I believe that the disclosures concerning the surveillance of phone records and internet communications in the Guardian and The Washington Post underscore the significance of President Obama’s recent speech on national security. His words provide the most cogent means to appraise his responsibilities for his administration’s actions. Today an analysis of the speech and the responses to it: in my next post, I will reflect on its significance in light of recent events. -Jeff

In his address to the National Defense University on May 23, 2013, President Obama set out to transform the common sense about terrorism and the proper American response to it. He continued what I take to be his major goal: the reinvention of American political culture, pushing the center left on a broad range of problems and principles, often meeting great resistance. In this particular instance, the change he sought at NDU, was apparently quite simple, moving from a war on terror to a struggle against terrorists, ending the prospect of total and endless war against an enemy whose power has been greatly and routinely exaggerated. The suggestion of the simple change understandably elicited strong and conflicting reactions. I think these reactions, along with the speech itself, illuminate the significance of Obama’s latest performance as “storyteller-in-chief.”

The editorial board of The New York Times declared:

“President Obama’s speech on Thursday was the most important statement on counterterrorism policy since the 2001 attacks, a momentous turning point in post-9/11 America.” 

Over on the op.ed. page a few days later, Ross Douthat presented a cynical alternative:

“President Obama’s speech national security last week was a dense thicket of self-justifying argument, but its central message was perfectly clear: Please don’t worry, liberals. I’m not George W. Bush.”

At The New York Review of Books, David Cole judged:

“President Barack Obama’s speech Thursday at the National Defense University (NDU) may turn out to be the most significant of his tenure,”

and observed:

“Obama might have chosen to speak more cautiously in his NDU speech. Instead, he went much further, outlining a way out of this ‘perpetual war,’ saying that ‘our democracy demands it.’ Whether he can make good on this promise will very likely define his legacy. If he succeeds in doing so, the Nobel Peace Prize committee will be seen not as naïve, but as remarkably prescient, in its awarding of the Peace Prize to Obama in 2009.”

I agree, but many observers, left, right and in between don’t, including, I suspect many Deliberately Considered readers. There have been strong dissenting positions, some quite cogent.

From the right

Newt Gingrich:

“I thought the president’s speech was astonishingly naïve and a sign that he hasn’t read much history…”[Obama] wants to somehow rise above the big government scandals that are gradually drowning his administration…He wants to look like he’s forward looking, engaged, etcetera … But the truth is, what he announced and explained was almost meaningless.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.):

“What do you think the Iranians are thinking? At the end of the day, this is the most tone-deaf president I ever could imagine, making such a speech at a time when our homeland is trying to be attacked literally every day.”

And Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) concluded Obama’s speech:

“will be viewed by terrorists as a victory.”

From the left

Glenn Greenwald is convinced that the speech said nothing:

“his speech had something for everyone, which is another way of saying that it offered nothing definitive or even reliable about future actions.”

Benjamin Wittes was even more critical:

“If there was a unifying theme of President Obama’s speech today at the National Defense University, it was an effort to align himself as publicly as possible with the critics of the positions his administration is taking without undermining his administration’s operational flexibility in actual fact. To put it crassly, the president sought to rebuke his own administration for taking the positions it has—but also to make sure that it could continue to do so.”

Oddly, Ron Paul seems to have judged Obama most harshly from the dovish side:

“The speech speaks of more war and more killing and more interventionism all masked in the language of withdrawal.”

His was libertarian reading:

“President Obama’s speech is not at all what it seems. It is a call for more empire and more power to the executive branch. The president promises that ‘this war, like all wars, must end.’ Unfortunately the war on the American taxpayer never seems to end. But end it will, as we are running out of money.” 

These are strong judgments, apparently determined more by the identity, interests and commitments of the judges than the judged speech. Then again, perhaps Greenwald is right, the alternative judgments could be a function of Obama’s qualities as a politician, able to fulfill the wishes of his supporters and opponents alike.

Yet, I think it is more than this. Obama’s speech is a part of his overall project. He is trying to move common sense away from the assumption of a permanent state of war. The relationship between rhetoric and action is at issue, i.e. our political culture, and the rhetoric clearly was being changed. It was not mere rhetoric.

This was not one of Obama’s beautiful speeches. Rather it was lawyerly, making a case, justifying his administrations policies to date, suggesting immediate and future changes. There are problems.

With his critics, I worry about his drone policies, about lethal attacks outside of war zones. I note that the drone attacks have decreased of late, and that in this speech, he gives a more restricted account of when and how the attacks should proceed, significantly with oversight. But I also note that this was all pretty vague.

I believe with his critics, including Medea Benjamin, the Code Pink activist who disrupted the speech, that the President could probably have done more to realize his stated goal of closing the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and it is far from clear, after the speech, how hard he will push now.

And I worry about the administration’s relationship with the press and its policies on leaks. As a father of a journalist, it was good to hear the President declare: “Journalists should not be at legal risk for doing their jobs.” Yet, I am still concerned by the Obama administrations aggressive policies toward leaks.

Yes, there are reasons to not just applaud the speech. But applaud, I will, because of the fundamental turn Obama made in the speech. He clarified how he understands the threat we now face, and he drew the logical conclusion. The era of permanent war is now over. The post 9/11 Orwellian Winter is coming to an end. Thus spoke the President:

“[T]he current threat — lethal yet less capable al Qaeda affiliates; threats to diplomatic facilities and businesses abroad; homegrown extremists. This is the future of terrorism. We have to take these threats seriously, and do all that we can to confront them. But as we shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.

