The Beginning of the End

Let me express a bit of frustration.  On the one hand, the Times recently ran an editorial "Are Liberals Helping Trump?" which basically reiterated claims that the sanctimonious snobbery on the left is alienating centrists who lean slightly right.  On the other hand, the Post ran article "Trump Supporters See a Successful President," which basically echoes claims I have heard many times from people about town here in red Idaho.  They lament that liberals demonstrate such "hatred for the man,” and "just don’t get it.”  They go on to say, liberals should "Shut their mouths and let the man do what he’s got to do. We all shut our mouths when Obama got in the second time around, okay? So that’s what really needs to be done.”  Of course, no one on the right "shut their mouths" during the Obama administration.  Hyper conservative talk radio and Fox News couldn't get through a ten minute segment without denigrating the president, and their surprise that what goes round comes round seems equally sanctimonious and disingenuous.

The difficulty runs deeper, and is the cause of my frustration.  Let me cite an example.  On a fishing trip, the topic of "climate change" came up, in part because the road up to an Alpine lake was still closed even though the snow had long since melted off.  We went back and forth a bit, along the standard Fox News/MSNBC divide.  He denied that there was even a reality, to which I replied that there was a pretty clear "scientific consensus" that it was a reality and that it was mostly man made.  He denied the "scientific consensus" with the apparent assumption that any disagreement was complete disagreement, and went on to say "if you believe in the Bible at all ..."  I interrupted him, and just said, "please, no religion."  The tension in the truck had become palpable, and that was the last fishing trip we took together.  The remark, however, has stayed with me, and I have been puzzling over it for some time, as many of my previous posts have demonstrated.  I have come to the conclusion that George Lakoff is right in one sense, that we have different "frames" for our arguments, but they go deeper than the metaphors surrounding the "strict father" and "nurturant parents."  Although the cultural metaphors that surround the "strict father" and "nurturant parent" do illustrate surprisingly well the impasse between conservative and liberals, I won't reiterate the whole of his argument, but send you instead to his little book, don't think of an elephant.  From my perspective, the two frames, and the divisive culture war that goes with it, more resembles the two cultures outlined in the late 50s by C. P. Snow.  He suggested in The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution, that the "intellectual life of the whole of western society" was divided between the sciences and the humanities.  A good deal of what he says rings true, or true enough to argue around the university campus, but for the political life of our country, there's not only science, but also secular humanism, which the conservative right finds equally disturbing.  I would recast it as "secular rationalism" vs. "religious authoritarianism," my reasons outlined below.  

Secular Rationalism

Both the Times and the Post articles referenced at the beginning of this post are written by people who are essentially "secular rationalists."  A secular rationalist would believe that there is a "problem," the parameters of which can be delineated and defined, and a solution found.  For the Times writer, the problem resides in the way liberals "talk to" conservatives.  The latter feel "assaulted by what [conservatives describe as] a kind of moral Bolshevism — the belief that the liberal vision for the country was the only right one," and "disagreeing meant being publicly shamed."  She makes essentially the same point that Lakoff made.  While liberals may never win over die hard conservatives, those in the middle leaning right, might be won over if different modes of discourse could be found, something a bit less condescending.  Moreover, a secular rationalist would believe that the delineation and definition of a problem resides in "verifiable facts."  For the Post writers, the article is for the most part simply illustrative of Trump supporters and their beliefs, but when discussing Trump's roll back of an Obama era regulation "that would have restricted coal mines from dumping debris in nearby streams," they couldn't help but provide a "corrective" to the Trumpist's belief that it would give coal miners "their jobs back."  They write, "the regulation actually would have cost relatively few mining jobs and would have created nearly as many new jobs on the regulatory side, according to a government report — an example of the frequent distance between Trump’s rhetoric, which many of his supporters wholeheartedly believe, and verifiable facts."  One can imagine them writing, "WTF is wrong with them?" then backspacing over it with the delete tab.  The liberal frustration is not so much a moral Bolshevism, but more an utter incredulity at a stance that precludes any form of rational argument.   I said to my friend, "please! no religion" -- and yes, I'm sure my tone was abrupt, even imperious -- because I knew that, at that juncture, the discussion was over.

