Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part IX
Closing Time; Why and How to Vote; Menu; Open Questions
Salutations, citizens and observers,
Closing Time. “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here” as the song goes. (Semisonic, now a quarter century old.) Something will change on Tuesday.
I woke up very early, realizing that while I thought I’d finished Rock or Whirlpool? there were a few things I still wanted to say. Kinda sucks being a writer. But I was up, and so, as we head into the Gotterdammerung . . .
I started writing Rock or Whirlpool? because I was tired of hearing the standard arguments, in my world mostly Democratic, repeated ad nauseum, and delivered as if they were politically persuasive, which of course they were not. The stability of the polls over the last few months has been downright astonishing. People are convinced about . . . something . . . and little anybody does or says changes matters much. That’s interesting. What are they so convinced about, then?
More specifically, the strange nature of this campaign – really, of politics since Trump first appeared on the scene – raised two basic problems for me.
(1) What is Trump, as social phenomenon, really about? What can we say about how similar issues are playing out in other countries? Half the country isn’t “deplorable.” Huge numbers of Germans are not longing for the Reich. (2) What does all this political language mean, these words that sound like argument but, well, aren’t.
I am pretty happy with how, over the eight (I had originally thought to do twelve) parts of Rock or Whirlpool, I’ve addressed those questions. You’re welcome! Here are the links.
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part I A Decision as Mosaic
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part II Why is this election so hard to think, and why does it matter for a diverse polity?
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part III Does Political Speech Matter? The Problem of Demographics
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part IV Critique of Pure Liberalism: Raising Babies; Choosing Kings I; How Serious is Philosophy?
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part V Crises of Representation: Accounting; Poetic Bullshit & Graphic Silences
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part VI Political Language, Two Confessions, and an Old Poem
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part VII Boring Robots; Single Issue Swords; Slouching Towards Westminster
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part VIII Disbelief; Dread; Scylla and Charybdis Explained; Switching Poles; Glennon
That’s the intellectual version. The emotional version is I wasn’t really sure if or how I was going to vote (as I said at the beginning, I’m a double hater). And I thought this inquiry might drive some traffic to Intermittent Signal, which it has, which is nice.
To be direct: please feel encouraged but not pressured to like, share, or best of all, become a paying subscriber. The AI loves that!
Also, over the last months, I’ve been revising Quixote’s Dinner Party, a truly difficult book. Quixote treats fundamental problems in modernity across North Atlantic societies, that is, I think our current political unrest is symptomatic rather than foundational. Something deep in our societies is becoming unraveled, the post-war liberal order if you will, and it is not clear if or how we can knit it back together. Now squabbling over the book’s publication/distribution, thank you for asking. Rock or Whirlpool? is a walk in the park by comparison.
Obviously, there is much, much more to say about Tuesday’s election, and many, many people saying it. For example, a reader pointed out I hadn’t addressed Mexico – yes, and Mexico of course matters. The international legal order (I’ve taught public international law) is very much on my mind, and I have some things to say, but wasn’t sure how to tie into this election, or if I was ready. Similarly, “fascism:” I’m not sure what the word means, here. I could of course talk for hours about it – German, teach law, usw. – but what I think, me being right, is hardly politics. One vote. Again, Rock or Whirlpool? has been an effort to interpret.
But I went to bed asking, and what woke up asking: what did I forget to say that I want to say? Here goes.
How You Should Vote.
Well. . . just kidding. Vote how you feel. I’m not your Daddy (except for three of you) and you’ll have to make up your own minds (“minds” is the idiom, but clearly not quite the right word). This is a democracy, notionally anyway, so cowboy up. I’ve spent tens of thousands of words thinking out loud, and I hope it has helped, but you got this. It’s the way of our people.
Menu.
My Tuesday night plan is to watch television, eat, and drink, with my wife (who doesn’t much want to talk about it) and my dogs (sweet, but terrible conversationalists). I don’t watch much TV. One of my best TV experiences ever, however, was sitting alone in a farmhouse in Western New York, snow outside and the woodstove going, and watching the 2016 election returns come in – the journalists, live, struggling to comprehend that the script had been flipped, and struggling to write a new one, improvise, in real time. It was even better than the start of the First Gulf War, but not as good as the “Miracle on Ice” when the American kids beat the Russian pros for Olympic gold. As television, I mean.
