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Bret Stephens

Why Isn’t Harris Running Away with This?

October 31, 2024
by Peter Feinman
Kamala Harris (Jamie Kelter Davis for POLITICO)

“Why Isn’t Harris Running Away with This?” is the provocative title of an op-ed piece by David Brooks (NYT, October 18, 2024, print). He wonders why the polls are so immobile. He notes the lack of a strategy by either political party to broaden its electoral reach. Deadlock is the new normal.

He suggests that political parties have replaced religious organizations in our secular age as the venue that provides believers with “meaning, membership and moral sanctification.” This makes the new priesthoods the (social-)media dispensers of truth.

One priesthood consists of the highly-educated urban progressives who work in academia, the media, and activist groups. But their world view is rejected by most Americans. By worldview, Brooks isn’t simply referring to international diplomacy but to domestic issues. This includes racial categories like diversity, equity, and inclusion that risks losing the support of working class people of all races. Or as I put it, there are more people proud to be American and part of We the People than the Woke Industrial Complex cares to admit.

In-other-words, there are a lot more Americans without college degrees than with one. Brooks observes that Trump would be winning by landslides if he combined MAGAs with real Republicans instead of alienating the latter. My contention has been if Republicans nominated an adult Lincoln-like person, they would win in a landslide over the Woke Industrial Complex and irrevocably alter the deadlock that now divides the country.

GAIL COLLINS AND BRET STEPHENS

A couple of days later these two had one of their conversations, “Harris Has an Unexpected Ally,” (NYT October 22, 2024, print) that addresses the question Brooks raised. In that conversation, Stephens addresses not Trump as much as he does Harris.

I fear that Harries is every bit as vacuous behind the scenes as she seems to be on the public stage. I fear she will be tested early by a foreign adversary and stumble badly, whether it’s in stopping Iran from building a nuclear weapon or China from blockading Taiwan or Russia from seizing a portion of a Baltic country. I fear she will capitulate too easily to her party’s left flank, especially when it comes to identity politics, economic policy or polarizing cultural issues.

Here is where it would have been beneficial to the newcomer to the national arena in a short campaign to deliver her State of the Union Address again and again outlining what she would do as President. Instead she delivers micro-addresses to micro audiences trying to move the battle lines inches in the battle ground states. She lost an opportunity to use the bully pulpit and to dare her opponent to deliver his own State of the Union instead of just trash talking.

I fear that she’ll have no domestic policy ideas that don’t involve mindlessly expanding the role of government. I fear she will surround herself with mediocre advisors, like her embarrassingly bad veep pick. I fear she won’t muster the political will to curb mass migration. And I fear that a failed Harris presidency will do more to turbo charge the far right in this country than to diminish it.

And this is from someone who will vote for Harris.

The picture Stephens paints is of someone who lacks the right stuff to go into the arena and with dire consequences for both the country and the Republican Party… and it would be even worse if her opponent won.

BRET STEPHENS   

 Stephens elaborates on his views a few days later (“If Trump Wins, Who, or What, Will Liberals Blame?, NYT October 25, 2024, print). He identifies a few root causes.

1. The Politics of Condescension – By now it has become a truism that the mentally and morally superior people, the visible saints, the elect of God, have only one way of communicating with lesser beings. It is to remind them that they are lesser beings and that they should be grateful of the opportunity afforded them to improve themselves by following the teachings of their superiors. This is dangerously close to the Confederate explanation of the benefits of slavery. How dare these lesser beings chose to reject the ways of the college and grad-school graduate people.

2. The politics of name-calling – This “happens every time Trump’s voters are told they are racists, misogynists, weird, phobic, low-information or, most recently, supporters of a fascist — and by implication, fascists themselves.” This is not a way to win over voters.

3. The politics of gaslighting – The double dosage of vouching for Biden’s mental acuity while extolling Harris as brilliant and experienced.

4. The politics of highhandedness – Harris didn’t win a single primary vote nor were any even held.

5. The politics of Pollyanna – “Wouldn’t it be better to meet voter concerns rather than tell them they‘re seeing ghosts?”

6. The politics of identity over class- The Democrats are increasingly forsaking their working-class roots.

In just a few days we will know the extent of that abandonment and its consequences.

