relating to government endorsement of religion and interference in the exercise of religious belief or non-belief were settled in the early days of the American republic. Initially all or most of the American colonies had established churches, but establishment was long ago dispensed with.  Jefferson and Madison were in the forefront of disestablishment and the exercise of religious freedom.  What better endorsement could there be.  Why is this being resurrected today? How is this a conservative cause?  One could more easily argue that keeping religion outside of politics is more conservative (both laissez faire and status quo) than liberal.  But this is not a question of conservatism versus liberalism.  The Republican position rejects one of the foundation stones of the American republic.  The Republican/Trump position here is simply kowtowing to religious fundamentalists, primarily evangelicals, for their votes.  And the religious orthodox are interested only in using the coercive powers of government to secure a privileged position in society for their version of Christianity and in imposing their religious beliefs and practices on the nation, thus enhancing their own power. They do not want to be relegated to the private sphere and are reluctant to surrender their position as arbiters of public questions.  Again, is this conservatism?  Hardly.

As an aside, for evangelicals and the religious right, religion is no longer, if it ever was, about ethics - what we actually believe or do - but purely about identity; who we think we are.  After their endorsement of Trump, as immoral as one can get, their hypocrisy nullifies any voice they might have on such matters.

Privatization in public education: education is probably the most important issue being faced today, both for the social and economic issues which it addresses and for America's long term economic  competitiveness.  How to improve our educational institutions, both in terms of results that work for and accommodate the needs of all and in terms of accessibility, does not lend itself to easy solutions. But is a blind reliance on the private sector, which is arguably a laissez faire conservative cause, a path in the right direction?  Is blaming teachers and teachers' unions a constructive argument?  This is an issue which should be non-partisan.  Nor should the move from public education, a long standing institution, appeal to status quo conservatives.  Underlying the different approaches of Democrats and Republicans is the question of money - how and where to spend it and how much and for whom.  It could be argued that this is indeed a liberal/conservative issue, and perhaps some aspects are, but on the whole this doesn't appear to be the case.  It really comes down to the Republican elite not wanting to spend money (through increased taxes) on schools in poor neighborhoods and for disadvantaged children, to religious groups seeking subsidies for their religious schools, maintenance of de facto segregation in schools, and more control of educational content to reshape history to promote a partisan political position. Public schools from the earliest days of the republic have been the backbone of the American education system which has led the country to world leadership.  Now all of a sudden it is "government" education, i.e., liberal, and bad by definition.  Once again it is the use of false terminology to obscure ulterior motives.  The irony is that Republicans who glorify the private sector and demean government programs are here asking for public money to finance private schools.  They want it both ways to advance their true motive which is to advance the cause of the white upper class, to appeal to the religious orthodox who wish to promote the teaching and celebration of their religious preferences in the schools, and to put money in the pockets of some of their wealthy backers.

Unions: this is not a liberal/conservative issue; it is employers/investors versus employees on how to share the fruits of labor.  It is an interest issue.  One can argue as to what is a fair allocation in any given situation, but to oppose the right of workers to organize in seeking to make their claims would seem to be more a matter of greed than political ideology (and certainly not populism).  Historically, it was argued that unions and labor legislation infringed on property rights and the right of contract, i.e., laissez faire and status quo conservatism, but only if conservatism is defined as giving priority to protecting the rich and powerful. That may be conservatism, but it is not Americanism, at least as we thought of it from the early 20th century until recently.  For those elements of the Republican base which are motivated by their economic travails, anti-unionism is self-defeating, but they go along with it as Party team players because unions are supportive of the Democrats.

Environment and global warming:  if there is any issue as to which Republicans seem to be twisted out of shape it is this one.  It would seem that the conservative position would be to preserve the environment, a la Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican President.  Instead they oppose all efforts to do so, mainly it would seem to support pollution spreaders and developers providing financial backing to the Party.  The conservatives here are literally and figuratively the Democrats.  The Republicans in their opposition condemn science much as their forbears condemned Galileo as a heretic.  Reaction, not conservatism.