So, what should I cook? I want to do something really American. There is no single “American” thing, but that doesn’t solve much. If you say hamburgers, somebody says pizza, somebody else says tacos, somebody says let’s get Chinese, or I know this sushi joint with a TV, but I’ve not had Indian in, or . . . We’re a continental nation, almost 350 million people, from all over. There’s lots of different kinds of food! I will probably grill a chicken on the deck. Admittedly, grilled chicken is not very distinctive, most of the world’s cuisines grill chicken. Perfect. Nation of immigrants. Maybe Indian spices? Or go Southwest? Or dill and central Europe? These are thorny issues, and depending on how they are resolved, I’m thinking heavy local beer or maybe a solid pinot noir (Burgundy, in France), classic with grilled chicken. Or I could just revert to steak and go with a cab . . .
Which is a long way of saying let’s not let our fears get away with us.
Will I vote?
Somebody very close to me, unhappy with the candidates, said but I have to vote. I’m too serious [about this polity] not to vote.
I understand but think this is a very close question, about which well meaning folks may reasonably, even wisely, disagree. You may recall that between the Democratic rock and the Republican whirlpool, the parable that frames this series of essays, there was a third option: remain on the ledge, wet with spray, and risk dying of hypothermia. Why might you stay on the ledge?
As widely discussed, most states are not contested. Kansas, where I will vote, will go for Trump. As a matter of the mechanics of public choice, then, my vote will be meaningless. Rephrased, for me and the vast majority of citizens, voting is a form of political expression, like a yard sign perhaps. Given that the ballots are secret, not a very effective one. And, as I’ve discussed at some length, most of what is being expressed is where and who one is, not what one thinks. A Kansan voting for Trump, or a Californian voting for Harris, cannot be presumed to have arrived at that decision after deep thought with an open mind. You do you, and “you” is rarely a political philosopher, nor should it be. It’s too much to ask.
But suppose one is a political thinker? Or, simply a citizen in a society that understands itself as a democracy? Isn’t there an individual moral obligation to vote, to fulfill one’s duties as a citizen, even if the vote will have no effect on the outcome?
A part of me says yes. But I think that depends on circumstances. Suppose neither party, neither candidate, believes in democracy, understood as the people’s choice structured through legal processes? I mean, it could happen, right? Under those circumstances, doesn’t my vote give a veneer of democratic legitimacy to a fundamentally undemocratic regime?
Yeah, I worry about that. I don’t think I need to talk about Trump and the rule of law, more than a little politically motivated prosecution notwithstanding. I’ll get to the Dems in due course.
I still plan to vote. I am not quite willing to be as bitter as my arguments here. I’m just turning the knife, following my thoughts out. Closing time.
How will I vote?
Harsh but fair. The Dems have lately been pushing the argument that voting is essentially a private act, a claim that in some deep way chimes with the abortion argument. Choosing leaders, having and educating children are of course matters of vital concern for any polity, like combat. That the Dems do not understand this in their guts is a big part of why they are not politically all that serious, at least if we take them at their word, which would of course be unwise. In other words, we are back to unserious or mendacious.
So, let me be serious. At this stage of my life, I’m haute bourgeois, well, sort of medium altitude, with a large family, and therefore situated as a conservative, whatever I might say. I do not here mean “conservative” as a matter of political tradition (though I have positive things to say about those traditions), and certainly not as an intellectual matter (see any of my books). I mean where I am. I have a wife, four children (taking “in-law” seriously) and a grandchild, some real estate, cars, assets. Among us, we have a silly number of degrees from prestigious institutions. I am, we are, deeply invested in the medical/industrial complex. Bottom line: I am afraid to rock the boat. So, I plan to vote for the party of the establishment, the Democrats and their candidate Harris, unless a fit of madness overtakes me in the booth. Which could happen.
There’s more. I have no real desire to be a traitor to my class – I know, the Marxian shadow in me smiles, but what do you expect from a bourgeois pig? – but the extent to which the academy has become a class cannot be understated. Nor do I wish, for that matter, to upset my parents, colleagues, etc. Maybe if I were younger, more rebellious, I’d say “Screw You, We’re from Texas.” But I’m getting old, soft, sentimental.
Open Questions.
Going into this election, a few big questions are still bothering me. Here are some.
What happened to journalism? Why did the Fourth Estate collectively decide to become partisan proselytizers, thereby squandering their credibility, and ultimately, their influence? My sense is that the move to opinion, the less considered the better, was a panicked response to market consolidation, so journalists became little dopamine dealers, which has kept a few of them solvent. There’s much else to say, of course, but nothing that seems adequate, and I’ll just leave the question open.