HERE’S WHY DEMOCRATS SHOULDN’T DEMEAN TRUMP VOTERS

Nicholas Kristoff issued this caution to Democrats (NYT, September 1, 2024, print).

… too often since 2016, the liberal impulse has been to demonize anyone at all sympathetic to Donald Trump as a racist and bigot….it’s difficult to win votes from people you are disparaging.

Kristoff turns the tables on the elitists.

It has also seemed to me morally offensive, particularly when well-educated and successful elites are scorning disadvantaged, working class Americans who have been left behind economically and socially and in many cases are dying young. They deserve empathy, not insults…

The social fabric in many blue-collar communities has unraveled, and people are angry and frustrated.

Condescension is a losing strategy in a population of non-college-educated believers.

Where is the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt today?

So to return to the question of David Brooks which began this blog, things have not worked out as the Democrats expected. There was no blue wave due to the changing demographics. Abortion will work as a defining issue but only up to a point. The biggest ace in the hole Democrats have is Donald Trump himself. The more off-rails the immature child with the maturity of a three-year old behaves, the more likely some people who are only now focusing of the election may decide what kind of clown is this. Do I really want to live knowing at any moment he could disrupt the communities of Springfield or Aurora? Is my community next? A few days of Trump unleashed may be just enough to push the B level candidate over the finish line despite her shortcomings and those of the Democratic Party.

Woke American Exceptionalism Is Still American Exceptionalism

July 23, 2020
by Peter Feinman
American Exceptionalism (“A Union in the Interest of Humanity – Civilization Freedom and Peace for all Time.” ca. 1898, Donaldson Litho Co.; Library of Congress)

Woke American exceptionalism is still American exceptionalism. This realization occurred to me last week when I was watching a Woke presentation online and the term flashed in my mind. It wasn’t exactly a “eureka” or OMG moment as the light bulb clicked on. But it was a coming together of thoughts that brought order to chaos and helped me make sense of what has been transpiring in the culture wars especially recently.

Woke American exceptionalism is a derivative of standard American exceptionalism. America is still inherently different from all other countries but from a different perspective. It retains the Christian, Protestant basis. But it expresses not simply an “America First” value but an “America Alone.” In other words, it pronouncements often occur as if the rest of human history hadn’t occurred and that the only humanity that matters is the one here because we are exceptional.

Below are the examples that led me to this realization.

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

The American Revolution looms large in traditional American exceptionalism. We were God’s New Israel fighting Pharaoh for freedom. We were led by people of Providential inspiration who brought us to victory. We were born and constituted by sacred documents.

Not quite with Woke American exceptionalism. If anything it was the reverse which happened. The people who led the so-called Revolution and the documents they created are to be condemned as the products of a racist, sexist, imperialist people. The country they created far from being an example for the world completely failed to meet Woke standards.

So where does the United States in 1787 rate on the Woke scale of judgement?

How many multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious countries were there in the world in 1787?

Of those countries, how many declared their basis on the principle of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” or something similar even if it was honored in the breach?

Of those countries, how many had never occupied the land of another people?

Was what was exceptional about the United States in 1787 was that it existed in a world of multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious  countries of no slavery and freedom for all that included no conquered land and were in compliance with Woke standards?

Perhaps instead of judging the United States of 1787 based on Woke values today, it also would be appropriate to examine the United States in comparison to where the rest of the world rates on the Woke scale. Instead of simply condemning the United States for failing to live up to the vision expressed in 1776 and 1787, how many multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious countries even had such a vision then in the first place that they could fail to observe?

TOPPLING STATUES OF SLAVE-OWNERS

In the last few weeks, the toppling of the statues of slave-owners has accelerated. Founding Fathers who also owned people have been particularly targeted. In a previous blog, I wrote about the competing views of two New York Times op-ed writers (To Topple or Not to Topple Statues: The Battle between “Come Let Us Reason Together” versus “Abso-fricking-lutely!”). One, Bret Stephens, called for determining whether the person in question had helped advance the country towards the goal of creating a more perfect union. The other, Charles Blow, drew a line in sand: if you own people, then you should be toppled.