We need a new set of labels today to differentiate the political parties in any meaningful way. "Liberal" and "conservative" have outlived their usefulness. To the extent that generic terminology might provide any insight into the principles of today's political parties, how about progressive/pragmatic/liberal for the Democrats and authoritarian/reactionary/dogmatic/illiberal for the Republicans (with or without Trump).

                                                         The Republican Strategy

As argued above, today's Republican partisanship has little, if anything, to do with legitimate populism or conservatism.

To the extent that there is any dominant ideological theme to the Republican Party's positions (making the rich richer does not qualify as ideology; it is just interest politics), it is the antipathy towards the federal government, i.e., "small government", sometimes rationalized as deferring to state and local government (where appeals to narrow self interest are easier to convert into voting majorities and politicians are easier to control), which has a long history in the United States dating back to the American Revolution and the Anti-Federalists who opposed the Constitution.  That Federalist/Anti-Federalist split might still well be the nearest thing to a defining ideological divide between the parties today.

As Paul Krugman has written, "[T]here's a faction in our country that sees public action for the public good, no matter how justified, as part of a conspiracy to destroy our freedom," and quotes George Will as an example as follows: "' ... liberals like trains not because they make sense for urban transport, but because they serve the goal of diminishing Americans' individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism'".

But this is still a cover for interest politics.  Even here the Republicans rely on a distorted characterization of the federal government as showing favoritism toward minorities or "others" ahead of "hard working" whites, again appealing to its authoritarian/pseudo-conservative base, while ignoring the historical beneficial role the federal government has played in stimulating and developing the American economy.

If the partisan policy differences with the Democrats are not truly reflective of the conservative pole of the liberal/conservative spectrum what are they due to?

The Republican Party leaders want political power, as do all politicians, in order to be able to influence government policy in directions which benefit themselves and their financial and corporate backers (and to pave the way to big bucks on K Street).  However, such policies are in virtually all cases unlikely to bestow any benefits on the base, that is, the middle class working person, which they need to win elections.  Those  policies which would help the middle class have long ago been preempted by the Democratic Party.  Once FDR put together his coalition, the Republicans struggled.  FDR's election made politically possible the use of government programs to remedy the inequities of free-market capitalism.  How could they break the hold that the Democrats had on the nation with their progressive legislation based on a pro-active government?  Finally the opening occurred with the passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-60s as well as the rebellion of the anti-war activists during the Vietnam War along with the drug culture with its "anything goes" attitude.  Then the switch of the southern Democrats to the Republican Party allowed them to play the race card.  It became clear that the path for the Republicans was an appeal to the instincts of the American voter as manifested through authoritarian personality characteristics, such as fears relating to social status and maintenance thereof and the concomitant fear of the implications of social mobility and being left behind, the need for a sense of belonging to a like-thinking peer group, and finally to outright hostility to certain elements of the "other" as characterized by their political leaders.  In short, authoritarianism and demographic anxiety, as described in more detail below.  And that has been their program ever since.  It has nothing to do with liberalism or conservatism.  It does have a lot to do with populism of the right, negative populism, more properly - racism, intolerance, ignorance and incitement of fear and hatred.  Thus, the Republican Party has come to be associated with white, Christian, rural and male identity, and the Democratic Party is seen as the party of nonwhite, non-Christian, urban and female or feminist identity.

                                                           The Republican Base

Who are these people?  Hillary Clinton characterized them as the "deplorables", which was impolitic but accurate to the extent that she also distinguished them from those who were truly suffering and being left behind economically.  These are people who are psychologically indisposed to change, who actually prefer a rigid authoritarian hierarchic society where everyone knows his place and can be secure in preserving his status whatever it may be as long as there is a lower status, who want a static society in which no one has to make adjustments, where one has to make no effort to keep up with progress and one doesn't have to contend with new ideas or new people, where everything is fixed in place.  They cannot abide ambiguity and uncertainty and complexity.  They are overwhelmed by a nostalgia for a past of mythic purity.  They see themselves as defending our history and our culture.

