I wrote a whole book on why democracies become illiberal, but something about America after Trump's indictment really strikes me. Yes, MAGA world is about resentment and ignorance and displaced anger and all that. But it's also a time that seems to me incredibly...juvenile.
🧵/1
Trump hawking t-shirts with his mug shot is like some hair band selling posters of their guy getting busted for drugs or waggling his junk onstage or something. It's beyond unserious. It's child-like, the political version of Oppositional Defiance Disorder. And yet it'll sell. /2
In the book, I argue that peace and affluence have been a big part of America's slide: Life's good and people don't grasp that ghastly decisions can have disastrous effects - including on *them*. Because other adults make sure the nation functions even when the voters go nuts. /3
But maybe peace and affluence, in addition to making people bored out of their skulls, also prevents them developing into adults who make democracy possble. This is the world, as I wrote in the book, in which Huxley wins, not Orwell. (I am stealing Neil Postman's point here.) /4
I suppose you could call all this *decadence*, but it's not even gloriously decadent in that grandiose, Weimar, "Cabaret" kind of decadence. It's just people putting on costumes and hats and being violent and then crying in front of judges when it all goes horribly wrong. /5
Childishness doesn't make voters less dangerous to democracy. But even if Trump is defeated (again), this is a serious level of social dysfunction. You can't sustain a superpower when nearly half of its citizens are mired in eternal petulant childhood. /6
And millions of our oldest citizens, people my age - Trump's most reliable voting bloc - who should be our wisest among us, are the ones most like angry, irrational toddlers (much like Trump himself). This is incomprehensible to me, especially as I get older. /7
In another weird role-switch, these right-wingers are now like the dilettantish countercultural activists of the 60s: well-off would-be revolutionaries who really have no idea what they're doing and merely want to act on ill-defined, self-actualizing, self-centered emotion. /8
Adults, however, know that there were people who came before us, and people who will come after us, and that "the moment" is not supreme. We have a civic inheritance, a trust, to hold and to protect, and then to pass on. This used to be central to the American idea. No longer./9
All we can do is hope that the generations coming up can learn to embrace civic adulthood. I'm (mildly) optimistic - if we get past these next few elections.
But how weird that so many adults now worship - and emulate - a choleric 77 year old toddler./10x
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You know better than this, @cdrsalamander, and I know that from talking to you. Your comments are in bad faith. But for others who are curious, I'll explain.
NWC's curriculum revision 50 years ago was to prevent another civil-military failure on the level of Vietnam. /1
VADM Turner was explicit about this, and it's been a guiding principle ever since to make sure that NWC graduates are intelligent strategic contributors in the room, instead of pure operators who have no idea how to advise or confer with civilians. /2
Sal is focused on about 30 minutes of a 90 minute seminar out of some 20 meetings. But as I told my students: You need to recognize what drives the arguments of the civilians in the room. If you don't, you'll be the guy sent out for coffee while the grownups talk. /3
The Israelis are calling this a "preemptive" strike. Whether you agree or disagree with this attack, these are not - from what we know tonight - "preemptive" strikes. The Israelis are using that word for a reason. Read on. /1
In tradition and international law, a "preemptive" attack is a spoiling attack, meant to strike an enemy who is *imminently* going to strike you. This is what Israel did in 1967, getting the jump on Arab armies that were about to attack. That's usually permissable. /2
What's going on right now are *preventive* strikes, which are usually NOT permissable in law or tradition. This is striking an enemy far in advance, because you believe time and situation is favorable to you. That, for example, is Japan striking the US in 1941. /3
I might have more to say later, but all the reviews of Carter's presidency emphasize his character, his success in the Mideast, and inflation/gas prices.
But left out of all that: His Cold War policies were abject failures and left America in a precarious situation by 1980. /1
Not only did the Soviets run wild during Carter's presidency, they hated him personally, seeing him as an unserious man giving them Sunday School lectures. Some of America's allies felt the same way, esp after Carter hosed the Germans on the neutron bomb issue. /2
When Carter finally became a born-again Cold Warrior in late 1978, he amped up multiple nuclear programs (which people mistakenly associate with Reagan) and in 1980 issued PD-59, a pretty extreme nuclear warfighting doctrine that convinced Moscow that he was completely nuts. /3
So, a few words about this new Russian nuclear doctrine, but here's the short version: It's not a doctrine, it's a ploy.
/1
The old Soviet Union had a formal military doctrine, and it mattered. (Trust me. Wrote my doctoral dissertation and first book on it.) It mattered because the regime believed in ideology, and in conforming its policies to ideology and communicating that to its institutions. /2
Soviet military doctrine was a means of intra-elite communication and policy guidance. Yes, some of it was just bullshit, but it was a real thing that was meant to make the various parts of the USSR defense world (strategy, industry, etc) fly in formation. /3
Okay, I admit, I've been kind of rope-a-doping some of the people angry over my "it's okay to drop friends over politics posts." So I'll wrap up:
I don't recall anyone on my right getting mad when I wrote this in a right-wing - now insanely right wing - magazine in 2016. /1
The reason I got very little pushback, I suspect, is that no one expected Trump to win. But now, people on the right are stuck having to defend what they've done and itchy about it.
But interestingly, the same magazine also now has this:
/2
If you're angry over dropping friends and family over Trump now, but weren't in 2016, or aren't over calls now to de-recognize other citizens as Americans (and I assume that means friends who voted for Harris)...well...
/3