At the very end, after I had written the blog, a thought occurred to me. I added this ending before I posted it:

P.S. The damnatio memoriae (or “condemnation of the memory”) was tried in ancient Egypt on Queen Hatshepsut and King Akhnaton. Will we now have to erase the names of Pharaohs who had slave labor including Nubians and demolish their buildings or is that up to Egypt? What should we teach about these “abhorrent and depraved” people like Tut?

It was this comment that started me towards Woke American Exceptionalism a week later, to thinking beyond America. How many Pharaohs, Caesars, kings, and emperors didn’t own people? If George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are to be toppled, what does that mean for the non-American slave-owners? What does it mean for the tourist sites of many countries once tourism begins again? What does it mean for the holdings of museums? Are all slave-owners from all places from all times to be toppled or just the white ones?

MOUNT RUSHMORE

The event that put the pieces together in my mind was a program “Whose Hero? New Perspectives on Monuments in Public Landscapes” by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience on June 24 and 26. I was only able to watch part of the initial program and it was a few weeks before I could see the taped version of it. The specific presentation in question was by Sally Roesch Wagner, the Executive Director, Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation (whom I know). She is from South Dakota. Her topic was mostly about Mount Rushmore. It has been in the news lately and will be the subject of a future blog.

Much of Sally’s presentation was information about Mount Rushmore, its design, its purpose. Then she strayed into not history or politics but to psychology. I will not repeat or summarize what she had to say about the heterosexual white male except to note her enjoyment in denigrating them for these expressions of power like Mount Rushmore. It was at that moment when I had my moment of clarity.

What I thought of was Abu Simbel.

Ramses II at Abu Simbel (Wikepedia)

You are looking at four giant-sized statues of a male. Unlike Mount Rushmore, the four personages are the same person, Ramses II, Pharaoh of the Exodus. He is a slave-owner who needs to be toppled by Woke standards. The Founding Fathers identified with the Israelites “who were slaves in Egypt” and sought to escape the yoke of Pharaoh as they did of King George III. It was while listening to Sally about Mount Rushmore that I thought of Ramses at Abu Simbel. Then I thought of the other Egyptians male rulers who had built giant statues to themselves. Then I thought about rulers of other lands like Mesopotamia. Kings (and Queens) build things. They build cities, temples, forts, palaces, irrigation systems, roads, and victory monuments and statues in their own honor.

We used to build things in America. From the Erie Canal to the Apollo Moon Landing, we were a society that built things. Only lately, meaning in the 20th century, did we start building edifices for each and every President called Presidential Libraries. In human history, it is hardly unusual for rulers to shout their praises to the heavens. Typically rulers commemorate themselves. In any event, listening to Sally talk about Mount Rushmore led to think about Abu Simbel and then to all the ways rulers have for millennia throughout the world build in their own honor.  Part of what is unusual about Mount Rushmore is that none of the people on the mount commissioned the work. Mount Rushmore is part of a larger story of the human experience. But then again, Woke American Exceptionalism isn’t interested in what people elsewhere have done, only what evil Americans have done.

SAVAGES

Now that I was aware of Woke American Exceptionalism, I was prepared for it. I then watched an education program by the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). In that program, the presenter spoke about the use of the word “savages” to describe American Indians. He cited both primary sources and textbooks.

His references to “savages” immediately caused me to look beyond white Americans. Once again, Egypt was way ahead of us on describing people as subhumans who live like animals.

Lo, the miserable Asiatic,
He is wretched because of the place he’s in:
Short of water, bare of wood,
Its paths are many and painful because of mountains
He does not dwell in one place,
Food propels his legs,
He fights since the time of Horus,
Not conquering nor being conquered,
He does not announce the day of combat,
Like a thief who darts about a group.
(The Instruction to Merikare)

Just so you know I am not picking on the Egyptians, the Mesopotamians voiced similar views.

The Martu who know no grain
The Martu who know no house or town
The boors of the mountains…
Dresses in sheepskins,
Lives in a tent at the mercy of wind and rain
Does not offer sacrifice
He digs up truffles in steppe but does not know how to bend his knee
He eats raw meat. In life he has no house, in death he lies lot buried in a grave.
(The Marriage or Myth of Martu)

The uncivilized “other” has been around for a long time. Typically the “other” is portrayed in unflattering terms.