The problem was not so much the rational part of secular rationalism, but rather the secular part.  My friend was being perfectly rational and was about to give contradictory evidence drawn from scripture.  From his point of view, where the revealed word of god is unquestionably true, he would even feel that his evidence trumped my evidence, since mine was predicated on fallible human observation.  The secular rationalist does not so much dismiss religion outright, but sees it as irrelevant within certain contexts.  When engaged in technical problems -- e.g. fixing a plumbing leak -- one simply does not ask, "how would god want me to proceed?" and subsequently flip through scripture to find the answer.  To do so seems at best absurd, at worst dangerous.  The difficulty, of course, goes one step further.  What is not a "technical problem?"  The secular rationalist would see climate change, not as a moral problem, but rather a technical problem amenable to a technical solution.  They would see gun violence, not as a moral problem, but as a "technical problem" amenable to a technical solution.   The list goes on.  If morality enters the picture, it does so "after the fact" once the problem has been identified and recognized as a problem.  This is particularly true of problems that endanger the physical health and material well being of people.  The failure to recognize the problem and address it with solutions to alleviate or at least diminish its dilatory effects on people, is immoral.  To the secular rationalist, there is an ever widening range of problems to be delineated, defined, and addressed.  I find myself thinking, "WTF is wrong with them?" on the assumption that the willful ignorance of the problem and the stubborn refusal to address it have other motives that trump a moral response -- e.g. profits for the fossil fuel and gun industries.    

Democracy or "republicanism" in the way the founders would have understood "republicanism," is contingent upon a secular rationalist point of view -- that is to say, maintaining a distinction between the technical issues of governance and religion.  One such technical problem was religion itself.  While it is true that many of the founders were men of faith, specifically christian faith, they were also men for whom the various schisms within the christian faith had more portentous consequence,  The dislocations and the violence of the reformation were not as distant as they are today, and the colonies were populated with various sects who had fled Europe, seeking a place where they were free to practice their religion in their own manner free from the hegemony of a state sanctioned religion.  The establishment clause, at least initially, was a "limited government" solution -- that is to say, by prohibiting the establishment of a state sanctioned religion, they hoped to avoid an authoritarian (at the time monarchical) hegemony over religious practice.  Washington and Adams, both committed christians, took a somewhat ecumenical view of christianity.  In their leadership roles, they attended various church services, to include catholic services, and Washington's celebrated letter to the jewish community of Newport extends religious tolerance beyond even the various sectarian boundaries of christianity.  The establishment clause was an imminently practical solution to the thorny technical problem of creating a single government within a region of deeply committed religious diversity.  There is a moral imperative -- the reciprocal duty of toleration -- but it is a posteriori.  It is necessary to making the solution to the particular problem of religious diversity work. 

For the secular rationalist, the question, "what is not a technical problem?" is non-sensical.  All problems are technical problems amenable to technical solutions.  Consider, for example, the issue of abortion.  It is cast as a moral issue first and foremost, and many evangelicals voted for Trump, despite a host of other reservations, on that single issue alone.  He opposed abortion.  For the secular rationalist, the Roe v. Wade decision is similar to the establishment clause.  It is a "limited government" solution to a rather thorny problem of failed consensus.   It does not "impose" the positive act of abortion, nor for that matter does it "impose" the negative act of refraining from abortion, but it simply allows women to act on their individual morality.  There are definitional issues -- at what point, for example, does abortion become infanticide? -- but for the secular rationalist, those questions present technical problems with technical solutions based on observable evidence.  The definitional question, for example, could be decided on "viability" -- that is to say, when the fetus would be "viable" outside the womb -- at which point abortion becomes infanticide and then by definition illegal and immoral.  The definitional question could be decided on "term" -- that is to say, when the fetus reaches the second trimester -- at which point abortion becomes infanticide and then by definition illegal and consequently immoral.   Here again, however, the definition is technical and any morality is implicit in the solution to the problem.  Nevertheless, if one believes life begins at conception, if one believes that all abortion is infanticide, one is free to act on that belief and refrain from abortion, even in the case of an unwanted pregnancy resulting from rape or incest.  For the secular rationalist, Roe v. Wade seems an imminent practical solution to a particularly thorny problem of a failed consensus.  Here again, there is a moral imperative necessary to making the solution work -- the reciprocal duty of toleration.  

