The next time hatred comes
your way, don’t recriminate. Recruit.
Just over three years ago, presidential candidate
Hillary Clinton, speaking at a fundraiser in New York
City, characterized half of Donald Trump’s supporters as a “basket of
deplorables.” And for more than three years, Trump, along with everyone who
supports him, has been subjected to passionate hatred from nearly everyone who
would rather have seen Clinton elected.
It might be tempting to return the favor and hate back.
That not only would be a tactical mistake—since you catch more flies with honey
than with vinegar—but also inaccurate targeting. There are a surprising number
of liberals, progressives, and even socialists, who are not only anti-Clinton,
but are begrudgingly, and increasingly, capable of seeing the positive side of
the Trump presidency.
A very early indication of this came in October 2016,
when John Pilger published in the London
Progressive Journal an influential article titled, “Why Hillary
Clinton Is More Dangerous Than Donald Trump.” Pilger, notwithstanding his
socialist leanings, is a world-renowned journalist and filmmaker of undeniable
courage and integrity.
In an eloquent tirade notable for its many, many examples
of how Hillary Clinton is a murderous establishment puppet, this observation by
Pilger summed it up: “She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and
violence of a system whose vaunted ‘exceptionalism’ is totalitarian with an
occasional liberal face.”
Sound familiar? And wow, how that system has tried, and
continues to try to take down Trump.
Pilger saw it coming. About Trump, he wrote, “In the
circus known as the American presidential campaign, Donald Trump is being
presented as a lunatic, a fascist. He is certainly odious; but he is also a
media hate figure. That alone should arouse our scepticism.”
A “media hate figure.” Ain’t that the truth! And
liberals eat it up. And along with Trump, they hate us. Or do they?
John Pilger isn’t alone. There are millions of liberals,
progressives, Democrats, and even socialists who have seen through the
establishment’s programmatic hatred, despite (or perhaps because of) it coming
from every quarter—entertainment, academia, corporations, politicians, and all
mainstream media, online and offline.
Their skepticism is indeed aroused, and not just over
Trump.
Loving the Bull
Many Trump supporters cheered his election not because
of his pugnacity (about time), or his policies (also about time), but because when you hate the china shop, you love the bull.
Trump has exposed
the Democrat versus Republican, Right versus Left, liberal versus conservative
paradigms as, if not obsolete shams, then at least models that have lost most
of their dialectic vitality. They remain real and represent important
differences, but they are overshadowed by a new political polarity, worthy of
urgent and vigorous dialectic—globalism versus nationalism.
Until Trump came
along, the globalist agenda crept relentlessly forward under the radar. Issues that now can be framed explicitly as globalist
versus nationalist—immigration, trade, foreign policy, even climate
change—found deceptive expression when shoehorned into the obsolete paradigms.
It suited the
uniparty establishment to engage in phony, ostensibly partisan bickering to
keep up appearances. It suited them to pretend that
immigration and “free” trade bestowed unambiguous global economic benefits,
while claiming that to oppose it was economically ignorant and “racist.” It was
convenient to pretend ceaseless foreign interventions were based on moral
imperatives, while silencing the opposition as “isolationists.” It was easy to
get away with promoting climate change policies based on supposedly
indisputable scientific evidence, while stigmatizing opponents as “deniers.”
Suddenly all of that is revealed as almost Ptolemaic in
its contrived complexity. Here is Trump’s Copernican breakthrough: if you want
open borders, absolutely free movement of capital and jobs, and an aggressive
international “climate agenda” enforced by the American military, you are a
globalist. If you do not, you are a nationalist.
The impact of the
globalist agenda has been felt acutely in America already, but the pain is
spreading and intensifying.
Unskilled immigrants are taking jobs away from the most
vulnerable Americans, and every year, they continue to arrive by the millions.
Manufacturing jobs which are vital to America’s economic vitality are being
exported to any nation with cheaper labor, costing Americans still more jobs.
Policies that are supposedly designed to save the planet have made it virtually
impossible to build anything cost-effectively—houses, roads, reservoirs, power
plants. In states where the globalist agenda is well advanced, the gap between
rich and poor is at record levels, and the cost-of-living is prohibitive.