They are willing to follow a demagogue - 60% of white working class Americans say that because things have gotten so far off track, we need a strong leader who is willing to break the rules.

They resent what they see as the cosmopolitan elite.  They will follow anyone who promises to restore  the rightful economic and cultural status of the common people in relation to the decadent urban intelligentsia.

There is perhaps another element here - the failure of rural working class whites to adjust: the refusal to move, to get an education, to make an effort to change their prospects.  54% of the white working class view getting a college education as a risky gamble.

There are certain personality traits and attitudes which psychologists have identified as being associated with those who deem themselves "conservative" which may account for their voting predilections: they are more likely to accept or even embrace authority, they are more moralistic and more conventional, they have a stronger need for order and control and stability and a greater dislike of change, they value equality less than "liberals" and have less empathy, their moral sense is less centered on fairness and kindness and more on loyalty, deference to authority and moral and sexual purity, they have a stronger need for certainty and cognitive consistency, they have a greater need for social order and greater acceptance of aggression as intrinsic to human nature.  In this post-truth era facts are less influential than emotions.  These are the authoritarian "conservatives" of which Kenner speaks.

These traits are reflected in white resistance to the perceived takeover of the country by non-whites and the declining white share of the national population.  As minorities are seen as getting more power, there is a perceived threat to the status quo, which makes hierarchical social and political arrangements more attractive, creates a nostalgia for the stable hierarchies of the past, triggers defense of the dominant in-group, results in greater emphasis on the importance of conformity to group norms and beliefs.  Conformity is a way of guaranteeing and manifesting respectability among those who are not sure that they are respectable enough.  The nonconformity of others appears to such persons as a frivolous challenge to the whole order of things they are trying so hard to become a part of.  Naturally it is resented, and the demand for conformity in public becomes at once an expression of such resentment and a means of displaying one's own soundness.

Opportunity is viewed, as per Trump, in zero sum terms.  The Republican base sees their own opportunity as dependent on domination over others, which is why such people see the expansion of opportunity for all as a loss of opportunity for themselves in their scramble for status and their search for secure identity.

Call it the long delayed coming into fruition of the prophecy of Sojourner Truth in 1851, "I think that 'twixt the negroes in the South and the women of the North, all talking about rights, the white man will be in a fix pretty soon".

For the most part, the Republican base is not really interested in or aware of the issues on the merits.  Winning is more important than policy because it is rooted in their sense of personal status. They have rejected interest politics for status politics.  They are motivated primarily by threats to their social or cultural status, as they perceive it (which includes race, ethnicity, sexual preference, gender roles) , and since the Republican Party has successfully labeled the Democrats as the Party which is promoting programs which supposedly endanger this status, they will blindly support the Republican Party in opposing any Democratic initiatives.

                                        The American Voter and Tribal Politics

As Steven Pinker has written: "The answer lies in raw tribalism: when someone is perceived as a champion of one's coalition, all is forgiven.  The same is true for opinions; a particular issue can become a sacred value, shibboleth, or affirmation of allegiance to one's team, and its content no longer matters.  This is part of a growing realization in political psychology that tribalism has been underestimated in our understanding of politics, and ideological coherence and political and scientific literacy overestimated."

Group victory is seen as more important than the practical matter of governing a nation.  For Republicans, party victory is tightly bound with racial and religious victory.

Another commentator: "Our species is profoundly coalitional, and in most times and places moral prescriptions apply only to one's in-group, not to humanity in general.  I don't see any evidence that we evolved innate, universal moral values about how to treat all humans. ... It's not that they feel killing a random stranger for no reason is morally ok; it's that loyalty to their coalition is primary."

