Michael Lind, “The Neocons Are Responsible for Trumpism,” The National Interest, March 7, 2016.Trumpism, at least in the rhetoric we hear from Trump, is a rejection of second wave “fusionist” neoconservatism and its foreign policy, and is a kind of protectionist statism and a rejection of aspects of neoliberalism.
He notes too that the left is also partly responsible for Trump. The mainstream Democratic left is also to blame because of its neoliberalism and even the Postmodernist and progressive left, with its rabid obsession with extreme identity politics and neglect of economics.
Parts of the cultural left have come to have an irrational and extreme hatred of men and the working class: especially white working class men, who are constantly slandered as racists, bigots, sexists and homophobes, etc. This is no way to win over the working class and create a viable political movement.
As painful as it is for many left-wing people to hear, I am afraid the left’s obsession with extreme identity politics, cultural relativism, pro-big business mass immigration policies, and hatred of free speech is wrong and increasingly toxic.
The left needs massive reform now, and certainly in the American context because it could be that a new kind of right-wing will step in and court the working class and lower-class people with an agenda more in line with their interests.
I could have written your last four paragraphs. You are further right than you think mon ami!
ReplyDeleteThis is easily the best analysis of Trump. Everything else is really just noise.
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