In the 1980s, we lost Americans to terrorism at our Embassy in Beirut; at our Marine Barracks in Lebanon; on a cruise ship at sea; at a disco in Berlin; and on a Pan Am flight — Flight 103 — over Lockerbie. In the 1990s, we lost Americans to terrorism at the World Trade Center; at our military facilities in Saudi Arabia; and at our Embassy in Kenya. These attacks were all brutal; they were all deadly; and we learned that left unchecked, these threats can grow. But if dealt with smartly and proportionally, these threats need not rise to the level that we saw on the eve of 9/11.

We must define our effort not as a boundless “global war on terror,” but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.”

This is prose not poetry, but crucial. For those on Obama’s left, the significance of this change in official policy may not be perceptible. Obama is trying to get done what they take for granted. But he knows, what they ignore, that a broad fearful public has been convinced by the war metaphor of “the war on terrorism” and that a significant faction of the political establishment is committed to the metaphor. They have to be moved if we are really to move beyond a dark moment in American history, epitomized by the claim that torture was effective “enhanced interrogation.” Obama is doing the moving.

Gingrich, Saxby and Graham, et al, see what Obama is up to, and as with much else, they are engaging in a counterattack. They recognize that big changes are being initiated, and they will do all they can to stop them from happening.

Although there are good reasons to wonder about the detailed connection between the promise of Obama’s speech and the practice of the Obama administration, it is important to nonetheless recognize that a big political change is going on. I think this is a way to understand and criticize recent revelations concerning government surveillance.

As someone who for decades has been kept out of the media-manipulated political conversation and who has had none of his many books reviewed in the mainstream press, despite being published by Cambridge, Princeton and other prestigious presses, I regard my presence in this forum as the equivalent of gate-crashing. Having said that, I see no reason why those who ignore me should want to treat me any better in the future. I have shown my contempt for their orchestrated discussions on whom or what is “conservative.” For thirty years I have argued that the Left enjoys the prerogative of choosing its “conservative” debating partners in the US and in other Western “liberal democracies.” Those it dialogues with are more similar to the gatekeepers, sociologically and ideologically, than they are to those who, like me, have been relegated to the “extreme (read non-cooperative) Right.” At this point I have no objections to creating new categories for “gay conservatives,” “transvestite reactionaries” or any other group the New York Times or National Review decides to reach out to. I consider the terms “conservative” and “liberal” to be empty decoration. They adorn a trivial form of discussion, diverting attention from the most significant political development of our time, namely the replacement of the Marxist by the PC Left.

While the American Right was once geared to fight the “Communist” threat, today’s “conservatives” (yes I am inserting quotation marks for obvious reasons) have capitulated to the post-Communist Left (to which in this country an anachronistic nineteenth-century designation “liberal” has been arbitrarily ascribed). The “conservative movement” happily embraces the heroes and issues of yesterday’s Left, from the cult of Martin Luther King to the defense of “moderate feminism” and Irving Kristol’s confected concept of the “democratic capitalist welfare state” to David Frum’s and Ross Douthat’s praise for gay marriage as a “family value.” When our conservative journalists and talking heads are not engaging in such value-discourses, they do what comes even more naturally, shilling for the GOP. Conservatism and whatever the GOP may be doing at a particular moment to scare up votes have become so intimately associated in the public mind and certainly in the media that there is no longer any recognizable distinction between them.

This party-lining never ceases to amaze me. Earlier this month, I was shocked to learn that a number of Catholic traditionalists, including Robert Bork and Mary Anne Glendon, were lining up to express their enthusiastic support for the establishment Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. None of these newly won enthusiasts, all of whom grossly exaggerate Romney’s “conservatism” as governor of Massachusetts, has to perform his current task to keep a position or to earn money. These eminent GOP advocates are impelled by the desire for conservative respectability, which means first and foremost being a dutiful Republican. This is not surprising since conservatism and the GOP seem to crave respectability equally, which in our time and place can only come with the approval or at least neutrality of the reality-spinners on the other side. It is the post-Marxist Left, which distinguishes that which is sensitive from that which is not, or respectability from extremism.

Even more significantly, the Republican Party has been an utterly corrupting influence on the American Right. The party bosses and spin doctors have pursued an unprincipled form of centrist politics. This revolves around catering to leftward leaning independents, after throwing a few rhetorical bones to the Religious Right during primary season. It is one thing for a person of the Right to prefer a slightly less contemptible party to one that seems even worse; it is another thing to devote oneself heart and soul to a waffling, middling party as the sacred vehicle for achieving one’s high principles.

Were it up to me, I would ban the term “conservative” from our political discourse, the way Germans go after people who sport Nazi-associated symbols. The word in question is misleading and perhaps downright dishonest, particularly when it refers to a social democrat favoring most of what is favored by the Left, but wishing to do leftist projects more slowly while attaching to them such tags as “family values” or “individual initiative.” I am pleased that the GOP opposes Obamacare (so do I). But I doubt it will do much to roll back this costly scheme, the way it did nothing to roll back the Great Society or other additions to the federal welfare state and our oppressive anti-discrimination apparatus since the 1960s. “Conservatism” now means in practice getting back to the year 2008, that is, to the last time the GOP more or less ran our vast administrative state—for their own  patronage use.

As a reference point we might recall that “conservatism” once meant the principled opposition to the French Revolution that arose with Edmund Burke and other critics of the democratic and human rights ideology of the radical revolutionaries of the late eighteenth century. It makes no sense to apply this tag to our “conservatives” and GOP presidential candidates who are seeking to impose French revolutionary principles on the world, if necessary by force of arms. Why would I describe as conservative the exact opposite of what the original conservatives were struggling to resist? Sending American armed forces, rigorously adapted to gay and feminist standards, to spread our global democratic values beyond our shores may be classified according to more than one category. Conservative, however, is certainly not one of them.

