Left-Behind America Powers Forward

 

Probably everything that needs to be said about the Iowa Caucus results has already been said - multiple times. And there are, of course, so many things which one can say. Personally, I think one of the best summations of what Iowans were saying on Monday was Sohrab Ahmari's short Compact column Tuesday morning, "Left-Behind America Sticks with Trump." There Ahmari argued: "Small-town Americans without a college education—those left behind by the economic transformations of the past two generations and plunged into an abyss of material insecurity—are sticking with their man: Donald J. Trump. Neither the allurements of a “responsible Trump” (Ron DeSantis) and a female George W. Bush (Nikki Haley) nor the prosecutorial pressures exerted by the establishment sufficed to overcome their gut preference. Everything else is minor details."

I'm not sure about his last point. I think nostalgia is an important element - nostalgia for 2019, nostalgia for the way things were back before the pandemic, before the post-George Floyd "racial reckoning," before the Ukraine war and the Israel war, and before what appears to be an unprecedented surge in immigration at the southern border. If life felt better back then, maybe that means it really was better back then, and maybe that means it will become better again after a Trump restoration. Really? Actually, I think that nostalgic recollection amounts to a false reading of recent history, but I cannot deny that it is a widely experienced memory for far too many voters. 

That said, Ahmadi's basic argument appears to hold. (That argument does not, per se, contradict the nostalgia argument and may reinforce it, insofar as the voters he is describing are likely also to be the most nostalgic.) But the main point that needs to be absorbed from Ahmari's analysis is not just what we already knew - what The NY Times Nate Cohn calls "an extraordinary educational divide.” Nikki Haley's Wall Street Journal appeal reflects and confirms that divide, with which we should by now have long been familiar.

The main point to be absorbed, however, which is one which Trump's opponents seem so ill disposed to accept (or even try to understand) is that Trump's populism has succeeded because it functions as an affirmation of those deplorables whom elites prefer to disdain. In this, I am reminded of something British scholar Paul Collier wrote in 2018: "If the educated see themselves as different from the less educated, and with diminished responsibility towards them, those others would be foolish to continue to trust them as much as when they knew that everyone had the same salient identity" (The Future of Capitalism: Facing the New Anxieties, Harper, p. 55, emphasis added).

Consequently - back to Ahmari - what Trump's "populist challenge calls for is more, not less democracy. There is no prosecutorial shortcut around offering a broad and inclusive vision of political-economic reform—and actually listening to what the malcontents want."

After Liberalism

Back in the day, the standard course on "Modern Political Theory" might stretch back as far as Machiavelli and More, Luther and Calvin. It might likewise project forward including Mill and Rawls or, more daringly, Marx. But, whoever else might be read, it would almost inevitably include the trinity of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, with Hobbes and Locke presented either superficially as alternatives or more seriously as complementary. Unlike Rousseau, Hobbes and Locke were what we have bee accustomed to call liberals - Hobbes, "the only one, perhaps, still worth reading," in the judgment of John Gray, author of The New Leviathans: Thoughts after Liberalism (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023).

English Enlightenment philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) published Leviathan in 1651.  Its famous frontispiece (above) illustrated the benefits of the powerful sovereignty Hobbes advocated as necessary for human flourishing, as against the alternative natural state of war, in which life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Hobbes' sovereign power would serve to protect individuals from their fear of one another, facilitating cooperation and consequently "commodious living," without classical political philosophy's presumption either of natural human sociability or of some natural human purpose, "no finis ultimis (utmost aim) nor summum bonum (greatest good).

What Gray calls New Leviathans "are not Leviathans Hobbes would recognize." Unlike Hobbes's goal of "securing its subjects against one another and external enemies," post-liberal New Leviathans "aim to secure meaning in life for their subjects," replacing "a liberal civilization based on the practice of tolerance" with "engineers of souls," which "promise safety" but "foster insecurity" - "a return of the state of nature. in artificial forms."

The bulk of Gay's book is largely concerned with examples of those post-liberal New Leviathans. Gray argues "an era of delusion in the West" followed the collapse of communism - "the theory of globalization, a mix of dubious economic theory with millennial political fantasies." Far from an end of history, Gray sees a move "Back to an epoch that is classically historical" - a world "like that of the past, with disparate regimes interacting with one another in a condition of global anarchy."