What does the Democratic Party mean? I thought I knew, sort of. When Rock or Whirlpool? started, it was oriented (like politics has been oriented since 2016) towards Trump, who clearly was an absolute mystery to my class, and for what it’s worth, to traditional Republicans, too. That was naïve, I think. If I were to do it over again, however, I would focus on the Democrats, or, more generally, on the established parties in the G-7. What the hell do they mean?
One thing the Democratic Party is not is democratic. No party that routinely dismisses half the electorate, and entire sections of the country, as deplorable, racist, misogynistic, and even fascist can be said to care what people think. Saying “they want to divide us,” and we want to bring people together, and then calling people racist, fascist, etc., is hilarious, from a certain Olympian height. It’s not serious politics.
Similarly, the Democratic Party masks this by speaking of individual liberties, preeminently the right to get an abortion. The President’s ability to affect abortion policy is a matter of technical interest, given that it is now Constitutionally reserved to the states. Many states are unlikely to limit abortion; others are. And it is not clear how the President would ban or ensure abortion . . . try to pass something under the dormant commerce clause, like so much civil rights litigation? Good luck with that. Condition federal funds, you know, like the highways and drinking ages? Anyway, I’m sure folks are beavering away at the legal strategies.
The Democrats claim to be championing rights to self-determination, especially around gender, and argue that they (the fascists) are going to take such rights away. Maybe. So, we are urged, Trump must be opposed – the Democratic pitch remains essentially negative. Even if you believe this, the pitch “vote Democrat because you are afraid” is not an expression of the will of the people, or a policy, though it might be effective.
Nor can we believe that the Democrats, more generally, are the party of some generalized understanding of liberty. This is not the Summer of Love. While the Party is zealously in favor of pregnancy termination, an inherently negative stance, this is not because the Party believes we should all be free to be you and me. The Dems are completely happy with neo-Victorian speech codes, all sorts of workplace restrictions, and the like. Prominent Democrats think the first amendment is a bad idea. The Democrats are, to put it bluntly, the party of regulation, including a great deal of moral regulation, often enforced through labor law, and especially in education.
When I was growing up in the ‘70s and early ‘80s, people worried about the sexual revolution going too far. The pill and the fall of restrictive mores and the decline of marriage and so forth and so on had released libidinal energies that society would be hard pressed to contain. With the kids constantly screwing each other, who was going to run things? Then marriage became a prestige object, kids started having drastically less sex, fewer children (except immigrants, bless them) and we started worrying about replacement rates, and more deeply, joy (there was even a book called the Joy of Sex, which was a big deal back in the day). Something to do with phones, no doubt. Maybe the neo-Victorian turn and even the incels were inevitable. It’s easy to forget that the Victorians did not exist from time immemorial. So now, for all the talk about reproductive rights, we’re not really talking about some positive notion of freedom or political or social will: we are talking about a limitation on the State. It’s the equivalent of the conservative claim that their policy is smaller, or even no, government. Maybe a good idea, but not much of a political, that is, collective, stance, is it?
David Samuels argues that, demographically, married white women lean Republican, and a majority voted for Trump in the last two elections. Unmarried white women, in contrast, lean overwhelmingly, perhaps decisively, Democratic. As many women have become less reliant on (or connected to, it comes to the same thing) family and other social forms, they have become more connected to the bureaucratic state. Many of them are employed by the state, which brings us back to the gendered linkages between employment education discussed in Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part VIII. Not so incidentally, evidence suggests that bureaucracy is rarely the path to a happy life. Really, Dilbert? The March of Kamala's Brides. See also Mathew Crawford,, using Samuels to argue that the closing arguments of the Democratic Party pit the managerial state against biological husbands in an effort to secure even more votes from women. Brides of the State.
What would an intellectually serious Democratic politics look like? (Why, after all of this, am I still planning on voting for them?) I am going to make what amounts to a law and order argument. I know, law and order is traditional terrain for fascists, and yes, I am implying that the Democratic Party has a deeply authoritarian streak. But life in complex interconnected societies requires bureaucracies. If we look at the New Deal and then the World War, and related moments in other advanced economies, we see the growth of very large organizations. Some public, some private, some weirdly-in-between, but for present purposes, the differences do not matter. What matters is scale. Such institutions need large numbers of bureaucrats (and associated terms, managers, technocrats, symbol manipulators). We need not just a few smart people, artists and scientists and the like, but a knowledge class, a pretty big one. This class of people needed to be produced, and the modern University was established to produce them.