Allow me however to substitute, in the fashion of my now deceased friend, Sam Francis, the designation “rightwing” for “conservative.” Whereas “conservative” seems to me as an historian to have little or nothing to do with our historical situation, the less time-conditioned description “rightwing” may still be relevant for us. The Right opposes the Left out of conviction, but what the Left opposes will vary from one age to the next. For example, the authoritarian Right that ruled Spain in the 1950s and 1960s arose to fight the Communist and Anarchist Left. In the US today, the Right is taking a libertarian or decentralist character, because the Left it combats has its power vested in public administration, public education and the culture industry. Needless to say, the cultural-social Left that holds sway today and which has evoked a relatively manageable opposition, is no longer focused on revolutionary socialism or the nationalization of productive forces, except in a very marginal way. This post-Marxist Left advances gay and feminist rights and the self-validation of non-white minorities, and it uses government control and a crusade against discrimination to increase its leverage.

Those who oppose this Left are fighting from a steadily weakening position. They have lost the cultural war to the state, our educational system and MTV; and as the predominantly left-leaning Latino population and the lifestyle Left continues to grow, the real Right and the faux right GOP will be driven into a less and less promising minority status. The only way out of this worsening situation for those who don’t like the direction in which the multiculturalists and our two national parties are pushing us is a vast reduction in federal authority, together with the increase of state and local powers. This will not deliver New York City or San Francisco from the Left, but it will limit the power of New York City to control what goes on in Augusta, Georgia or Ames, Iowa.

The Right should properly assess the mediocrity of its circumstances and work to create enclaves that will allow it to survive in what is likely to be a harsh environment. In this respect, it may be like the Christian kingdoms of Northern Spain that survived the Moorish conquest and which later combined to take back the peninsula it had held before 710. The Right however must now work without the hope of “winning back” a central government it never really held. Appeals to the “people” are equally foolish, since the Right can no longer rally to its banners a majority of America’s residents. The notion, propagated by the neoconservative media, that most Americans are “conservative” or right-leaning,” is meaningless or mendacious. On all social issues, the US has been rushing toward the left for decades, and in 2008, a majority of voters, among whom we have to assume were many “right-leaning” types, gave their support to the most leftist president in US history.

It would also not be advisable for what remains of a serious Right, as opposed to dutiful Republicans or neoconservative zombies, to avoid nationalist postures. Contrary to the hopes of well-meaning populists, nationalist rhetoric is now entirely in enemy hands—and it is likely to stay there. Talk about “national” uniqueness no longer evokes historic communal or cultural identities (to whatever extent it ever did in the US) but a radical leftist vision of global troublemaking. Neoconservatives, aided by the Religious Right, have made American nationalism identical with global democratic imperialism and a view of America as a “propositional nation.” The Right, as opposed to these latter-day Jacobins, should think not about expanding a homogeneous, late modern empire, but about what it can salvage after being routed and marginalized. Survival should be the immediate concern of a non-aligned Right. An America without a Right will become like Western Europe, a population controlled by two variations on the post-Marxist, multicultural Left. This may happen in the US no less than in Germany, France or Sweden, unless the Right can identify its interests and work to gain its own biotope. In this demanding task, it should expect no help from Sean Hannity, Bill Kristol, or Mark Lilla. They are, to repeat the cliché, part of the problem.

The Right (I no longer address “conservatives”) should choose wisely, if it intends to back a presidential candidate. I would urge the Right to reject the defective candidacy of our former Pennsylvania senator, Rick Santorum. Despite his reputation as a “social conservative,” by which is meant traditional Catholic, Santorum has proposed no plan for decentralizing our administrative Behemoth.  And his value mantras are certainly no substitute for such a plan. In foreign policy, Santorum seems to switch roles, going from playing Savonarola at home to proclaiming an American mission to implant human rights everywhere on the planet. His neoconservative ebullition bodes ill if Santorum ever became president, although that does not seem likely.

The least problematic candidate from a rightist perspective is Ron Paul. An outspoken seventy-seven year old candidate, Paul is the least likely to receive the GOP nomination because of his identification with what the GOP was at an earlier point in its checkered history. He holds tenaciously to constitutionalist principles and is averse to ideologically driven interventionism abroad. What may turn off the traditional Right, however, are his libertarian inclinations, appeal to individualism, and his willingness to give outspoken foreign enemies the benefit of the doubt. In an imperfect world from the perspective of the Right, however, Paul seems head and shoulders above his rivals for the nomination. He may in fact be the only (at least nominal) Republican candidate, whose election would not put the Right in an even worse situation than it is now. In the second best of all worlds (the best being that he’d be elected), Paul would send a telling message as a third-party candidate, by making the GOP-neocon nominee suffer a well-deserved defeat. Only once that occurred, would it be possible to reorganize the GOP or build up a third party around the principles of decentralized government and foreign policy retrenchment.

Following developments in the Republican presidential nominating contest the instability of the race is stark. Every political contest involves flawed candidates: how could it be otherwise? But often the public develops a firm sense of the perspective of the candidates and chooses to join a team. As primary campaigns are waged on a state-by-state basis, it is expected that in some realms one candidate will do better than another, but psychiatric mood swings are something else. We saw the politics of allegiance in the competition between Barack and Hillary (and the wormy love apple: imagine our blue dress politics in an Edwards presidency!). In the states of the industrial Midwest, home to Reagan Democrats, Hillary posted strong numbers; Obama was more successful in states not so hard hit by industrial decline, states with a rainbow electorate, and those open to a new type of politics. Soon one knew the metrics of the race, even if the outcome was uncertain. But the Republican campaign upends these rules as voter preferences lurch wildly. This is a campaign year that reminds us of voters’ cultural fickleness – their political ADD. They are watching a reality television show and so are we (Jeff Goldfarb describes his pained reaction in “The Republican Reality Show”). If one is not newly tickled, one turns away. Media narratives set our politics.