On YouTube, there are a number of videos of Neil Degrasse Tyson refuting what is called the "god of the gaps."  It asserts, as a proof of divinity, that there are things that science cannot explain and, consequently, must be of divine origin.   As a secular rationalist, Tyson admits that there are things that science cannot explain, but adds the caveat "yet."  As just a matter of observation, it seems reasonably clear that we can explain more today than 100 years ago, and that a "scientific" understanding is "advancing."  There are fewer and fewer things that science cannot explain and, consequently, god is an ever diminishing figure that will, at some point, simply vanish.  When I suggested above that the secular rationalist sees religion as irrelevant in certain contexts, I doubt that even the most committed evangelical would consult his bible to determine why his computer crashed.  He would want to consult an "expert," or at least someone with technical expertise, who would fix the problem or declare the computer broke beyond repair.  Only the most committed evangelical would consult his bible to determine why he was experiencing an excruciating headache and trust in prayer to alleviate it.  He would want to consult an "expert," who would diagnose and fix the problem.  If he couldn't?  Then and only then would he capitulate to the god of the gaps, and say place his cure in god's hands.   The difficulty, of course, is that we live in an expanding and ever-more complex web of "experts."  I have been reading biographies of the founders lately and it struck me that, in their day, it was possible for a literate human with some curiosity to acquire the full range of human knowledge in multiple domains of expertise.  Try doing so today.  As god's domain contracts to ever narrower cracks in human knowledge, at the same time the expertise of the expert grows ever more esoteric and remote from common knowledge.  Their expertise becomes, as it were, a matter of faith, for many indistinguishable from religious faith, and the expert, the technocrat, something of a high priest of the faith, demanding submission to what he knows to be true, and expressing incredulous surprise when his truth is rejected.  Consider, for example, the tone of the Times editorial board, when they write "countless studies show that vaccines are safe and effective — more than 350 health groups compiled a list for Mr. Trump — but they haven’t penetrated the reality distortion field created by Mr. Kennedy and his fellow travelers."   

It is perhaps not surprising that the democratic party, increasingly aligned with secular rationalism, has also become the party of the well-educated "technocrat."  Speaking for myself, as a well educated human being, it is relatively easy for me to place my faith in the expertise of the expert.  Although I am far from an expert in all fields, I know how they acquired their expertise and am reasonably confident that, had I developed an interest in their field of knowledge, I would have been able to develop the expertise of an expert in that field.  While the expertise of the expert is far from infallible, I do have some faith in the progressive nature of that expertise.  If time travel were a possibility, I would not send myself back to the time of Washington to have my dental work done.  If anything, though I have no idea what the future portends, given the opportunity, as a matter of faith, I would send myself into the future on the assumption that dental technology had advanced.  What happens, however, when the expertise of the expert fails? when they get it wrong?  Here again, speaking for myself, as a well educated human being, I do not abandon my faith.  It is relatively easy for me to shrug it off, in part because I understand that "getting it wrong" is part of the progressive expansion of knowledge.  There are things we know with great certainty, other things (many things!) we don't know, and we fill those gaps with educated guesses.  Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong, but both success and failure contribute to the learning curve.  Given a failure, we at least now know what NOT to do, and next time we will make another educated guess and try something slightly different.

