Here are two attempts to redraw the binary political taxonomies of today:
- In the FT, Gideon Rachman argues that after the “liberal false dawn” of Obama, “In the US and France, centrists and liberals are in full panic mode. Nationalist populism now looks like a permanent feature of Western politics, rather than a temporary aberration. The old left-right divide of the 20th century has given way to a new cleavage between liberal internationalists and populist nationalists.”
Yet he offers a balm for the nerves: “But liberals should not panic. Dismantling American or French democracy would be no simple task. The hopes of a decisive victory over nationalist populism — stirred by Macron and Obama — proved to be an illusion. But the fears of a decisive defeat for the liberal, internationalist cause are also probably exaggerated.” I’ll have whatever he’s taking.
- In Die Zeit’s new political Feuillton, Thomas Piketty contends to Nils Markwardt that the center is kaput (or kaputt if you prefer the German original) and that — at least in Europe — the only solution is to pit farther left against far right. “A return to the bipolar left-right system will take time, but it is absolutely necessary if we want to restore trust in democratic institutions and enable political change.”
Markwardt continues (with help to me from Google Translate): “In doing so, Piketty is following, whether consciously or unconsciously, a concept of politics that was recently shaped above all by the Belgian political scientist Chantal Mouffe. Her core thesis is that politics is always antagonistic, it consists of the clash of different world views and programmatic contradictions that can never be completely resolved. Wanting to resolve these contradictions in a ‘third way’ or a ‘new center’, as Tony Blair or Gerhard Schröder promised before Macron, is a mere illusion. Because in the end this only creates a feeling of post-political lack of alternatives among the majority of voters, which in turn increases the need for real alternatives — from which right-wing extremists in particular benefit.”
- I’m not sure how either applies to the American two-party trap we are in. In The Gutenberg Parenthesis, I assert that roles of right and left are inverted: Conservatives no longer conserve but now seek to destroy institutions as insurrectionists, putting progressives in the position not of reforming institutions but instead protecting — conserving — them.
In all of this, it is clear to all that the old labels of right and left are useless.
The too-often-unspoken truth of what is happening everywhere but especially in the US centers on racism. That is occasionally touched on in pieces such as these — as the Europeans grapple with immigration — but it must be seen as the central factor. In the American election, that means that the Democratic Party steamrolls past its Black vice president and ignores the Black voters who saved us in 2020 at its and democracy’s mortal peril.
In the US, the taxonomy needs to be seen as white “Christian” nationalist vs. Black and liberal coalition (I hope).
In Gutenberg, I suggest that “the internet’s emancipation of the individual enables under represented communities to speak, organize, and act, enabling movements — reformations, even revolutions in the name of racial, gender, economic, legal, and environmental equity and justice. The existing, white power structure — in the person of the far right — counterattacks, burning the fields so as not to share their harvest with those who follow. They undermine the institutions of journalism, science, education, free and fair elections, democracy itself, and civility.”
In the US, the taxonomy that informs is Black and white.
It is no coincidence, then, that the two dissenters from The Times’ rush to guillotine Biden are Black men — see Jamelle Bouie and Charles M. Blow — and the lone supporter of Kamala Harris as a substitute is a Black columnist, Lydia Polgreen. In his immensely practical argument, Bouie said:
I have noticed that only a handful of calls for Biden to leave are followed by “and Vice President Harris should take his place.” More often, there is a call for a contested convention. But why, exactly, should Harris step aside? Why should Harris not be considered the presumptive nominee on account of her service as vice president and her presence on the 2020 ticket? And should Harris be muscled out, how does this affect a new nominee’s relationship with key parts of the Democratic base, specifically those Black voters for whom Harris’s presence on the ticket was an affirmation of Biden’s political commitment to their communities?
Blow speaks similarly:
Yet if Biden did stand aside and Harris was passed over in favor of another candidate, there would very likely be strong protest from her legions of Democratic supporters, many of them Black women, a voting bloc that is essential to a Democratic victory.
On top of that, a free-for-all selection process would be sheer chaos. Factions would fiercely compete, egos would be bruised and convention delegates would select a candidate, effectively bypassing direct participation by Democratic voters.
All the while, a mob of white columnists, editorialists, reporters, and commentators rush past them, proposing various white substitutes for Biden, giving glancing mention to the Black vice president. This is how the Democrats will lose democracy, by not at last facing the centrality of race.
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