Democratic Fatalism and the New Year

Commentary Magazine ^ | 31 DECEMBER 2014 | Seth Mandel

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Josef Joffe begins his book The Myth of America’s Decline by noting that the concept of national decline “is as American as apple pie, the theme antedating the birth of the American Republic. Already before the founding, America was doomed, as some towering figures of the French Enlightenment claimed.” And while 2014 certainly had its fair share of challenges—the media was still botching scandals right up to the year’s final moments—the end of each year seems to bring out a certain pessimism in democratic polities, having spent the past twelve months yelling at each other about all manner of things they will soon forget. This year was no different, offering up some apocalyptic fatalism that seems to be the West’s specialty.

Both right and left tend to see the end of democracy looming, but the right usually focuses on on the presidency while the left sees the actual practice of representative democracy as evidence of its death throes. That’s how we got the strange scene of the American left mourning democracy while in control of most of the government (a control they’ve since partially squandered, and acting like a doomsday cult hasn’t helped). And that also seems to be the force behind historian Jared Diamond’s bizarre end of year op-ed in the L.A. Times claiming that partisan gridlock—that is, two strong national parties—will somehow lead to a Chilean-style dictatorship. Here’s Diamond:

When the armed forces finally launched their coup and imposed a right-wing dictatorship, it initially received broad support from centrist Chileans, frustrated by years of government gridlock and the declining Chilean economy. Moderate Chileans reasoned that the military dictatorship would be just a brief transitional stage necessary to restore functional democracy to Chile.

Chile is by no means the only place where government gridlock and breakdown of political compromise led ultimately to military dictatorship, the end of democracy and (in some cases) civil war. Examples include Egypt today, Indonesia in 1957, Spain in the late 1930s and Austria just before the Nazi era.

Diamond is perhaps relying on readers’ foggy memories of the latter three of those poorly constructed parallels, but how Diamond thought he could convince a single reader that the modern Egyptian military government came about because of the “breakdown of political compromise” is beyond me. Nonetheless, this does do the reader the service of establishing that the basis of Diamond’s prophecy of doom is bad history. A sigh of relief is therefore in order.

Skepticism should thus be well established by the time Diamond gets around to warning that a revolutionary coup is possible here because:

Already, plenty of Americans are asserting the right to carry guns in previously unlikely places (such as in schools and government offices). Already, they are forming private militias for purposes such as patrolling the Mexican border and protecting a claimed right to graze cattle on federal lands. Again, when private citizen militias already carry guns for those purposes, it’s “just” a matter of expanding the scope of an established principle to use guns for other purposes.

Studying history has enabled Diamond to understand virtually any country but his own. Anyone who believes the Second Amendment is a recipe for tyranny rather than its preventive prescription is unfamiliar with the constitutional order he is maligning.

It isn’t only American democracy that is supposedly being pulled under. Over in Israel, the emergence of numerous copycat Jeremiahs is the Israeli left’s new hipsterism. In a recent Tablet essay, the Israeli writer Etgar Keret has taken on the voice of the bus-station sermonizer. This is because of “the provocative entrance of Jewish families into Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and the no less provocative visit of a right-wing Knesset member to the Temple Mount,” not to mention the “Jewish state bill,” as it’s known.

You’ll notice that Keret is upset not by antidemocratic action—in fact, he is upset by the degradation of an anti-Jewish segregationist status quo and a Jewish state bill that is provocative and probably unnecessary but surely not antidemocratic by any stretch of the imagination—but by what we in democracies often refer to as political disagreement. Keret has anticipated this objection to his thesis. He writes:

A situation in which a citizen believes in a particular administration and gets a different one is common and normal in all democratic countries. But there are less frequent, more difficult moments when a voter feels that the elected administration not only doesn’t represent his views, but doesn’t represent the spirit of his people either.

Let us pause to appreciate the spectacular irony and the paper-thin skin of the Israeli left. Israel was a one-party state run according to Keret’s ideological currents for thirty years beginning with its founding. Yet five years of a Likud-led coalition—which included Labor at the outset and Tzipi Livni before its collapse—has robbed Keret of his equilibrium. He has an active imagination, which is good for a writer. But he also has a sense of partisan entitlement that is woefully unbecoming for an adult.

Here, as a refresher for Keret and his ilk, is how Yehuda Avner, advisor to several prime ministers over his career, described the Israeli government in its early years: “Every major public establishment in those days was a padlocked fiefdom of Mapai”—the Labor movement’s early incarnation. It kept an “absolute grip” on political power, constituting “the natural ruling class of Israel.” Its members “filled the ranks of the civil service, the city halls, the local councils, the university senates, the officer corps, the industrial plants, and every other signifiant job on offer.”

According to Avner, it was more than a political movement; it was decidedly personal: “Mapainiks married into each other’s families, supported each other, appointed each other, and kept outsiders outside.” Now, is it possible that a disciple of, say, Menachem Begin or another right-leaning Israeli might have felt marginalized by his country when it was run this way for three decades? I would imagine so. Yet the country held together, achieving its full democratic potential when this monopoly on power was finally broken.

There is no such monopoly on power in Israel today. And yet Keret and his likeminded leftists have precisely the opposite problem of Jared Diamond. Whereas the latter has internalized world history and now sees it recurring everywhere he looks, Keret has no sense of history whatsoever. And so he sees political disagreement as a sign of the authoritarian apocalypse. Politically, he has been on the fringe, since a wide-ranging and (until now) steady coalition has represented a majority of the country, and he claims not to even recognize their beliefs as consistent with the spirit of the Israelis.

This too shall pass. And Diamond and Keret will look back on their dire warnings with a chuckle and hopefully some humility. When the West rings in the new year, they will find democracy right where they left it.

[BenLurkin]

Once “progressives” are voted into power, they never want to allow the democratic process to unseat them. And usually subvert or destroy that process in order to remain in power.

[headstamp 2]

“According to Avner, it was more than a political movement; it was decidedly personal: “Mapainiks married into each other’s families, supported each other, appointed each other, and kept outsiders outside.”

[stubernx98]

We will slide into an Oligarchy. Just check the Lafer Curve. When a country starts spending more than 17% of GNP, the economy declines, taxes go up to feed the expanding government. We are now at about 25%. When Obama started, it was at 19%.

The problem is that 17% of the people are Influencers, that is the Lawyers, Politicians, Entertainers, Journalists, They get their ego satisfaction by controlling others. The are personable, likable and dress well. Lousy at management, delegating, but good con artists.

65% of the people fall into the compliant and Security oriented folks. that's where the doctors, engineers, carpenters etc are. They worry about their lives, and could care less about politics. they are the go along get along crowd.

Then there is the results oriented folks, 17%, they get their ego satisfaction by getting things done, they are impatient, good delegators, and measure you on results.

I have simplified this big time as there is 9 categories. I have tested over 1,000 people.

So, we will follow in the same pattern as have countries through out history.

Human brains are very messy. Then there is Transference - that is when you hit your thumb with the hammer and blame the hammer.