Finally, for the rational secularist, political power is (or ought to be) limited in two ways.  First, and perhaps most significantly, it ought to be limited to the solution of problems.  The politicians, however, don't get to decide what is (and what is not) a problem.  Ostensibly the people decide, but increasingly the experts decide on behalf of the people -- scientia ipsa potent est -- and here again this is particularly true of problems that endanger their physical health and material well being.  Some problems or issues are more clear cut than others, and for those that do not have obvious and intuitive solutions, there is plenty of room for disagreement on how best to solve the problem, even among the experts.   Second, the exercise of political power is (or ought to be) distributed.  Though important, I am not thinking about the checks and balances inherent to the American political system, but more generally.  Someone or some group may exercise considerable power within their field of expertise, but their power, as such, is limited to their field of expertise.  We do not call in medical experts to help us make business decisions, nor do we call in economists to help us make medical decisions, but it is clear enough that decisions in one field of expertise have an impact on the other. Think, for example of medical insurance.  A good business decision for the insurance industry ( e.g. mandatory insurance coverage, which expands the risk pool) has an unequal impact between younger and older adults.  A good medical solution (covering pre-existing conditions) can be a bad business decision.  Here again, there is plenty of room for disagreement, even between experts, but in either case disagreement is not only expected, but encouraged, insofar as open debate more often than not leads to better and more comprehensive solutions.

Religious Authoritarianism

I have to admit that I am not attuned to the discourse flowing from the conservative right, but there is a scene in the 1999 film, the Matrix, that serves as a metaphor.  The protagonist, Neo, is offered the choice between a blue and a red pill.  The blue pill allows him to stay in the matrix, living a comfortable, but illusory life.  The red pill allows him to escape from the matrix into a "true reality," even though it is a harsh and unremittingly hostile environment.  The religious authoritarian would have us "chew on the red pill." If one chews on the red pill of conservative media for any length of time, one does leave with the impression that the world is a dark and dangerous place, which includes even sinister supernatural forces.  The latest edition of Brietbart, for example, has a story about witches uniting to cast spells on Trump.  The spell, apparently, is "open source, and may be modified to fit your preferred spiritual practice or magical system,” and as they go on to describe it, "What is critical is “the simultaneity of the working” as well as “the mass energy of participants.”  It's interesting to note that the language of technology and science, or perhaps more precisely techno-babble and pseudo-science, enter into the witches cauldron insofar as their spell is "open source" and relies on "mass energy."but not to worry, however, because "a number of Christian groups and individuals have promised to pray for Mr. Trump, asking God’s blessings on his work and on the nation."  

I would like to say this is offered satirically, as something that one might also find in the Onion, but it seems devoid of both humor and irony.  It is offered simply as evidence of a manichaeistic view of the world where the forces of evil are constantly assaulting the forces of good, represented by Trump and Christianity.  Lakoff gets it right when he suggests that the conservative, red pill, world view begins with a set of assumptions.  As he put it,  somewhat annotated, "the world is a dangerous place, and it always will be, because there is evil out there in the world."  Moreover, "the world is difficult because it is competitive," not only with the forces of evil assaulting the good, but it is also a world of limited resources, and there are those who would take from you what is rightfully yours by force and by guile.  Consequently, "there will always be winners and losers."  The strong win, the weak lose, and because there is "an absolute right and an absolute wrong," the good must be strong in the face of evil.  If the secular rationalist sees a "problem" that must be solved, the religious authoritarian sees a contest that must (or MUST!) be won, with no quarter given.  

