So @DavidAxelrod, I think the key point here is that when you tweet things like this, you relinquish permanently the right to bemoan Americans' cynicism with respect to government. You've given up before the fight has even begun—and worse, want people to follow you into cynicism.
@davidaxelrod 1/ The media reports new incriminating evidence of Trump's bribery-and-obstruction scheme daily. Most Americans still haven't seen a condensed presentation of the facts. There's a real chance of a bipartisan vote for conviction. As for 67 votes, maybe let's just present the case?
@davidaxelrod 2/ I don't know what sort of cockamamie approach to rule of law, the protection of our democratic institutions, and the maintenance of our elections' integrity urges people to "skip ahead" to a time when we "move on" from the gravest attack on these three things in *generations*.
@davidaxelrod 3/ The benefit Axelrod has here is that the political class—of which he's a member—has done such a great job dispiriting Americans about politics while saying they intend the opposite that many don't understand anymore that it's possible to be hopeful and clear-eyed all at once.
@davidaxelrod 4/ Intelligent, honorable, courageous people can simultaneously count the votes in the Senate and not be deterred from confidently and optimistically proceeding with what is right. Only many, many years spent in Washington politics makes doing those two things at once impossible.
@davidaxelrod 5/ Axelrod's advantage is he can position folks like me—who're simultaneously realists and committed to confidently envisioning a world that's better than the one we have—as selling false hope for clicks. Such people don't understand that the false realist/hopeful binary is dead.
@davidaxelrod 6/ I've been a metamodernist for years because I believe in the basic principles of that post-postmodern paradigm: informed naivete; a romantic response to crisis; the notion that error breeds sense; an openness to angry optimism, worried resolve, and other generative paradoxes.
@davidaxelrod 7/ Unfortunately, postmodernists run DC. As I teach students when I teach post-internet cultural theory, a key feature of the postmodern temperament is the sort of self-consciousness that causes one to speak already aware of and anxious about how one will be seen. That's Axelrod.
@davidaxelrod 8/ Cultural theory terminology aside, what I'm saying is that Axelrod wants us to know that he's wise to the game, can see its endpoint, and isn't being duped by anyone. But being hopeful and clear-eyed at the same time in 2019 requires a *willingness to publicly appear foolish*.
@davidaxelrod 9/ Axelrod's argument seems benign today because impeachment is going forward and we can all see he's just trying to wear savvy cynicism as a badge of honor. The problem is that two months ago Axelrod's argument was the same, and would've kept us from even getting to this point.
@davidaxelrod 10/ Twitter is a terrible place to try to explain metamodernism, but I can at least put it this way: being *right* isn't always a healthy endpoint.
Sometimes we feel hopeless because we've correctly assessed a situation, and doesn't the *real* question then become, "What *now*?"
Sometimes we feel hopeless because we've correctly assessed a situation, and doesn't the *real* question then become, "What *now*?"
@davidaxelrod 11/ The GOP is no longer a good-faith partner in our American experiment. There's not a single aspect of that clear-eyed revelation that requires us to say now that we should "skip ahead" and "move on"—in our heads or otherwise—from fighting bravely and *confidently* for justice.
@davidaxelrod 12/ So David may be right in assessing realities, but the reason he's not a *leader* is he doesn't prepare any of us for what we should do—besides give up—once we've assessed realities. Metamodernism says the only thing to *ever* do is see reality, then keep hoping and fighting.
@davidaxelrod NOTE/ I know that many readers read a thread like this and say, "huh"? But millions of Americans know what I'm talking about. They believe that the cynicism about how to wake up tomorrow and cause change that's become embedded in postmodernism is dangerous to meaningful activism.