The contemporary University creates “human resources” (and is ruled by HR departments) compliant with the mores and hierarchies of the symbolic workplace, as opposed to truth, veritas as some old school still has it. Because it serves a (symbolic) labor function, the contemporary University needs to be meritocratic, with “merit” understood in rather specific ways. We need pretty smart and compliant people to run important things like hospitals and law firms and maybe political parties and newspapers. Less intelligent and/or less compliant people can run less important institutions.
An intellectually serious and honest Democratic policy would acknowledge that it is hierarchical and elitist, not democratic, for structural reasons. The focus on the body is largely a distraction, although it does serve to undermine other sources of authority in the so-called “culture wars,” which, from the perspective of bureaucracy, is a good thing, bringing us back to totalizing. (The construction of identity around sexual proclivity is a rather 20th century project, but we have yet to come to grips with our alienation, another problem with scale, and for a while sex seemed promising, but that promise is fading fast.)
Of course, the Democratic party, like the establishment parties in Europe, can acknowledge no such thing. Fukuyama was right to insist that liberal democracy, in some sloppy but sufficient fashion, occupied the field of political legitimacy (though maybe not forever). So, the establishment parties in the US and elsewhere are left with name calling, stoking fears, and stifling dissent by any means necessary. “Populism,” which sounds to the uninitiated suspiciously like the “democracy” (the one that “dies in darkness”), fascism, etc., almost all of which reinforces the increasingly widespread belief, across countries, that the mandarin class does not give a shit about the people, thereby further undermining the authority of the mandarin class. The mandarins, for their part, can’t admit to what they are really doing, which is using a creaky meritocracy to create a bureaucratic class that, so far, has succeeded in keeping the lights on.
But keeping the lights on comes at a price: bureaucracy tends to alienate. It asserts authority, and tends to be hostile to other forms of authority (family, church, synagogue, civic club, small businesses and farms, usw.) – none of this is new. Bureaucracy, in short, tends to be opposed to the more organic forms of life we might loosely call culture. Weber knew this, and called this process “rationalization,” which I think is a gross oversimplification, but will serve for now. Most of us unconsciously and constantly distinguish places and relationships we might call “authentic” that tend to feel “old-fashioned” from places and peoples which are merely “official,” or “corporate” that commonly seem “modern.” This is a core problem. As I’ve said, I think bureaucracy is indispensable, and have written a lot about ameliorating its flaws, humanizing it, making it less alienating. See, e.g., Maguire & Westbrook, Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy, and a Sense of the Modern (links to book, and to free audiobook).
This is rough and ready, but puts me in a position to rephrase the appeal of the Republican Party under Trump, and cognate parties elsewhere. Most of these parties are making an appeal to culture, home. Make America Great Again. It’s not Turkey, it’s Turkiye (excuse incomplete spelling). Alternative fur Deutschland. In country after country, then, migration becomes a way to highlight the system of meanings under threat (as well as whatever practical problems might arise, not really my concern here). Can home slide into nationalism, racism, genocide? Well, um, yes, as we touched on last time. Germany and all that. But, said Aristotle, carried to extremes . . . this is true of most any system of meaning.
Evidently, part of the shift of Latin voters toward Trump is due to the insistence, in certain quarters, that people use Latinx, that is, gender inclusive language, as opposed to the Spanish Latino/Latina. See D’Urso & Roman, The X Factor: How Group Labels Shape Politics. So, you are going to tell me how to speak Spanish, that what my mother and grandmother taught me was wrong? What?
And to the charge that you are presiding over the destruction of meaning, bureaucracy has little answer. Um, we don’t really do meaning, we do rationalization in accordance with the governing narrative. We’re just being “inclusive,” you know, by obliterating recognition of your sex. “La Cultura” is just collateral damage. We get to decide these things. We went to the best schools. That’s how you know we are inclusive. We’ve been trained to be so. Experts.
And so, people who might not have read a lot of Foucault but who know an illegitimate assertion of authority when they see one, rebel.
The Juvenile Style in American Politics.
I am going to be intentionally naïve here. Why are we voters routinely addressed like children?
Trump’s weave, exaggeration, and entire rhetorical style is eerily fascinating, and I’m not completely sure but I think really sophisticated, like a self-trained jazz artist or something. But he’s not asking his listeners to think carefully, consider the arguments, understand close judgments.
Harris rarely has anything to say, cannot answer basic questions, and comes off as second rate at best. But the problem is bigger than Harris. Two quick examples, both core Democratic vulnerabilities.