The rhetoric surrounding crime provides one case in point.  In Trump's inauguration speech, he said "the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now."  Writing from a secular rationalist point of view, the Post debunks the claim that we live in a dystopian wasteland, providing statistical evidence that murders may have ticked up slightly in several larger cities, particularly Chicago, but even the up-tick doesn't represent anything close to a crime wave nor does it reverse the "decades-long decline" [in violent crime] since the height of the crack cocaine epidemic in the early 1990s."  It's telling that Trump used the term, "inner cities," and the Post felt the need to provide a correction, saying "'Inner cities' is not a category by which crime is measured.  Trump seems to mean the largest and urban cities."  Actually, Trump did mean "inner city," and he was referencing not a set of facts, but the prevailing (principally rural) mythology that surrounds "inner cities" -- that they are the very heart of darkness, the modern equivalent of Sodom and Gomorrah.    

Likewise, the rhetoric surrounding crime and its link to immigration provides another case in point.  At the CPAC, Trump suggested, "These are bad dudes. We’re getting the bad ones out, okay? We’re getting the bad — if you watch these people, it’s like gee, that’s so sad. We’re getting bad people out of this country, people that shouldn’t be, whether it’s drugs or murder or other things. We’re getting bad ones out. Those are the ones that go first, and I said it from Day One."  Here again, however, the Post debunks the claim, suggesting "Trump takes credit for fulfilling his campaign promise of cracking down on illegal immigration, but these arrests are routine.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement has always targeted dangerous criminals in enforcement priorities."  Moreover, "25 percent of the arrests were of people who had lesser charges and noncriminal convictions. According to anecdotes of recent arrests, undocumented people with traffic violations were subject to arrest."  Hardly bad dudes, except insofar as these same immigrants take what rightly belongs to citizens -- jobs.  Of course, this too is subject to debunking, and Yahoo! News, also writing from a secular rationalist point of view, does so methodically.   Here again, however, the factual claims are irrelevant.   From a secular rationalist point of view, there really is no problem to be solved, and if there is, the current solutions seem to be working very well and need only minor tweaking.  From the religious authoritarian point of view, the crime and employment statistics are irrelevant.  Even if they were relevant, they would be seen as a blue pill deception to hide the red pill reality.  What counts, and what appeals, is the authoritarian stance -- the champion, on the white charger, who will bare his chest, raise his lance, penetrate the heart of darkness, and conquer the evil other.  

If the world is a dark and dangerous place -- a place where one needs a gun for self-protection, a place where (not to sound too much like a cartoon or video game) evil lurks around every corner in every shadowed face -- two virtues stand out above the rest -- strength and security.  The former, of course, provides the latter, and so, of the two, strength is the primary virtue.  This is not to say that the secular rationalist doesn't value strength, quite the contrary, but they view what it means to be strong differently.  For the secular rationalist, strength lies in the ability to solve problems, "real" problems, which implies a more nuanced and intellectual approach that looks for root causes and seeks the accommodation of a win-win.   If the recent up-tick in violent crime in Chicago is a problem, then one asks why it is happening in Chicago (and not in other cities) which requires a sifting through data, gathering various stakeholder views, eliminating spurious and misleading claims, et cetera.  Once one has a clear, evidence-based understanding of why it is happening, one can create appropriate solutions that might actually solve the problem.  Strength lies, not in individuals, per se, but rather multiple individuals working toward a systemic approach to the "problem."  Likewise, the religious authoritarian recognizes problems, but strength lies not so much in the ability to "solve" problems, but to "conquer" problems, which implies an application of force.  If the recent up-tick in violent crime is a problem, one declares a war on "the crime and gangs and drugs," hires more police and gives them greater freedom to apply force in order to free the people from the dark forces that threaten their security.  A leadership that projects strength can be forgiven a host of sins, particularly personal peccadilloes like playing grab ass, particularly if that same leadership promises his people security. 

