Andrew Sullivan: America's left surrenders itself to the giant sulk

The need to rebel is something most of us have felt at one or more points in our lives. There are, indeed, moments when a country or society become so oppressively of one mind that a feisty individualist feels hard put not to start screaming in the streets. So you have to feel at least a little sympathy for the American left in the wake of September 11. This has been a very, very hard period, and the strains are beginning to show.

Sure, thousands of people were killed, but the tragedy didn’t stop there. After all, the loathed President George W Bush performed quite well in the aftermath, overthrew the Taliban and saw his ratings jump. Patriotism — the display of which nauseates the left-wing intelligentsia — proliferated from suburb to inner city. Military budgets went up and presidential speeches became rallying cries again. And all this happened just when the left was licking its chops at the prospect of eviscerating a man it regarded as an illegitimate, unelected, moronic puppet of evil corporate interests.

Some leftwingers went undercover; others blurted out what they truly felt (that America deserved to get bloodied) only to find public derision so intense they retreated to their bunkers. And then a happy few decided — what the hell? — that with little to lose, they might as well go further and not only call Bush illegitimate, but the war on terror a convenient excuse to ratchet up defence spending, rape the environment and give Donald Rumsfeld the political version of Viagra.

Exhibit A in the latter category is one Michael Moore. His new book, Stupid White Men, has soared to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Moore is best known as the director of a documentary about redundancies, Roger and Me. The film mocked both corporate leaders and the ordinary Americans naive enough to believe that hard work might bring them financial rewards and a leg up the social hierarchy.

This general belief in the inherent iniquity of American capitalism, the evil of all corporations, and the elite conspiracies to defraud ordinary Americans are all classic tropes of the paranoid American left, and Moore endorses every single one of them. There’s almost a beauty in the way he backs up every left-wing prejudice, from hatred of successful white people, to hostility to car owners, the ability to drop Sweden into every argument about the welfare state, and the notion that capitalism is always a zero-sum game in which every gain for the rich is always a loss for the poor.

Alongside this theological zeal goes a general belief in the idiocy and indolence of most Americans, and the stupidity and malevolence of their leaders. If you’re a Guardian reader, this book’s for you.

There’s no point in seeking a coherent thread through Moore’s book — it’s a rant, a series of rhetorical explosions, fantasies and occasional facts that build upon each other through repetition rather than logic. The notions that evil corporations, for example, actually employ and help people, or that shares in them enrich others, are nowhere entertained. It is also a given in Moore’s universe that, despite exhaustive media recounts that have found no such thing, Bush lost the election and his presidency is illegitimate.

But Moore is equally furious at the Democrats. He describes Bill Clinton as one of the most successful Republican presidents in recent years. His contempt for Al Gore, despite believing in his election victory, is arguably more intense than his antipathy to Bush.

“Friends,” he belabours, “when are we going to stop kidding ourselves? Clinton, and most other contemporary Democrats, did not and will not do what is best for us or the world we live in. We don’t pay their bill — the top 10% do, and it is their will that will always be done. I know you already know this; it’s just hard to say it because the alternative looks so much like . . . Dick Cheney.”

Moore’s argument, like that of most purist class-war leftists, is therefore oddly disempowering. He’s always calling for some sort of mass revolution, but there is no institution capable of delivering it that isn’t already corrupted by Moore’s exacting standards.

He supported a purist left-wing candidate in 2000, Ralph Nader, who took enough votes from Al Gore to hand George Bush the Oval Office. His desire to turn the United States into the Netherlands overnight makes his politics more than a little quixotic. So his politics become a little like the politics of the far right under Bill Clinton — an endless tirade designed to appeal solely to those who already agree, offering no tangible alternative to the current system. Moore’s politics are, in the words of Philip Roth, “the combination of embitterment and not thinking”.

There is also barely a mention in Moore’s book about the current war on terrorism. You can understand why. It raises questions the left simply doesn’t want to answer. Was the American intervention in Afghanistan, which many leftists opposed, a liberating mission after all? How can leftists bemoan the removal of an oppressive, sexist, homophobic tyranny? But how at the same time could they support a war conducted by a president inimical to their beliefs and interests? On the opposite side of the spectrum between reason and unreason, the eminent liberal political theorist Michael Walzer has just written an essay worrying about exactly this kind of leftist surrealism. Unlike Moore, he’s less concerned with a form of purist performance art than how the left can actually change America, if it hates her so.