We have gazed at candidates, quasi-candidates, and proto-candidates – Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich, and The Donald – dance with the stars. Can parties fire their voters? Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty could have had his turn had he the internal fortitude or cockeyed optimism to recognize that to be dismissed in August might lead to be crowned a year later. If politics were based on a comparison and conflict of ideas, this would be inconceivable.

But American politics has become, as Jeffrey Goldfarb emphasizes, a reality show – adore it, dismiss it, or despise it, but depend on it. Voters demand diversion; they want bread and circuses, at least circuses. Around the scrum are kibitzers, now Sarah Palin and Donald Trump, who, after deciding to disengage, demand that attention be paid. Palin seems committed to pursuing Rush Limbaugh’s 2008 “Operation Chaos,” designed to prolong the Democrats’ primary contest and undercut the eventual nominee. In her case, the fleeting Governor undercuts what is ostensibly her own party as she tells her admirers to vote for Newt to continue debate, and, presumably, her role in it. Our rogue muffin, a mildly progressive governor of a mildly libertarian state, has assumed her role as a mistress of ceremonies of the grand guignol of tabloid politics.

At this moment, after the Florida presidential primary, Mitt Romney seems to have surmounted Newt’s second surge, despite Sarah Palin’s counter-cultural rap to “rage against the machine” by voting for the former speaker. Images, even those of the heavy metal left, are to be plucked by anyone plucky enough to do so. No doubt twists and turns will continue in this drama on the road to Tampa, as voters get bored with the pragmatic lassitude of Mitt, a man who would be Ike or at least Bush 41. Perhaps Ron and Rand Paul will galvanize voters to throw the TSA off the island, raging against those airport scanners and the bureaucratic touch that follows. More plausibly, we might discover that the sad illness of Rick Santorum’s special needs young daughter Bella, now hospitalized in Philadelphia (from the effects of the genetic disorder Trisomy 18), will provide sufficient weepy pathos to propel his candidacy among an electorate weaned on Love Story.

But what if Mitt triumphs? Mitt as nominee poses challenges for an ADD electorate that demands the frisson of thrills and the flutter of delight. Elections in which a President is on the ballot can be referendums or choices. The incumbent hopes that the voters will see the contest as a choice. The challenger, particularly in parlous economic times, hopes for a judgment of the sitting leader. Despite his deep pockets, if Romney is the Republican nominee, Obama will provide the only electricity in the room. He will be the Ozzy Osborne, Paris Hilton, and Kim Kardashian of October. Perhaps Mitt Romney will find it difficult to energize his base, but Barack Obama will achieve that for him. With Newt on the ballot, the choice will be stark, but with tame, vague Mitt, the election might be a referendum. Our ADD electorate will have to determine the narrative of the moment on that first Tuesday in November. On that day will the president be imagined a Greek naïf, an acolyte of Fidel, or the Great Leader of the resurgent East? Or is being an American Idol enough?

Republican ideological excess and disintegration were in clear view in Iowa. New Hampshire suggested that this would likely lead to a weakened Romney candidacy. Now, the South Carolina results raise doubts about Romney’s inevitability. This was widely discussed yesterday among media pundits of various political stripes. But I think that more importantly the results highlight the sad state of the political culture of the right. They also enrich my judgment of how the general election will look.

The competing candidates represented disintegrating components of the right. Santorum is the value conservative, appealing to the working class, what remains of the Reagan Democrats. Ron Paul is the libertarian anti-statist, as the purist appealing especially to the young. Romney is the capitalist, the Republican of big business, once identified as moderate or even liberal (Romney’s father), now identified unsteadily as conservative. And Newt Gingrich is the Republican of resentment, more expressive of anger than of a clear reasoned position.

Gingrich, the demagogue, prevailed. He not so obliquely is the candidate of racist attack, as he rails against Obama as “the food stamp president.” He is the anti-elitist, denouncing the liberal media, and the Washington and New York establishments, proclaiming himself to be “the Reagan populist conservative.” Yet, Reagan created his coalition through the force of his positive personality, while Gingrich, in South Carolina, put together his primary victory with his personal negativity.

In response to my last post on the Republican primary season, Michael Corey challenged me, and Deliberately Considered readers, to take seriously Romney’s speech after he won the New Hampshire primary, to understand what Romney was presenting as the alternative to Obama’s policies. I think he misunderstood me. I recognize that Romney is presenting alternatives, as are Paul and Santorum. I welcome posts and responses explaining and supporting these positions. Wall Street, libertarian and value conservatives do have positive, but largely incompatible views. I judged, though, that the only thing that holds the Republicans together now is the emotional rejection of Obama. This was confirmed in South Carolina in the Gingrich victory.

I doubt Gingrich will be the Republican nominee, but he will have a huge effect on the 2012 general election, nonetheless. If he is the candidate, we will observe the power and limits of the grandiose, of the ideological, of the demagogic. If he is not the candidate, Romney, Rick Santorum, or perhaps someone not yet in the race, perhaps even as Gary Alan Fine hopes chosen in a brokered convention, will have to pay tribute to the demagogue and the forces he represents. And I am convinced the results are likely to be defeat for the Republicans. The election will be between fear and the common sense, and I am convinced that common sense will prevail. Call me an optimist.

The primary results in New Hampshire Tuesday night point toward the general election campaign. Romney will be the (uninspiring) Republican candidate. As he runs against “Obama’s failed presidency,” many conservatives will wonder whether there really is a choice. Ron Paul will probably not run as an independent libertarian, but his supporters will have to judge, in their terms, whether a big government Republican is really preferable to a big government Democrat. Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum will dutifully follow the leader, but working class Republicans, or as they used to be called Reagan Democrats, will harbor their doubts concerning the representation of their economic or moral interests.  Republican unity, if not enthusiasm, will focus on the negative, the rejection of Barack Obama, but the 2010 Republican emotional advantage, which is very important in politics, as Jim Jasper has explored here, is finished.