Implicit to the religious authoritarian world view, one predicated on strength, are a number of dichotomous hierarchies.  It perhaps goes without saying that people rarely identify themselves and those like them as evil.  "We," so to speak, are always the good guys and "they" are the bad guys.  For what it's worth, such a view seems both human and intuitive, and no doubt stems from an evolutionary pre-history where the world was a dark and dangerous place.  It's not hard to imagine our distant ancestors huddled around the fire, fearful of the darkness and the others beyond the mouth of the cave.  I am not exactly calling the thought process primitive, but rather suggesting that a strong identification with and collaboration within the tribe is deeply ingrained and has been conducive to survival.  Consequently, the sort of accommodation necessary to "win-win" might be permissible within the tribe, but with those outside the tribe it can be seen as both perverse and counter-intuitive, a sign of betrayal and submissive weakness, particularly so when the tribe is clearly "stronger" and should dominate the other.  "We," after all, are the good guys and "they" are the bad guys, and so it is absolutely fitting and proper that good should dominate evil.  If the world, god forbid, should be turned topsy-turvey, it is equally fitting and proper that the good should resist a dominant evil.  A good deal of the Tanakh and much of the New Testament plays out this archetype, the good resisting the dominant evil whether the Egyptians of Exodus, or the Rome of the gospels, and perhaps its not surprising that the founding myth of the American history is biblical in this archetypal sense, insofar as we freed ourselves from the dominant British empire.  Likewise, perhaps its not surprising that advances in liberty are likewise biblical in this archetypal sense -- think, for example, of the civil rights movement and the extent to which they drew on the imagery of Exodus -- think, for example, of the tea party movement and the extent to which they drew on the imagery of the founding myths of American history -- think, for example, of the so-called Trump movement and how he will redeem American weakness, make us great again, and return us to our rightful dominance.

Andrew Bacevich, who seems so often to beat me to punch and should be more widely read, quotes the NY Times columnist David Brooks, who writes:

America [has] impressive historical roots, a spiritual connection to the centuries. And it assigned a specific historic role to America as the latest successor to Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome. In the procession of civilization, certain nations rise up to make extraordinary contributions... At the dawn of the 20th century, America was to take its turn at global supremacy.  It was America's task to take the grandeur of past civilizations, modernize it, and democratize it.  This common destiny would unify diverse Americans and give them a great national purpose.

It is drawn from his book, A Return to National Greatness, which should, of course, sound familiar.  According to Bacevich, Brooks belief that "America culminates history," and "advances a way of life and a democratic model that will provide people everywhere with dignity" is the core tenant of faith in the Church of America the Redeemer.  It is, moreover, an evangelical faith, dedicated to proselytism through strength, justified because "the things Americans do are not for themselves only, but for all mankind."  A good deal follows from this, and I won't recapitulate Bacevich's entire argument, except to say that he writes from a secular rational point of view, countering Brook's faith-based arguments with his own evidence-based arguments.  He notes that "anyone daring to disagree with that proposition they denounced as craven or cowardly," particularly those who opposed American proselytism through strength.  Brooks, he notes,  "disparaged those opposing the war [in Iraq]  as mere 'marchers.'  They were effete, pretentious, ineffective, and absurd."  Moreover, not unlike those who were apostates to the faith in the Vietnam era, those mere marchers undermined American strength, leading to a variety of "humiliations."  To which Bacevich responds with considerable evidence that the faith might be so much hooey, writing "here in any event is a brief inventory of what that euphemism conceals: thousands of Americans needlessly killed; tens of thousands grievously wounded in body or spirit; trillions of dollars wasted; millions of Iraqis dead, injured, or displaced; this nation’s moral standing compromised by its resort to torture, kidnapping, assassination, and other perversions; a region thrown into chaos and threatened by radical terrorist entities like the Islamic State that U.S. military actions helped foster."  Adding, "and now, if only as an oblique second-order bonus, we have Donald Trump’s elevation to the presidency to boot," the one who ostensibly demonstrates the strength not only to redeem our weaknesses, restore the faith, and raise us again to "global supremacy" like a phoenix rising with the mushroom cloud.  