Here is an example from a World War I recruiting poster. Without the words, would it have occurred to you that Germans were the savage other?

The Hun versus Lady Liberty (Recruiting Poster https://en.wikipedia.org)

 

One of the lessons I was reminded of from Woke American Exceptionalism is that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Science fictions fans are aware that First Contact and Close Encounters of the First, Second, and Third Kind can be fraught with danger (Columbus Day: Close Encounters of the Third Kind). Sooner or later, people with disproportionate power over another people tend to use it….and justify it on the basis that the foe aren’t real people as we are.

Finally, let’s not forget Christianity and Woke American Exceptionalism. Once upon a time, indigenous people throughout the world lived in peace and harmony with each other and nature. Then white people arrived and the Original Sin occurred. Now those people need to repent and restore the purity which once existed. It’s one of our oldest stories.

To Topple or Not to Topple Statues: The Battle between “Come Let Us Reason Together” versus “Abso-fricking-lutely!”

July 8, 2020
by Peter Feinman
To Topple or Not to Topple, That Is the Question (Alex Waltner – Swedish Nomad)

To topple or not to topple, that is the question. Statues have become the latest battleground in America’s Third Civil War. At this point, it is impossible to determine which statue will be our Fort Sumter. It is reasonable to assume that just as one could not predict that it would the George Floyd murder as the straw the broke the camel’s back, one cannot know which attack on a statue will be the trigger for violence.

In the meantime, last month, Bret Stephens and Charles Blow, columnists for The New York Times, offered quite contrary views on the question of “to topple or not to topple.”

BRET STEPHENS

In his column “After the Statues Fall,” (June 27, 2020, print), Stephens posits four familiar words as a template for answering the topple question: A MORE PERFECT UNION.

Stephens suggests for any given individual, the question should be asked whether that person contributed to the effort to create a more perfect union in the United States. If the answer is “no,” and he includes all Confederate-related figures here, then the person fails the test. The statues should come down and the buildings and military installations should be renamed. Stephens mentions some other examples of non-Confederates who don’t deserve a public building and non-Confederates who do deserve honors on net because of what they contributed to making a more perfect union.

Then he turns the big two: George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. These two slaveholders who were instrumental to the creation of the United States. He doesn’t mention it, but the latter provided the words or ideals upon which we declared our independence and the former made it possible for that declaration not to be stillborn or a dorm-room manifesto. Eliminate them and there is no country. Stephens writes:

If their fault lay in being creatures of their time, their greatness was in the ability to look past it. An unbroken moral thread connects the Declaration of Independence to the Gettysburg Address to Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. An unbroken political thread connects the first president to the 16th to the 44th. It is impossible to imagine any union, much less the possibility of a more perfect one, without them.

Stephens contrasts thinking critically about the past for the sake of learning from it with behaving destructively toward the past with the aim of erasing it. He concludes in favor of debate on whether to topple or not to topple:

An intelligent society should be able to make intelligent distinctions, starting with the one between those who made our union more perfect and those who made it less.

By coincidence such an intelligent discussion was held a few days later. The American Historical Association (AHA) held an online presentation with David W. Blight and Annette Gordon-Reed entitled “Erasing History or Making History? Race, Racism, and the American Memorial Landscape” moderated by AHA Executive Director Jim Grossman, on Thursday, July 2. Whether or not they had read this column I don’t know. If not, then the discussion was even more fascinating. They expressed many of the same concepts that Stephens did. They used the term “criteria” instead for the judging of people on an individual basis with Confederates not passing muster. They even thought several hundred people listening to the online event would volunteer for a national commission.

There you see the problem. Stephens’s template for the evaluation of people works well in an academic setting. It is great for high school or college debates. It could work at some academic conferences. However, the evaluation process is bound to be subjective. There would be legitimate differences of opinions even if everyone agreed on the template. Obviously, it ignores the emotional component. Stephens proposes a solution for an intelligent society in a “come let us reason together” setting. That has nothing to do with where America is right now nor is there any political leader proposing a “come let us reason together” approach. This scenario is great on paper but is not possible in the real world as it exists now.

