Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part X
Exploding Chickens and Election Returns
Dear citizens and observers:
I hope this morning after finds you well.
The dogs and l left the mountains in snow, and drove out onto the plains to vote. “And there went a proclamation throughout the host about the going down of the sun, saying, “Every man to his city, and every man to his own country!” And on the day I did vote, at the place my precinct was assigned, a neighborhood church, one of those enormous modern facilities with schools and a coffee shop and I don’t know what else. Numerous volunteers ran the process in a well organized, secure, and very friendly way. It was, well, democratic, even sweet. Took five minutes.
My idea was to cook something American, out on the deck, with fire and lights, as I waited for the returns to start coming in. So I seasoned a whole chicken in a big bowl, and started grilling it with an assortment of vegetables. I made a mop with the dirty bowl. I was missing a drip pan, so I placed a big Pyrex on grill sheets underneath. In due course, I mopped the chicken to cool the surface, low and slow, baby. And . . . the Pyrex exploded like a bomb. Glass shards everywhere. I know, idiotic, but I’d gotten away with it before. . . . Nobody was hurt, but that dinner was ruined.
It seemed kind of like bad karma, an omen, or something. Dramatic, anyway. Then the Dems lost, and lost much bigger than I expected. Both houses. A few votes not counted, a few states not called, but by my back of envelope, it looks like 226 Democrat to 312 Republican electoral college votes, and 3+% Republican edge in the popular vote. The popular vote!
It was, again, great television. Oddly, Fox had better coverage than CNN, more attention to the non-Presidential races, surprisingly (to an academic) thoughtful commentary. They had a better Dem, even. The CNN folks gradually tightened up, couldn’t take their eyes off Trump’s graphics, mesmerized like a snake, bringing up the wall over and over, hoping to find votes in the cities, hoping that turnout was both huge and monochromatically blue. It was sort of like watching a boat taking on water, or like 2016, but this time, less shock, more resignation.
I am a little surprised at the decisiveness of the loss, and I kinda thought it was a coin toss, and probably enough people would vote against Trump for the obvious reasons. (I’m not into sports betting, which is a good thing, and I look forward to the post mortems on the polls.) That said, the loss itself is hardly surprising. As I’ve been writing for years, across the North Atlantic we have a bureaucratic/managerial class that is contemptuous of others, structurally antidemocratic, and incapable of serious self-reflection, despite its claims to be “critical.” Occasionally competent, more usually not so much (border, Afghanistan, inflation, education, for examples.)
The Democratic Party establishment has, for years now, said: “Your impressions, fears, hopes are wrong.” (There is no inflation, says our wise man Paul, borders not a problem, usw.) “Follow our policies or you are racist.” Oh, if you are white male, you simply suck. We control the discourse; the rest is “disinformation.” Then, come election time, “Vote for us because otherwise you are against democracy.” (You don’t have a choice and we wouldn’t trust you anyway, so we picked this candidate, look, she’s a woman and of color, so now you have to vote for her. Plus joy.) Now, on the morning after: “we lost because you are stupid” (and racist and opposed to democracy).
No, my class lost, and lost big, because it has little democratic fellow feeling (“deplorables,” “the masses”), and yet believes, for some reason, it simply deserves the authority to govern. You should let me be in charge because I did well on many tests. I am, or was, a really fantastic student. Much smarter than you. Now give me your keys.
At this point it is just obtuse to be surprised. We’ve had three elections in the US, and a number of similar developments in other advanced economies, plenty of time to start thinking about what is denigrated as “populism,” tellingly close to “democracy.” And the idea that the governing classes were losing their authority didn’t occur to you? [This was drafted as a direct response.] And – it didn’t occur to you – that maybe the governing classes deserved to lose their authority? We are not fit? We are the threat to democracy?
What do you think gives bureaucracies their authority to govern? Hint: it isn’t contempt.
The difficulty is that we absolutely need bureaucracies, all large societies do, and an educational apparatus to train mandarins. The new regime will face many of the same problems, and will have to employ many of the same people. It’s very difficult to figure out how to legitimate bureaucracy, partially because we don’t understand bureaucracy very well. See Maguire & Westbrook, Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy, and a Sense of the Modern, and my forthcoming book, Social Thought Among the Ruins or Quixote’s Dinner Party.
And it will be interesting to see if the mandarin class can think seriously about earning the authority to govern, or will more simply continue to call the peasants revolting. I’ve got a grill to clean.
Onward, citizens.
— David A. Westbrook
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
Democratic Rock or Republican Whirlpool? Part IX Closing Time; Why and How to Vote; Menu; Open Questions
The Democrats Party is animated by a blend of two ideologies. One is neoliberalism, the impulse to create systems of systems to facilitate economic exchange in the interest of material progress and greater control over nature. The other is postmodernism, the idea that truth is an emergent property of narratives. The first comes from the corporate elites that put the bills, the second from the academics that provide the legitimation. The problem with the former is that the wealth produced by neoliberalism flow into ever-fewer hands while the expenses are outsourced to disfavored social groups. The problem with the latter is that reality continues to assert itself against the stories the pomos prefer to tell. Calling Trump a Nazi five-hundred-thousand times doesn’t make it true, even filtered through the most expensive corporate media money can buy. The results of yesterday’s election are a repudiation of both strains of the Democrats Party’s claim to rule.