I read the above statement with some incredulousness the other day, partly because American policymakers were likely surprised, partly because of the underlying assumption that blinkered their predictions -- that is to say, the equation of wealth with an open and democratic government, or that wealth in and of itself leads to an open and democratic government. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that wealth, amassed in few hands, leads to plutocracy. I am defining plutocracy in the standard way, without embellishment, as a form of oligarchy where the government and society is controlled by a small minority of the wealthy. Having said that, plutocracy always presents itself as a wolf in sheep's clothing. The plutocrat will operate within the parameters of his or her own interests, and within a plutocracy, government becomes the protector and enforcer of the interests of the wealthiest few. Their actions will be justified against and within any number of ideologies, but they are always a "realistic" betrayal of the "idealism" expressed within that ideology. For the Chinese, it is a betrayal of the "economic equality" of communism. For us, of course, it is a betrayal of "democracy."
On the latter, before I go on, let me make a couple of side-bar comments. First, do not equate the plutocrats for the government officials. While it is possible for the plutocrat to become a government official, and conversely while it is possible for a government official to amass sufficient wealth to become a plutocrat, for the most part our government officials are hired guns. Even operating on the assumption that our elections are open and fair, it takes a considerable amount of money to mount an effective campaign, and a good deal of that money is provided by the plutocrats. Second, I am not suggesting a "conspiracy theory" of government. I am not talking about a conspiratorial cabal where a few men meet in a secret cave hidden under the artic ice to conspire for world domination. Two very wealthy men may have competing interests, and contribute disproportionately to one party or another within the political system -- i.e. the Koch brothers and George Soros -- though it does "err," so to speak, on the conservative side. The reason for this is straight forward. These are men who have amassed wealth within the world such as it is. While they might seek enhancements of the current order (e.g. tax cuts) they don't necessarily want to overthrow the order that provided them with wealth, along with the power and prestige that comes of wealth. Headlines like The Week's "How Senate Democrats rolled over for Wall Street" are simply a case in point.
Having said all that, let me make an admission. I no longer really know what I mean by "democratic." In a pure sense, we are not and never have been a "democratic" government, and I'm not even sure that a purely democratic government is a good thing -- that is to say, a government built on and reflecting a majority public consensus. We could, for example, hold a public referendum for those issues that are particularly nettlesome for the American political system -- e.g. guns or abortion or gay rights -- and insist that public policy reflect the general consensus. There is, however, nothing sacrosanct about public opinion, nor is public consensus necessarily right, either in a moral or a practical sense. Public consensus is remarkably pervious to various forms of demagoguery, not to mention the suasion of various Russian meme factories, and then there is what the founding fathers called "factionalism." The authors of the Federalist Papers may have had something else in mind when they wrote of "factions" as a threat to their proposed form of government, though I think the more modern forms of "tribal Protestantism" are a reasonable analogy for the difficulty. The public consensus might well decide, for example, that we are a Christian nation, moreover a Protestant Christian nation, but the moment we must enact this consensus we are confronted with many devilish details. From there, I imagine, it would devolve quickly into disputes over doctrine and dogma, some of which do and some of which don't have much tangible effect on the daily lives of human beings, but all of which seem to turn fractious nevertheless. Which storefront "Christian" church represents the true church and who would decide? An unreasonable question, when we all know, with the absolute certainty of faith, that the FLDS church represents the one true form of "Christianity" and Warren Jeffs should decide. I'm being facetious, but you get the drift.