CHARLES BLOW

By coincidence, the next day, Charles Blow offered a significantly different perspective full of emotion. The title is:

Yes, Even George Washington: Slavery was a cruel institution that can’t be excused by its era (June 28, 2020, online).

In case there was any doubt, the opening line is:

On the issue of American slavery, I am an absolutist: enslavers were amoral monsters.

The very idea that one group of people believed that they had the right to own another human being is abhorrent and depraved. The fact that their control was enforced by violence was barbaric.

Blow’s template is a very direct one: if you owned people you were “abhorrent and depraved.” Period. There is no other evaluation needed. No netting of the good the people-owner might have done elsewhere. If you own people, then case closed.

There is no room for doubt. No uncertainty. And no exception.

Some people who are opposed to taking down monuments ask, “If we start, where will we stop?” It might begin with Confederate generals, but all slave owners could easily become targets. Even George Washington himself.

To that I say, “abso-fricking-lutely!”

Blow presents an all-or-nothing evaluation with removal as the one option.

I say that we need to reconsider public monuments in public spaces. No person’s honorifics can erase the horror he or she has inflicted on others.

Slave owners should not be honored with monuments in public spaces. We have museums for that, which also provide better context. This is not an erasure of history, but rather a better appreciation of the horrible truth of it.

Blow’s analysis is intensely emotional for him unlike the Stephens column. It also is easy to apply.

But Blow leaves many unanswered questions. If these people like George Washington are so horrific for what they did that they do not deserve public monuments in public spaces, what about the other ways in which such people are publicly honored. What about

The state of Washington

The city of Washington

The mountain of Washington

The university of Washington

The bridge of Washington

The parks of Washington

The dollar bill of Washington

The neighborhoods of Washington.

Dismantling the Washington Monument is challenge enough, but how do you get demolish half of Mount Rushmore?

And let’s not forget that without Washington there would be no United States of America?

Blow doesn’t address these issues. His end game remains undefined. He feels good about toppling the monuments and statues to George Washington but leaves all the other public expressions of him unmentioned.

In my blog Schuyler Owned People: Should Schuylerville Change Its Name? June 18, 2020, a lifetime ago), I raised a similar issue with the Mayor of Albany’s decision to remove the statue of Philip Schuyler. What about all the other public Schuyler examples from a state-owned house, federal owned house, municipality named after him, county named after him, and his role in American history at Saratoga?  As a mayor, her jurisdiction is limited. I did note that one councilmen wanted the removed of all the people-owner names of streets and parks which in Albany means Washington Park. Blow had the option of going where the Mayor could not. As a columnist, he could have advocated for the full cleansing of Washington from the public arena. The logical extension of Blow’s argument means consign everything Washington to a museum, rename it, or demolish it.

WHAT DOES BLOW WANT?

Considered these toppling examples.

The toppling of the statue to Saddam Hussein signified the end of his rule.

The toppling of the statue of Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union, signified the end of the Soviet Union.

The toppling of the statue of King George III signified the declaration of independence from British rule, a declaration after a long war which proved successful.

Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that the toppling of the statue of George Washington, father of the country, signifies that the topplers are calling for the end of the United States, the end of a country based on the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that he won for us and he then held us together as a country.

Is that what Blow wants? While I don’t doubt that among the woke there are people desirous of exactly such an endgame. They reject not only the symbols of the founding of the country but the founding itself. Blow does not appear to one of them. His call to relocate statues from public spaces to museums (presumably private ones with no public funding), suggests he is not advocating for the overthrow of the United States. But his call for the removal not toppling of statues and monuments of people-owners is simply a feel-good baby step that ignores the larger issues. He has an obligation to explain to the American public what his end game is. He has an obligation to explain to We the People where he would draw the line and why on the issue of the public display of the name of Washington among others. He has an obligation to explain his end game because if he doesn’t, others will do it for him.

P.S. The damnatio memoriae (or “condemnation of the memory”) was tried in ancient Egypt on Queen Hatshepsut and King Akhnaton. Will we now have to erase the names of Pharaohs who had slave labor including Nubians and demolish their buildings or is that up to Egypt? What should we teach about these “abhorrent and depraved” people like Tut?