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Recent posts and discussions at Deliberately Considered have been about fundamental problems in contemporary democratic culture: the need to engage in political discussion beyond clichés, the consequences of the persistence of modern magical political thinking, and the danger of transition to dictatorship from democracy. It makes me think about the state of the right and the left and the ideal of a contested political center.

Ideology has not ended, to my dismay (as I reported in my New Year’s post). People believe that they have the truth in politics in a variety of different forms, on the left and right, in the U.S. and globally. In a strange mirroring of Socrates, who confirmed that he was the wisest of men because he “knew that he didn’t know,” contemporary ideologues know that their opponents don’t know. Opponents don’t only think differently but incorrectly, politically incorrect. Material interests, character, moral failure and ignorance are used to explain the other’s mistaken position. Alternative views are dismissed instead of confronted. True believing market fundamentalists know that the problem of the economy will be solved through de-regulation. They will not pay attention to the arguments and evidence of those who explain how such de-regulation is the cause of our global economic crisis. Those who are sure that capitalism is the root of all evil won’t pay attention to those who examine how all attempts to construct a systemic alternative to capitalism in the last century have ended in economic and political failure. It is not the convictions that I find disturbing. It is the unwillingness of people to actually take into account the insights and evidence of those with whom they disagree.

Thus, I think that Gary Alan Fine’s imagined magazine is not only a matter of idiosyncratic taste. As he put it in his recent post:

“I hold to a somewhat eccentric contention that there are smart liberals (neo- and old-timey, pink and pinker), conservatives (neo- and paleo-), progressives, reactionaries, socialists, libertarians, and more. Is my generosity so bizarre?”

No, not at all bizarre. I think there is a pressing need for Fine’s generosity, that we need deliberate debate about the problems of our times, drawing upon diverse opinions and orientations. It is my hope that over the coming months Deliberately Considered becomes more and more like the magazine of Fine’s dreams. Indeed, I think we have from the start been moving in this direction.

“People reside in gated communities of knowledge.” Fine notes. I trust we contribute to opening the gates, a place for serious discussion about the problems of our times. The pungent political speech that Fine sometimes enjoys, though, from Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and company, is not particularly welcome. This is not the place for shouting heads. I suppose Fine would be fine with that.

It is with my concerns about true-believing and the need to take into account the positions of those with whom I disagree that I reported my response to the Iowa caucuses. I don’t want the eventual Republican nominee to win the election. This is my partisan position, not only because I support President Obama, but also because I think there is a fundamental crisis on the right in our times, which has not yet been addressed. A shellacking would help. I think there are real signs that a day of reckoning is upon us. I think the fissure in the Republican Party, clearly revealed in its primary campaign for the Republican Presidential nomination, is a hopeful sign. Thus, Michael Corey in his response to my post misunderstands me. My point is not that the Republicans are fighting with each other, therefore my candidate will win, or my position will prevail. Rather, my point is that the odd combination of the Reagan coalition, including true-believing free market, neo and Christian conservatives, along with Main and Wall Street moderates, is breaking down, and that this is good not only for Democrats, but also for Republicans, and for the Republic. I understand that Romney will likely win the primary campaign and that he may even defeat Obama. But the lack of enthusiasm for Mitt underscores that the coherence of Reaganism, with its unexamined dogmatisms, is at last over. The only thing that now holds it together is an extremely dark force, hatred of Barack Hussein Obama.

I agree with Lisa Aslanian in her reply to my post, in which she emphasizes the dangers of hatred. I also agree with her that Obama’s opposition enflamed by hatred could conceivably persist into his second term. But I suggest that the power of hatred, like the power of love, has its limits. I think the limits of Obamaphobia are already evident, as the President is taking the initiative against the Republicans (more on this in a later post). I also think his new tough turn does make an appeal to OWS and Ron Paul skeptics (as Lisa desires). My hope, which is pitched against hopelessness, is that those who are committed to libertarian principles, conservative morals and the wisdom of habit and custom, learn to proceed with their commitments in a less dogmatic fashion. A reinvention of Republican political culture is something that is pressingly needed. Such reinvention is already ongoing among Democrats, led by Obama, as I explore in Reinventing Political Culture.

Scott in his reply to my Iowa post ends with the assertion that we are all liberals. I assume he is referring to the legacies of 19^th century liberal thought, that unites present day conservatives, i.e. free market liberals, and progressives, i.e. those who think that state interventions are necessary to assure individual opportunity, along with those who want to keep the government out of the bedroom, along with those who want to keep it out of the market. While I think Scott is making an important point, there are also many who are motivated by principles outside the liberal tradition, as I am sure he realizes. Some conservatives believe in the priority of community, tradition, religion and an inherited order. Among the Republican Presidential hopefuls, this is the emphasis of Rick Santorum. And, of course, there are those who are in principle socialist, as well. Although the self-proclaimed socialists are rare in American society at large, they are quite common in the academic world. In fact, while I am extremely skeptical that there is a systemic socialist alternative to capitalism, I do think that socialism is an important principled position within a democratic society with a modern economy, a real utopia that suggests that the way things are now is not the way they will always be. Vince Carducci has been developing this position in his posts here.

Rather than declaring that we are all liberals, I would suggest that we all should be democrats and republicans, in favor of a free public life and rule of the people, committed as we are to competing partisan positions. I imagine Deliberately Considered contributing to this, in its small way, at least as an exemplar. Crucial to this is having a center where left and right meet, for common debate and action, for deliberate consideration.