Particularly interesting are his analyses of the Soviet Union and of post-Soviet Russia, where the Orthodox Church has now "come to occupy the ideological niche filled until recently by the Communist Party." He deems it unsurprising "that when the communist secular theocracy collapsed it was followed, under Putin, by a more authentically theocratic regime."

Closer to home, he bemoans a "hyperbolic version of liberalism" in the West, which attempts "to emancipate human beings from identities that have been inherited from the past," resulting in "an artificial state of nature among self-defined identities." Such hyper-liberal "woke" ideology functions "to deflect attention from the destructive impact on society of market capitalism," prioritizing  identity questions over economic conflicts. "Woke hyper-liberalism is Puritan moral frenzy unrestrained by divine mercy or forgiveness of sin." 

He is comparably harsh in his assessment of the modern politics of rights, which I have long perceived as modern liberalism's peculiar problematic. The goal of Hobbesian logic, "is not agreement, but modus vivendi." When society is divided by such questions as abortion, assisted stoning, sexuality, and gender, "the attempt to resolve them by inventing and enforcing rights" - as Roe v. Wade so infamously attempted to do in 1973 - "is fatal to peace."Inevitably, his analysis leads to the contemporary rise of "populism" - an ambiguous term "used by liberals to refer to political blowback against the social disruption produced by their own policies." 

In contrast to what the modern liberal West has wrought, Gray recalls how "Hobbes believed human beings need limitation as much as they need freedom," which was early modern political theory's retrieval of the Christian message that "sinful humankind must live by divine guidance."

It is easy to look at the increasingly chaotic character of modern politics - both the collapse of a short-lived international order and the collapse of domestic political consensus - and recognize some of what Hobbes was warning about. Since Hobbes - under the influence of the likes of Locke and Rousseau and the liberal and radical traditions they spawned - it has been possible to aspire to a more liberating resolution of Hobbes's war of all against all, different from either Hobbes's liberal solution of supreme sovereignty or the classical socio-political paradigm Hobbes' rejected. Instead, the evolution of Leviathan into modernity's monstrous New Leviathans challenges that aspiration.

Hence, the perennial relevance of Hobbes' Leviathan, regardless of who else appears in the modern political theory pantheon.

Iowa's Cold Caucuses

Experientially, the Iowa Caucuses seem weird, which may be in part because they may be the closest we come to direct democracy in our presidential election process - a process which concludes with the obscenely anti-democratic device of the Electoral College which twice in the last 25 years (2000 and 2016) has inflicted a president on the American people whom the majority of American voters had definitively rejected. At the Iowa Caucuses - whatever else may be said about them for or against - ordinary voters all have a comparable say, but only as long as they care enough to participate on a sub-zero cold winter night. 

Of course, the caucus system is far from flawless. It is presumably less representative than a primary. To which may be added the commonly expressed criticism that Iowa is itself a somewhat unrepresentative state. On the other hand, the political process as a whole is unrepresentative, empowering unpopulated spaces to the detriment of populated places and reducing the choice of president to small margins of votes in a few "battleground states" and completely ignoring the preferences of the overwhelming multitude of voters. All that having been said, while I have never spent more than a week in Iowa and have never participated in an Iowa Caucus,  I would surely have liked to - perhaps even on what may prove to be one of the coldest nights of the year!

The caucus is sometimes described as "a gathering of neighbors." People actually have to show up and interact with one another! Imagine that pre-modern behavior! Like all forms of direct democracy, the caucus calls for a degree of personal participation and commitment, considerably in excess of what our post-modern politics typically requires, as a well as a disposition toward politics as deliberation and debate as opposed to politics as consumer entertainment. (Obviously the caucus system dates back to a time - not that long ago - when social interaction and conversation were so much more common, not having yet been destroyed by the ubiquitous cell phone.)

On the other hand, all that having been said, this year's Iowa Caucus has a frozen feel to it, by which I am not referencing the extreme weather, but rather our extreme politics, which in places like Iowa (and the rest of the country) have been completely transformed and reshaped by the MAGA movement and are now frozen in Donald Trump's favor.

In fact, the only variable in tonight's caucuses will be weather-induced, whether and how much turnout is reduced and which campaigns that helps or hurts. All evidence suggests the enthusiasm (what in 20th-century political science used to be labeled "intensity") for Nikki Haley is low, which may perhaps hurt her turnout. And both Trump and Governor DeSantis have ground-level political operations which, if they perform as planned and turnout the vote, may serve them well in spite of the weather. Unless something incredibly unexpected happens, Trump appears set to win Iowa by the largest margin ever. The only question then will be who comes in second and how far behind. 