While I'm at it, let me make a secondary admission. I no longer know what I mean by an "open" society either. I could distract myself with a lengthy discussion of Bergson and Popper, but we tend to get this wrong as well. The core concept is the "closed" society, or a society predicated on a "comprehensive" world view. By this I mean simply a "society" predicated on a given truth that cannot be contravened or questioned. Societies predicated on religions, for example, are inherently closed societies because all religions have core tenants of faith that cannot be contravened or questioned. There is a long argument behind all of this, but for the moment, suffice it to say that closed societies tend toward one or another form of political authoritarianism, in part because there must be someone or something to interpret the "given truth" within mutable circumstances, in part because there must be someone or something to enforce adherence to the dictates of the truth, ostracizing or punishing those who exhibit one or another form of apostasy. The first Amendment rights -- the freedom of speech, assembly, religion, and the press -- are the first things to go. In a certain respect, all societies, insofar as they are recognizable as a "society," are closed societies. Even in America, one could go through a long list of those ostracized or punished for one or another form of dissent -- in our case, dissent against a presumptive "majority opinion" -- but the protection of first amendment rights has ultimately marked a significant difference, perhaps the significant difference. It assures the presence of dissent, which in turn opens up, so to speak, the political authority not only to critique, but the possibility of a "new normal" that accommodates the critique.
Pat Buchanan gets it right when he suggests that the current political climate -- the rise of "Trumpism" -- is "the tribe." As he puts it, "the common denominator is that the nation comes first, and that political system is best which best protects and preserves the unique character of the nation." Or again, as he put it "nationalism trumps democratism." The pun, I think, was intended, but it begs the question, "what exactly is the unique American character" that must be "protected and preserved?" In Buchanan's world, China seems to have broken the code, not for us, of course, but for themselves. As he puts it, "China may be a single-party Communist state that restricts freedom of speech, religion and the press, the defining marks of democracy." Though it seems more than a bit presumptuous to set himself up as the spokesperson for the Chinese people, yet he goes on to say, "Beijing has delivered what makes the Chinese people proud — a superpower nation to rival the mighty United States," and "Chinese citizens appear willing to pay, in restricted freedoms, the price of national greatness no modern Chinese generation had ever known." There are a number of assumptions within this statement, however, that many Americans might find questionable, not least the glaring assertion that "restricted freedoms" are "the price of national greatness," along with the implied assumption that, in order to achieve greatness, one must accept a political authoritarianism, if not a "one party Communist state," then a one party Republican state. One wants to ask "isn't our freedom of speech, religion and the press," not just the defining marks of democracy, but also one of the most significant markers of "our unique character as a nation?"
Clearly, however, he means something else by the "unique character" that must be protected and preserved. There is another subtle difference, however, implicit in the moniker "the Chinese people." It marks not only a people defined by political boundaries, but also a people defined by race in ways that the corresponding moniker "the American people" cannot. Societies predicated on the "unique character" of race or ethnicity are even more tightly closed societies, because it creates a paradigm for inclusion and exclusion that cannot be contravened or its value questioned. Although I'm relatively certain that a little scratching at the surface will reveal that the "Chinese people" are not as homogenous as we in the West might assume, the original sin of slavery nevertheless insured that the "American people" would never be racially homogenous. And, oh by the way, we in the West (meaning the Western US) have had our own historical Chinese problem, the coolies imported to provide labor, adding a specifically Chinese vein to the heterogeneous American bloodline. It's not difficult to surmise that the "unique character" Buchanan so wants to protect and preserve has nothing whatsoever to do with the constitutional guarantees of the first amendment, rather a whole lot to do with the hegemony of the racially white, religiously Christian state.
We could ask the American people the question more directly -- that is to say, are the American citizens willing to pay, in restricted freedoms, for the "greatness" promised by Trump and his acolytes? Which leads me to a question that has bedeviled me since the election, what exactly counts as greatness? Being a "superpower nation?" which just begs the question at one remove. What then constitutes a superpower nation? Military superiority? Economic superiority? Probably both would receive a nod, though ultimately I suspect it's about neither, really. Reviewing a book by Robert Wuthnow, The Left Behind: Decline and Rage in Rural America, Sean Illing summarizes that "rural Americans are less concerned about economic issues and more concerned about Washington threatening the social fabric of small towns and causing a "moral decline" in the country as a whole." Because it is "never quite clear what that means or how Washington is responsible," Illing suspects that "fears about America's 'moral decline' are really just a cover for much deeper fears about race and demographic changes." Wuthnow wants to add nuance, but he doesn't disagree, noting that "they feel threatened if they perceive Washington's interest being directed more toward urban areas than rural areas, or toward immigrants more than non-immigrants, or toward minority populations instead of the traditional Anglo population." As many have noted, however, this sense of threat, and the resentments it engenders, leads them to vote against their interests, particularly their economic interests, and I am reminded of Milton's Satan, who would rather reign in hell than serve in heaven. I suspect, in other words, that many American citizens are willing to pay, in restricted freedoms, not for a sense of national greatness, but to protect and preserve their place within the traditional racial and religious hierarchies.