“The truth is,” Walzer writes, “the guilt produced by living in such a country and enjoying its privileges makes it impossible to sustain a decent (intelligent, responsible, morally nuanced) politics. Maybe festering resentment, ingrown anger and self-hate are the inevitable result of the long years spent in fruitless opposition to the global reach of American power. Certainly, all those emotions were plain to see in the left’s reaction to September 11, in the failure to register the horror of the attack, the barely concealed glee that the imperial state had finally got what it deserved.”

This anti-American nihilism is exactly what some parts of the left sought refuge in as terrorists killed thousands of their fellow citizens. In one gesture, such leftists both showed how far gone they were and also how unhinged from most Americans they had become.

Walzer sees the deeper problem as an inheritance from the new left of the 1960s, a left that still cannot see religious motives for terror, for example, preferring to view Islamofascism with some kind of Marxist subtext, to the point of misreading the nature of the terrorist threat altogether. And he sees the endless legacy of defeat for the American left as a debilitatingly alienating experience: “Many left intellectuals live in America like internal aliens, refusing to identify with their fellow citizens, regarding any hint of patriotic feeling as a surrender to jingoism. That’s why they had such difficulty responding emotionally to the attacks of September 11 or joining in the expressions of solidarity that followed.”

Walzer is surely right. If the congressional Democrats are offering now mere opportunism, then the intellectual left has failed to come up with anything more persuasive. So the market is left to the subliterate bitter-mongers such as Moore, men of the left for whom cynicism, rather than decency, is almost instinctual. But cynicism and alienation do not make for a coherent liberal critique of the current administration or the war. And American democracy — and the world — is poorer for lack of that debate.

But cynicism and alienation do not make for a coherent liberal critique of the current administration or the war. And American democracy — and the world — is poorer for lack of that debate.

Dialectics is not a good in itself, Andrew. Sometimes right and wrong are as simple as, well, right and wrong.

The need to rebel is something most of us have felt at one or more points in our lives.

I personally rebelled against liberalism. Still am.

But Moore is equally furious at the Democrats. He describes Bill Clinton as one of the most successful Republican . . .

Damn! Is that true?

Well hell, I guess ol' bubba ain't that bad after all!

Wow. Sullivan has a great way with words. He is of course right. The best that the left can produce right now are bottom-of-the-barrel, uncomprehendably bitter morons like Michael Moore.

give Donald Rumsfeld the political version of Viagra.

Andrew, there is so much to agree with in this article. But I'm tellin' you here and now. Rummy doesn't need Viagra ~political or otherwise! VaVaVaVooooooom! :o) fsf

Andrew Sullivan holds Michael Moore up to scorn, as a ridiculous talisman of the left.

Meanwhile, back at the NYTimes, Frank Rich offers a column that holds up Moore up as a paragon worth emulating.

The Wimps of War

Together, the two pieces offer a simply stunning opportunity for "compare and contrast"...

But cynicism and alienation do not make for a coherent liberal critique of the current administration or the war. And American democracy — and the world — is poorer for lack of that debate.

I'm sure that if Andrew really wants to see the debate, he's bright enough to come up with some arguments for the liberal side. If he wants to.

Andrew Sullivan holds Michael Moore up to scorn, as a ridiculous talisman of the left. There's always Alec the bloviator Baldwin. The funny thing about Baldwin is he actually believes himself when he is sounding off and frothing at the mouth about his goofy Republican hate venting.

He describes Bill Clinton as one of the most successful Republican . . .

There is a kernel of truth in that if you consider Bubba's policies and those promoted by the dominating wing of the RINO Party. That said, I still wonder how such idiocy as Moore's book makes it to the top of the bestseller list. Who buys this garbage?

Over-written (as usual), but still good stuff.

As usual.

ALWAYS worth the read.

Who buys this garbage?

I guess I'll have to I'll answer my own question. The thinking unthinking reading public that's who. A depressing thought to be sure. There are lines to see this obese moron at book readings, folks. Maybe, it's the obesity that's so attractive in a nation that's half obese, I dunno. I've just bought a couple of books myself that rank 19,756 and 176,385 on the Amazon list today and am thinking of buying two more that rank 12,300 and 97,728, but then I'm a freaking 'elitist' cat according to some. This boy here's outta touch, think I'll go kill m'self!

And you know this, how?

'Cause nobody C-SPANS me like Rummy! OOOOOOO baby. Yeah. Larry King can go snap his suspenders. Give me some more Rummy. :o) fsf

Who buys this garbage?

My guess is that people just as bitter and envious as Moore is who hate everyone more successful than themselves.

Or, as my father used to say, "The liberal's reward is self-disgust"

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