The rest of the world faces the same onslaught from
globalists. With rare exceptions, such as the administrative clerisy and the
minute fraction of economic refugees for whom the rudest of welfare benefits in
developed nations far exceeds their lot in their nations of origin, the only
beneficiaries are the investor class and multinational corporations.
Economic development, utterly dependent on cheap fossil
fuel, is denied because fossil fuel is denied. African cities that might become
inviting metropolises fueled by natural gas and nuclear power are instead
hellholes of misery, as a burgeoning population forages into wilderness areas
for food and fuel, stripping it of life.
The problem with the globalist vision isn’t just that it
denies people their cultural identity as it McDonaldizes the world. The problem
is that it’s not working economically or environmentally.
It is an epic disaster, unfolding in slow motion. If globalism isn’t stopped,
it will engulf the world in war and misery.
And guess what? There are liberals, progressives, and
socialists, who get it. The see how their lives are being destroyed. They see
through the platitudes, they see the hypocrisy. They can tell that globalism is
not working. They’re looking for new ideas.
Modern American
Nationalism Transcends President Trump
Donald Trump may have accelerated nationalist movements
around the world, but how they find expression in the decades to come depends
on how they are shaped by his followers, including belated, reluctant
followers, including many who had been his critics. For many years, there have been
a lot of smart Democrats who are rejecting the tactics of globalists, even if
they have not been critical of globalism itself.
In California, a
crucible of American culture, two respected Democrats offer examples of brave
commentary that constitutes rank heresy to establishment globalists. In Berkeley, of all places, Michael Shellenberger, a Time magazine
“Hero of the Environment” and co-writer of the EcoModernist
Manifesto, has worked tirelessly through his organization
Environmental Progress to campaign for reviving nuclear power in America.
Shellenberger in recent years has turned his attention
to California’s homeless crisis, calling for
emergency measures that cut through a web of stultifying, counterproductive
laws that have prevented effective solutions.
Another Californian, quite possibly the most intelligent
Democrat who’s ever lived, is Joel
Kotkin, a fellow in urban studies at Chapman University, described
by the New York Times as “America’s uber-geographer.” For more
than a decade, Kotkin has patiently explained how urban containment (because
suburban sprawl supposedly causes excessive “greenhouse gas” emissions”) is
strangling our cities and preventing equitable economic growth.
Backing up everything he writes with data, Kotkin has
exposed the hidden agenda behind extreme environmentalism, and how it benefits
a coalition of special interests—investors, tech billionaires, the professional consultant
class, and public sector unions—but condemns everyone else to a feudal
existence.
Nationalism Can Be a
Model for World Peace and Prosperity
What is
nationalism? Why does that word have to connote something extreme? Why can’t it
simply acknowledge the practical reality of borders, language, culture, and
history, and the ongoing right of citizens to determine their own destiny and
compete in the world?
Why is it that to the establishment in America and
throughout the western democracies, “globalism” is still held up as an ideal,
and the inevitable destiny of humanity? Why can’t that inevitability be
restricted to the technical facts of globalization—communications,
transportation, trade, finance—without also requiring a surrender of national
sovereignty? Why can’t nationalism be compassionate, benevolent, economically enlightened, and inclusive?
Nationalism can be all those good things. It can be a
model for world peace and prosperity.
As for “climate change” mitigation, why are rational criticisms such
as those produced by the luminous Danish economist Bjorn Lomborg castigated as
denying reality? Shall the reasoned skeptics of the world be swept away by an
orchestrated crusade fronted by children? Should the 16-year-old schoolgirl
Greta Thunberg’s vapid denunciations of world leaders
actually be taken more seriously than Bjorn Lomborg’s impeccable cost/benefit
analyses?
Although mass movements of people proceed more slowly, a
philosophical realignment arguably is already upon us. In terms of applied
political theory, the prevailing opposition today is nationalism versus
globalism. Like all polarities, these labels are fraught
with ambiguities and contradictions. For that reason, there are virtues to some
aspects of globalism just as surely as there is a dark side to nationalism.
Moreover, the 20th-century
polarities of Left versus Right and liberal versus conservative are still
potent. But to have a meaningful political discussion today, those 20th-century
labels are subsumed within the new model.
To be a left-wing
socialist liberal, most of the time, is to be a globalist. But not always. Not
anymore. Remember this, the next time hatred comes your way. Realignment is
coming.
Don’t
recriminate. Recruit.