Irreconcilable

Ultimately, the religious authoritarian and secular rationalist world views are irreconcilable.  Within the popularized version of Hegelian philosophy, I know of course that there should be a thesis, antithesis, which eventually produces a synthesis.  At the risk of sounding my own either/or note, I do not see a synthesis between the religious authoritarian thesis, which has a deeper and more intransigent history, and the secular rationalism antithesis.  The values are asymmetrical and irreconcilable.   Secular rationalism sees problems, and at the moment, according to Gallup, the problem most cited by the people of the US is "dissatisfaction with government," along with "unifying the country," on the presumption that fixing the government would help unify the country once again.  The secular rationalist would ask the second order questions, what are the causes of "dissatisfaction with government," and seek to remedy those causes. Is it government's apparent inability to resolve health care issues?  Is it government's apparent inability to resolve immigration or civil rights issues?  The list is long, but not too long, and for the secular rationalist, it seems inconceivable and immoral that men and women of good will cannot sit down together and hash out solutions that would accommodate opposing points of view, bring people together, and help rebuild confidence in government.  If the car isn't running properly, one fixes the car.  If the government isn't running properly, one fixes the government, and the solutions will be systemic and, well, bureaucratically technical.  The religious authoritarian, however, already knows the solution to the problem, and its obvious.  If the government is ineffectual, it suffers from weakness at the top.  The forces of evil are advancing, and the leadership lacks either the strength or the conviction to stop it.  Strength is important, but strength without conviction is simply tyranny, and so too those in authority, if they are to be worthy of the people's faith, must represent the one true faith, the manifest destiny, a vision of America first and greatest among nations.  A strong leader would unify the people behind the banner of a great national purpose, and while dissenters and deserters are to be expected, a strong leader would tolerate no dissent and no desertion.

Conservative trolls are right in one respect.   Religious authoritarian thought is anathema to liberals, and when confronted with it, they do tend to get all a flutter, which reinforces the impression of whiney weakness and abject dependency on the administrative state.   Trump, ultimately, however, is not so much a conservative, as a religious authoritarian.  He has used the archetypes of evangelical christianity to present himself as a messianic leader, the strongest of the strong, and so it is not surprising to read that he intends to enhance military spending by $54 billion, while cutting domestic programs "relating to education, the environment, science and poverty."  It probably goes without saying, but I have seen no analysis that suggests we face external threats meriting budgetary increases that would make the strongest military on earth even stronger.  Even assuming that the $54 billion would be better spent on defense hardware than social programs, that leaves the promised infrastructure in abeyance -- the work on, say, bridges that carry people back and forth to work -- or, perhaps, repairs to aging dams on the verge of collapse.  The list could go on, but his budgetary proposal is a clear prioritization of strength.  Along with cancellation of trade and environmental agreements, it signals the prioritization not of an international order, but the emergence of an American imperium, an America seeking military hegemony and a willingness to use force to assert global supremacy. It might seem impertinent to ask, but I do wonder along with Michael Moore who we will invade next?  That, of course, appeals to conservatives, but it leaves in place the abject dependency on the bureaucratic state.  As the Times reports, true conservatives would point out that "taming the budget deficit without tax increases would require that Congress change, and cut, the programs that swallow the bulk of the government’s spending — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid."  Trump, however, is not seeking an ideologically pure conservative state of the sort imagined by Paul Ryan, at least not the ideologically driven conservatism that has done so much for the state of Kansas.  Trump really wants to be the CEO of America, looking down from the executive suite on a nation of admiring sycophants and toadies.  He wants, or so his every tweet seems to suggest, an abject dependency not on the machinery of an independent administrative state, but on him and his whim, what he and Bannon and others of like mind decide to toss down into the crowd.     Trump imagines himself to be Augustus Caesar, founder of a new American imperium, but we have elected instead a Commodus, the beginning of the end.