Immigration. My fellow Americans. We are a nation of immigrants. See that? The Statue of Liberty, one of our key symbols. Moreover, there are many places in the world where life has become almost unbearable, and people are streaming to us because we have a great nation, a functioning economy and the rule of law and a whole lot of fun, too, and so we offer them, and their children, the hope of a better life. We have to try to help, for humanitarian reasons, in part, because we are a charitable people, a giving people. But it is not all charity, welcoming immigrants and asking them to join us in building up this country is a big part of how we became a great nation.
At the same time, no nation can survive or prosper long if it cannot control its borders. Next to the Statue of Liberty is Ellis Island. So, my administration has _______.
Is that so difficult?
Inflation. This one would take longer to do well, but briefly: My fellow Americans. Some years ago, we were struck with Covid, the worst pandemic we have experienced in at least a century. As a result, we pumped money into the economy using the tools of both government spending and monetary policy. It worked. We kept people in their jobs, in their homes, and the economy is growing again.
We took these actions in view of lessons learned from our recent history. In 2008, the nation experienced the Great Financial Crisis, the worst such crisis since the Depression. In response, government expanded the money supply, took up the slack, and it worked. In hindsight, however, the consensus is we did not act strongly enough. The US recovery was longer and slower than it need have been. So, when Covid came around, your government went in hard.
Such actions are not without consequences. We experienced considerable inflation, and especially in things like groceries and fuel that the inflation numbers do not capture. I know, for many of you, the situation was worse than the official statistics suggest. Pandemics are hard.
To what extent were price increases due to government policy, and to what extent due to changes in costs of the manufacture and distribution of goods and services, supply chain problems for instance, I do not know. Scholars will continue to debate for a long time. The Federal Reserve has fought this inflation, and eventually brought it under control. To do so, they have raised interest rates, and I know that can make it hard to borrow, hard for many of you to pay your bills. As economists like to say, there is no free lunch.
But we weathered the storm, and some good things have come out of it. Unemployment is down. Real wages are up. We in effect raised the minimum wage, and that is helping a lot of low-income people. If we compare US growth with our peers, we have come out of the pandemic far faster, and grown far more, than other developed countries. We built a lot of infrastructure, bridges and solar plants and so forth, that will benefit us for decades to come.
I’m not saying our policies are perfect. I’m not saying there has not been real pain. Maybe we overdid it a bit, maybe we get an A- or a B+. Your government had to make some tough calls, and we did to the best of our ability. I don’t think anyone else would have done better. But what I’m really saying is that politics is hard. While you have to try to learn from history, nothing repeats itself exactly, and so you take your best shot.
* * *
One might disagree in lots of ways, but I mean this as an example of a grown-up conversation, and a recognition that one’s political opponents have something to say, and deserve to be recognized as fellow citizens if nothing else. Why can’t we have a reasonable explanation of how difficult judgment calls were made under conditions of uncertainty? I mean, maybe not from the candidates before us, but in general.
Meanwhile . . .
The exclusionary and antagonistic nature of our political language means that many questions receive inadequate attention. Who gave Elon Musk permission to colonize space and rope our national security to the effort? We have only a rudimentary political philosophy of technology at all – why? (Well, it’s difficult.) What do we expect from the international order? What would a humane climate change policy look like and why are we so bad at disaster relief? Can kids read and why are they all on drugs anyway? It’s too flip, gauche, to say “bread and circuses” at this juncture, but it’s not too early to say that a crappy understanding of the Federalist Papers isn’t enough. With the possible exception of the probably doomed resurgence of antitrust, neither Party shows much creative capacity. Insha’Allah, we will be asking most of the same questions in four years, perhaps with slightly better answers.
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? has been real, and fun, if not exactly real fun. Oh, a few tips: Zinfandel is the American grape, though pretty close to Primitivo. Can run a little heavy, which can be nice, but it’s a long evening. I’d recommend an “old vine” with a touch less booze and a few years on it. Zin goes great with burgers, is fine with Italian, and not bad with Mexican, or maybe Malbec, though I usually have beer and some form of tequila. I find Asian food a bit difficult to pair, but try a racy riesling. The Italians have a thousand wines (almost literally), but if you’re gonna stay in the US of A to mark the occasion, maybe a merlot or even a red blend, if you can get something with a bit of structure. Or a syrah, shiraz as the Aussies say, for something heavier, or a grenache/garnacha if the meal calls for something lighter. And remember, mes amis, “Champagne” is a region in France and the wine made there, but we make excellent sparklers on this side of the pond, too. And whatever word you use for “champagne,” like Jesus and duct tape, it fixes everything!
Enjoy the show. We will be fine. I think/hope/pray.
My regards, citizens and observers,
-- David A. Westbrook