Ultimately, there are two great fears associated with democracy -- tyranny of the majority, and the redistribution of wealth. The current conservative party is dominated by both fears. On the one hand, to say that many of Trump voters actually voted against their economic interests is to say that many voted against the party that would, through progressive taxation, redistribute the accumulated wealth of the very wealthy in their direction, though that redistribution would also, perhaps disproportionately, benefit "undeserving" minority populations. They voted against their economic interests, at least in part because they feel threatened by "demographic changes," the very real sense that we are rapidly becoming a "minority majority" country, and the very real fear that those "minorities" will exercise (some would say, "are exercising") the same sorts of "tyranny of the majority" that the Anglo population has traditionally exercised. They voted for the party that would protect and preserve the "unique character of the nation," aka white Christian privilege.
On the other hand, of course, not all Trump voters actually voted against their economic interests. They voted for the party that would protect and preserve true minority rights -- aka their property rights against progressive taxation. It helps, of course, that the so-called 1% tend to be white and privileged, and they seem perfectly willing, at least in the political arena, to dog whistle the baser instincts of the republican base. Still, one suspects issues of race and ethnicity are largely irrelevant to them. While it's merely impressionistic and anecdotal, if one is attentive to advertising stemming from the largest global corporations, they more and more are featuring "diversity," to include clearly inter-racial couples. They do not particularly fear a "minority majority," so long as they form an amenable "market," but an "economic majority turned political," the 99% that might one day rouse themselves and actually vote for their economic interests. They walk a very fine line. They depend upon the baser instincts of the republican base to maintain their political position, but at the same time they do not want to alienate their "markets," which of necessity includes the burgeoning minority populations. At the end of the day, one suspects they are envious of the Chinese plutocrats, whose political position is secure, who can operate more or less autonomously to secure their economic interests without the pretense of "democracy."
When Tyler Cowen writes that "no, fascism can't happen here" for Politico, I suspect he's right, in a limited sense:
My argument is pretty simple: American fascism cannot happen anymore because the American government is so large and unwieldy. It is simply too hard for the fascists, or for that matter other radical groups, to seize control of. No matter who is elected, the fascists cannot control the bureaucracy, they cannot control all the branches of American government, they cannot control the judiciary, they cannot control semi-independent institutions such as the Federal Reserve, and they cannot control what is sometimes called the "deep state." The net result is they simply can't control enough of the modern state to steer it is an fascist direction.
The sort of collapse that one saw in 1930s Germany, or that one sees currently in Venezuela, probably won't happen here. Those who see a white nationalist future for America, with a red cross displacing the swastika, are bound to be disappointed. No matter how strict the immigration quotas, no matter how repressive the gerrymandering, the pressure of demographics is just too great. And while our constitutional system is biased toward the rural, we are nevertheless an urban and increasingly urbane nation. Rural civilization and its discontents, no matter its bucolic appeal, cannot hold complete sway. The real danger is not fascism, per se, but the increasingly anti-democratic (in both senses of the word) plutocrat. Cowen cites China as an example to support his argument, telling us "these days, the Chinese central government is more bureaucratized, there is a value-added tax, and the government has been evolving toward the bureaucratic structures found in the developed world, albeit with the nondemocratic backdrop of the Communist Party." One might suggest that, as China evolves to look more like us, we are devolving toward the nondemocratic political structures found in the emerging world, albeit within the bureaucratic framework of modern Capitalism. Just saying.
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