Final note: This past week I posted a letter authored by former dissident activists, key figures of the democratic opposition to Communism in Hungary, expressing their deep concern on the recent developments in their country. The post attracted a wide global readership. Later this week we will follow through with a series of reflections on the course democracy is taking in that specific Central European country as seen by critical observers in another country in that region, Poland. We also will be taking stock of the developing American political drama. Comparing developments there and here, I trust, will highlight the importance of a free public for democratic culture and also provide us an opportunity to understand the fragility of democracy.

I have made this editorial decision because I am not an optimist. While I take it as my intellectual project to illuminate hopeful alternatives to the prevailing unjust order of things, I think it is important to realize that dangers loom.  The path from democracy to dictatorship is not only a danger in Hungary.

It’s déjà vu all over again, a nursery rhyme with a political twist.

“The Republican Party sat on the wall. The Republican Party had a great fall. All the Party horses and all the Party men couldn’t put the Party back together again.”

Last night in the Iowa caucuses, the Reagan revolution died before our eyes, and no one seems to be noticing. The fundamental components of the Republican Party, forged together by Ronald Reagan in1980, are no longer part of a whole, ripped apart by the Tea Party and its unintended consequences. The only thing that may keep the party going is hatred of Barack Obama.

“Reaganism” was never a coherent position. It involved tensions that were unified by the power of Reagan’s sunny televisual personality.

In 1991, in The Cynical Society, I observed:

“The ‘conservative mood’ was not a … natural creation. It was constructed … by Reagan himself…his package brought together a new combination of symbols and policies…Fetal rights, a balanced-budget amendment, advanced nuclear armaments, tax and social-welfare cuts, and anti-communism do not necessarily combine. Reagan combined them.

As the satirical columnist, Russell Baker glibly put it, some supported Reagan so that he could be Reagan (the ideologues – this was the well-known refrain of the New Right), others supported him so that he could be the Gipper (the nice guy) he portrayed in an old Hollywood football film. But both sorts of supporters, who were fundamentally in conflict, created the new conservative mood. They constituted the Reagan mandate. Reagan did not represent a diverse constituency. He created it as the political majority.”

Neo-conservatives concerned then about the Communist threat, now are concerned with Islamofascism. Christian moralists, libertarians and corporate conservatives conflict on many issues. Reagan minimized this through his media presentation of self in political life.

The coalition persisted through the one term presidency of Reagan’s vice president, George H. W. Bush and his son’s Presidency, George W., who also used a down home personality to win a contested election and then fear as the basis of his re-election. But now the grand Reagan coalition of the Grand Old Party is falling apart. The Tea Party has radicalized Republican rhetoric, and atomized its political positions, making the coalition impossible.

The tepid front-runner status of Romney, combined with the persistent strength of “not Romney,” is a clear indication of the present state of affairs. Yesterday, Romney couldn’t break through his glass ceiling, only 25% of the vote. The religious right coalesced around Rick Santorum, and Ron Paul revealed his libertarian power. Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry lost because of their substantial political weaknesses, while Newt Gingrich, the object of relentless attacks, promised to attack in turn in New Hampshire. There is serious contestation, with foundational disagreements. The thing that holds these disparate politicians together is a common rejection of Barack Obama, which has dark undertones, strikingly different from the lightness of Reagan’s personality.

The talking heads have noted the likely practical result: there will be a longer primary season that might have been. It may take some time for Romney to seal the deal, though he still will seal it. The election will be between Romney and Obama, with the vaunted enthusiasm for the right greatly diminished. Romney lacks both the clear convictions and the personality that Reagan had to keep the coalition together. Paul may run as a third party candidate. True believers, Christian conservatives along with libertarians, will probably continue to doubt Romney’s conservative bona fides. And there are just not that many neo-conservatives and corporate conservatives. The Republicans are falling apart.

Barbara Ehrenreich posted a witty note on her Facebook page yesterday that went viral:

“In a race between a white supremacist, an advocate of child labor, a couple of raving homophobes and an empty suit, there can be no “winner,” so please don’t bother trying to wake me with the news.”

I think Ehrenreich needs to wake up. The Republican Party is one of the two parties in this institutionalized system, with a distinguished past. Its twists and turns, its rise and fall, will determine what is possible in the United States, as well as what is impossible. This has been quite clear since the election of President Obama. Imagine where we would be if he had a loyal opposition. And it will continue to be true if Obama wins yet again, which I think is likely.

My conclusion: the Republicans are at the brink of disarray. They could conceivably prevail in the November elections, but if they do, there would be a contradictory mandate, Reaganism beyond Reagan, with fear and hatred holding it together. More likely, after the Iowa caucuses, will be the re-election of President Obama, with a disorganized opposition permitting him to operate more freely. That, along with a social movement pushing him forward, making “change we can believe in” likely. But then again,  maybe I am being a bit too optimistic.

But summer ‘11 is different. Unlike most Julys, this is not the Silly Season. The fresh crop of Republicans has that most dire of all political virtues: sincerity. It is not that these freshmen are insane or are terrorists, as flame-throwers on the poetic left suggest. Rather they share a perspective on government that, even if it is not always explicitly or candidly presented, is certainly a legitimate view of how a quasi-libertarian state should be organized. As boisterous tea party rebels, they are children of Ron Paul and, with less intellectual gravitas, of Milton Friedman. It is the task of Speaker John Boehner to hide their deep desires – currently unlikely to be enacted – from the public. These politicians wish broad principled cuts. Call them “radical” if you reject them, but, after all, this rhetoric mirrors the self-enhancing distinction: I am firm, but she is stubborn. As the Speaker’s plans evolve, it is increasingly unclear when and where these billions of cuts will derive. One can’t but imagine that this is a shell game with the American public as the marks. Boehner is the adult in the room, but like so many parents, he tries to misdirect his offspring’s attention hoping against hope that the promises will be forgotten.