If it's liberal, it's Democratic; if it's Democratic, it's them-the other side which must be defeated for no other reason than that it is the other side, the enemy, and if we don't defeat them then they will win and we will lose.  It is a primordial tribal outlook of the clan stoked by fear.  How does one qualify to become a member of the tribe? There is a litmus test, i.e., anti-woman's choice, anti-gun regulation, anti-immigrant, homophobic, anti-feminist, anti-science, anti-intellectual, etc., which must be adhered to, and which helps define the tribe.  No outliers are tolerated.  The need for a tribe, a place where one feels among his or her own kind is overwhelming.  The substance of issues doesn't even come into play.  The term "conservative" is just a code word attached to a position on any issue to alert the tribe members of where the tribe stands on that issue.  "Liberal" conversely describes the other tribe.

The Republican Party has successfully sold a fake bill of goods to a substantial portion of the American electorate - that to be a true American one must adhere to conservatism, a label which it claims for itself by fiat, that to be other than conservative is to align oneself with the anti-Christ and thus be a tool of evil, that liberalism is the enemy of conservatism and that the Democratic Party is the tool of liberalism.  The wars of religion with different flags.

                                                       Justice as Fairness
So, that's how it happened here.  Hillary may not have run the ideal campaign, but even if she had emphasized the right issues in the right places it may not have been enough.  Those who needed to were not interested in listening.

How does one cope with this fakery?  To what  elements of human nature can one appeal?  Is there a basic goodness and decency to be found in the American electorate?  The 2016 election indicates that it is virtually a toss-up among those who voted.  Too many voted their passions, not their interests. Given their personality inclinations there is little to suggest that Trump voters are reachable. Notwithstanding the disaster which Trump and the Republican leaders have turned out to be, the Republican base stands firm. These people do not want to change.  As William Allen White wrote with regard to the KKK, "They have no capacity for receiving arguments, no mind for retaining or sifting facts and no mental processes that will hold logic."  If they had any of these they would not have been Trump voters in the first place.  The appeal must be to those who sat out the last election to get them to the polls and to third party voters.  As the late David Foster Wallace said, there is no such thing as not voting.

No clear answers readily come to mind as to how to do this.  Our Founders emphasized virtue.  That was a different age; today's age seems to be that of "elective despotism", which Richard Henry Lee feared in that earlier age - illiberal democracy.  Reinventing the labels to clarify and emphasize the choices might help as a start.  Ultimately the goals of society are, or should be, in addition to individual liberty and freedom of conscience, economic and social justice for all.  John Rawls has defined justice as "fairness".  Fairness is one of the first social concepts with which young people come in contact and should strike a chord with everyone. Like pornography, one cannot define it, but children get it.  Think of the playgrounds of your youth or even your first confrontations with your parents.  How often did you say, "That's not fair", or on the playground, "no fair", or just generally, "play fair".  Think of a "level playing field" and "not moving the goal posts". It harks back to the New Deal of FDR and the Fair Deal of Harry Truman and plain speaking.  That is really what the Democratic Party is about - fairness.  Fairness in education, in the work place, in employment opportunity, in health care, in public facilities, in voting, in access to housing; not favors, but fairness; simple justice, not undue advantage. If the Democratic agenda could be put forth in terms of programs for achieving fairness for all, not just for specific groups, and not just in terms of rights or equality or altruism, perhaps the Party can regain its momentum.

                                                              *   *   *

I recognize the full and complete necessity of 100% percent Americanism, but 100% Americanism may be made up of many various elements. ... If we are to have ... the union of spirit which is the foundation of real national genius and national progress, we must all realize that there are true Americans who did not happen to be born in our ... country, who do not attend our place of religious worship, who are not of our racial stock, or who are not proficient in our language.  If we are to create on this continent a free Republic and an enlightened civilization that will be capable of reflecting the true greatness and glory of mankind, it will be necessary to regard these differences as accidental and unessential.  We shall have to look beyond the outward manifestations of race and creed.  Divine providence has not bestowed upon any race a monopoly of patriotism and character.  President Calvin Coolidge, October 6, 1925