Still, there is no doubt that whoever wins this financial drama (and it may prove to be a lose/lose opportunity, benefiting only gold bugs), the libertarian right has won the rhetorical debate. The President and Harry Reid are playing on the Tea Party turf, even if they are attempting to con without being caught. There are a lot of things that might describe the whole debate, and mendacity is surely high among them. Majority Leader Harry Reid’s ploy to count planned defense reductions as new cuts was too clever by half, unpersuasive to all and revealing just how much he scorns the Tea Party rubes.

But ultimately it all comes down to the President. Despite his intelligence, Obama has revealed himself to be, unlike Carter or Clinton, a man who prefers to out-source economic policy to those with partisan interests. This was the tragedy of the Stimulus Package (Porkulus, as christened on talk radio). Rather than use the stimulus for a grand civic purpose, such as rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, the money was sprinkled about, landing on the desks of tenured faculty to support their research assistants, as well as for other cheery, but not quite essential, purposes. Perhaps it prevented a Depression, but in contrast to FDR’s alphabet agencies, the country looks no different now that the money is spent.

And this brings us to our grave week. It is fair to speak of balance, but what does this mean? We have a clearer sense of how Obama would increase revenues, raising tax rates on those millionaires and billionaires earning over $200,000. “Today this planless plan seems burdened as public policy by its absence of detail.” But we know less where and when, specifically, he would cut. Might 2017 be a good place to start? Is this more smoke and mirrors, more peas and shells. For this reason Congressional Republicans argue, sensibly from where they sit, that the cuts must occur now, there must be spending caps in place, and a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget be sent to the states. Once burned, twice shy. Ten times burned, we don’t shy from financial calamity.

Today the adults in the room are all wearing capes, waving wands, and pulling rabbits from hats. But the kids have seen it all before. What they hope for, but are unlikely to receive, is reality television. The Tea Party movement was sparked by Rick Santelli’s rant on CNBC, and perhaps it will be on that same financial channel where we will all end. Promises are no longer enough for those who have been plied with – and played as – suckers. Now is the time for the adults to tell what will be cut and how will we verify. Today it is the adults who are playing games.

In his remarks to the nation last night on the way forward in Afghanistan,  the leadership style of President Obama was on full view. He presented a clear rational position, addressing immediate concerns with precision and subtlety, placing a simple decision about the pace of troop withdrawals in a larger historical context. It was rhetorically elegant. It was, from a strictly formal point of view, a satisfying speech. It was substantively, though, challenging, concerning immediate military, political and economic calculations.

I watched the address having earlier in the week attended a local organizing meeting of “Organizing for America” (which will soon again become “Obama for America”). The attendees included those who are realistically pleased with Obama’s Presidency, and those who were once enthusiastic, but are now skeptical. I thought about both the skeptics and the realists watching the speech.

An anti-war activist was particularly concerned about Obama’s war policies. To his mind, Obama has continued Bush’s approach, with variations on a deeply problematic theme. While he had listened carefully during the campaign to Barack Obama, as the candidate promised to withdraw from the bad war in Iraq so that we could fight the good fight in Afghanistan, he has still been disappointed by that war’s escalation. He predicted that Obama would announce a minuscule reduction of forces. I recall: 5,000 this summer and 10,000 in a year. He didn’t believe that a real change in direction of an overly militarized foreign policy would be forthcoming.

The announced troop reductions more than double my neighbor’s expectation. But I suspect that he is not satisfied. After all, the announced withdrawal of 33,000 troops by the end of next summer will still leave twice as many troops in Afghanistan than at the beginning of the Obama administration. The Congressional Democrats who are criticizing Obama’s decision are representing broad public judgment that enough is enough in Afghanistan. I should add that I share this judgment.

There were of course no strong opponents of the President at our meeting. Although it is noteworthy that the first meeting I went to in support of Obama near my home in 2007 was hosted by a Republican who was not only fed up with the Presidency of George W. Bush, but also enchanted by the Obama magic. Be that as it may, had there been Republicans at our meeting, their response to the President’s speech would likely have been muted, as was the Republican response on the central political stage.

Generally, the dominant Republican line was that Obama didn’t listen to the Generals, and that he is too aggressively withdrawing, not sufficiently supporting the troops, threatening to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. But Republicans are far from unanimous in this judgment. Notably, two candidates in the Republican race to replace Obama, Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman, are calling for a more rapid withdrawal than the President proposed.

Yet, there is the question about the military soundness of the withdrawal. The active military will soldier on, as Admiral Mullen indicated in his testimony to Congress today. They will accept their orders and work to achieve their mission. Yet, it is pretty clear that this was a decision that they do not think was ideal, wanting more troops for a longer period of time as indicated in a powerful op. ed. piece by Robert Kagan this afternoon in the Washington Post. Its title provocatively summarized its argument “Military Leaders Know Obama’s Decision is a Disaster.” Kagan argues, along with many others, that the decision to withdraw 33,000 troops by the end of next summer, a few months before the elections, is a raw political move, having no military justification. And he also judges that this is a political calculation that could backfire, “If the war is going badly in the summer and fall of 2012, it will be because of the decision the president made this week.” And, Obama will pay politically.

Obama has again positioned himself in the center, trying to please his base while still appealing to the broad public. And the instant punditry seemed to agree, at least as of last night, that he was likely to get the worst of both worlds. He is trying to satisfy the broad desire of Americans to end our longest war and to focus our nation building energies on our own country, answering the call of the nation’s mayors to end our wars abroad so that we can address our pressing domestic problems, while properly defending the nation against security threats. He is in danger of satisfying no one in his decision. And as the cliché goes: “only time will tell” how unsuccessful his move will be.

At this point, I think about the realists at the local organizing meeting, me among them. At the meeting there were concerns expressed about the health care law. He was too soft in his bargaining, compromised too readily, got much less than he could have. But on the other hand, the realist majority realized that this reform was a major achievement.  Great and powerful presidents and congresses didn’t achieve this, while the leadership of President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid did. With the President’s leadership, there was also a significant, if insufficient, stimulus package, financial reform and changed position in the regard, standing and leadership of the United States in the larger world. Each of these accomplishments in the short term looks insufficient, but imagining what our situation would be like without them, at least for these pro-Obama partisans, makes it clear not only who they will vote for, but also who they will work for, with enthusiasm. Each of these marks a long term trajectory that is quite different than if they had not been enacted. The long view underscores the nature of these accomplishments and also I think the significance of yesterday’s decision and speech.

I repeat what I have written a number of times already in my DC posts. Obama is a committed centrist, dedicated to changing the nature of the center in a progressive fashion. In this case, he is working to demilitarize, or more precisely diminish the military emphasis of, our foreign policy, and to making it more multilateral. And he knows that this must be accomplished step by step. Thus the key passage in his speech in my opinion was when he explained his centrist vision.

“Already this decade of war has caused many to question the nature of America’s engagement around the world.  Some would have America retreat from our responsibility as an anchor of global security, and embrace an isolation that ignores the very real threats that we face.  Others would have America over-extended, confronting every evil that can be found abroad.

We must chart a more centered course.  Like generations before, we must embrace America’s singular role in the course of human events.  But we must be as pragmatic as we are passionate; as strategic as we are resolute.  When threatened, we must respond with force –- but when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas.”

Withdraw from wild adventures, as quickly as is possible, serving national interests. Engage the world with others as a matter of principle. Don’t overextend, but don’t bury heads in the sand. President Obama is clearly attempting to change the direction of American global engagements, and he said so last night.

I suspect the realists at our Obama meeting were pleased with this, as I am. But I should add, I am also critical and skeptical about the nature of American power. I am more critical than Barack Obama is about the role the United States has played in global affairs. But then again, I am a professor, writing for this webzine, while he is a political leader of the super power. And Max Weber had it right. Politics and scholarship are different vocations.

I am allergic to political gatherings. You are not likely to discover me at movement rallies, rubber-chicken circuit banquets, or victory parties (more commonly weep-in-your-drink defeatathons). I treasure the quietude of the old voting booths where one could think one’s civic thoughts while surrounded by worn fabric. I enjoyed the experience so much that I annually decided to change at least one intended vote just because that choice would mean that casting a ballot was an act of deliberation.

Still, nineteen years ago on a bright September afternoon, I made my way to the train station in Norcross, Georgia, near where I resided at the time. That day Al Gore was coming to town. I no longer recall whether Gore was riding a whistle-stop train or merely using the station as a nostalgic background. Given Atlanta’s transportation mess, I imagine it was the latter. The idea of rearranging my schedule to hear Senator Gore declaim might seem an act of perversity, or at least desperation.

But it was not. It was lovely and sweet and purposive, not only because of the flags and the band and National gemeinschaft and Southern gemutlichkeit. Without yelling, Al Gore was eloquent, passionate and true. At least true enough for campaign purposes. I left persuaded that the order of the Democrats’ 1992 ticket should be reversed. I voted standing on my head.

I tell this tale because of current discussions of Indiana’s Mitch Daniels and Minnesota’s Timothy James Pawlenty, both of whom being regarded as a bit wonkish and “Gorish.” Apparently Daniels homelife was slightly Gothic, and he decided that he could miss the attentions of Perez Hilton, Gail Collins, Larry Flynt, and Matt Drudge, but T-Paw has decided to make a go of it. It is too early to trek to a local rail station, if there are any stations left, but from what I have heard, T-Paw is, despite his nickname, a serious man.

The web is filled with accounts questioning whether one so measured can be measured as presidential timber. In competition with Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Herman Cain, and Michele Bachmann – not to mention a certain raging rogue elephant with fire in her belly – seriousness, modesty, and respect is a virtue in the public sphere. Presidential Obama, of whom some liberals despair, seemingly unwilling to rise to the heavens or sink to the mud, also seems rhetorically appealing.

I have previously written with some warmth of a lusty, rugged, prickly political discourse which does not always observe kindly civility. But there should be a distinction between those who critique and those who wish to lead, a division between fire and nice. And even these so-called boring candidates are not above throwing a few good jabs amidst all the clarity. Certainly Gore did on that afternoon, and so too do Governor Pawlenty and President Obama. Some red meat is healthy for a rhetorical meal, just as long as one abjures the political equivalent of a Paleo-diet (all raw moose). I call for a candidate with a core of commitment to public debate and to political process. Yes, a candidate who is passionate about values and goals, but also one who recognizes that one’s opponents are similarly and properly passionate.

And so without any endorsement, I am glad that good-ol’-worn-sock Tim Pawlenty is running for president. I am glad that he has a vision, however imperfect it might be, just as the same could be said for the pre-Clintonized Al Gore. Many reasons might be adduced as to why a Vice-President will never be the President. Failures have many fathers, but I have long felt that part of what doomed the Gore candidacy was that by 2000 he lost sight of the willingness to take us seriously and to speak in themes that made us consider, not just proposing bubba-Redux.

We will be blessed, if, as the Republican nominating process heats up, it doesn’t incinerate those candidates whose quieter, clever, wiser voices we need, even if, in the end, we determine that the incumbent has the edge. Let us hope for an election in which our decision will not be certain until we close the curtain of the musty, old voting booth.