But will that matter? The media would like to cover this year's Iowa Caucuses as if this were a traditional party primary in a traditional presidential campaign. The one thing we can say for certain, however, is that this is not a traditional campaign because our normal politics have been replaced by something very different. The more time and energy wasted on trying to fit whatever happens in this contest into the once predictable categories of of traditional politics and traditional campaigns, the less we understand what is really happening in our society and the direction in w which we are actually going.

2024: The Threatening Storm (continued)

 

In his monumental study of fourth-century Constantinian Christianity, Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance (Johns Hopkins Y. Pr., 2000), H.A. Drake observed that all movements need organization and so can come to be dominated by their more militant members. Always acknowledging the limitations of any analogy, this principle may speak today to our two contemporary political parties, in which the militant "populist" MAGA "base" has pulled what remains of the Republican Party in its extreme Trumpist direction, while the militant extreme left-wing has likewise (although with more limited success) attempted to pull the rest of the Democratic Party leftward.

Historically, Drake argues, this helps explain 4th-century Christianity' increased militancy and embrace of coercion after Constantine, who had generally pursued a more moderate, inclusive, pluralistic religious vision for this empire. Of course, there were (are) elements in Christian faith which might have led (might yet lead) in a more irenic direction. Drake contends "that the more secure a community is, the more willing it is to tolerate diversity and varying belief. Constantine's success in asserting the irenic side of Christian teaching, then rested at least in part on the relative security he established in the aftermath of Diocletian's intensely disruptive persecution." What changed after Constantine? Drake suggests that "the successes Christianity enjoyed in the aftermath of Constantine's conversion" led to "a significantly higher standard for model Christian performance than the emperor had wanted." Secondly, Julian the Apostate "managed during his brief reign [361-363] to resurrect Christian doubts about the stability of their new situation and to accelerate the polarization of Christians and pagans into two clearly identified, separate, and mutually hostile camps."

Now, with all the obvious historical and cultural caveats, I suggest something similar has been at work with U.S. religion in particular and the wider U.S. culture in general. A quarter century ago, the U.S. was still seen as the exceptional nation, where the so-called "secularization thesis" did not yet appear to apply. Whereas the rest of the developed world was fast becoming post-christian, religion in general and Christianity in particular (at least in its Evangelical manifestations) appeared to be thriving in the U.S. 

I suspect, however, that the apparent acquisition of political power by Evangelicals and their conservative Catholic allies may have led to unrealistic expectations of ever-increasing political power, which led to greater intensity and militancy. But those expectations were increasingly disappointed, which in turn further reinforced the intensity and militancy. At the same time, both Evangelicalism (because of its inherited apocalyptic tendencies) and conservative Catholicism (because of its historic sense of alienation from the mainstream American culture) were disposed to see themselves as perpetually threatened by the same secular society that they sought to dominate. There have been numerous tipping points, going back to the 1960s school prayer decisions and the 1973 abortion decision. The normalization of LGBT rights early in this century seems to have been another such tipping point. So was the pandemic, which for many may have been the proverbial "last straw."

If, on this date in 2020, someone had said that the U.S. government is coming after religion and will force churches to close and prohibit assembling for Sunday worship, probably most would have responded that that would never happen in the U.S., and that the First Amendment would protect the churches if it were attempted. Yet, within three months, that was exactly what happened, and it was widely (but by no means exclusively) interpreted through a hermetic of persecution. It is an imperfect but not implausible analogy to what happened to the Church after the experience of Julian's apostasy. One (maybe inevitable) result has been the conquest of so much of organized American religion by its most militantly culture warrior constituencies. 

Looking beyond the churches to society as a whole, the analogy may be perhaps even less perfect but it still also appears applicable. The American equivalent of early Christianity's Constantinian moment of triumph was the end of the Cold War, which represented not only a victory but a sudden, unexpected, and easy victory. Legitimized by American dominance, the ideology of the American Dream intensified and sought with increasing militancy to succeed everywhere. In the 1990s, this meant imposing market capitalism on the former Soviet bloc. In the 20002, it meant spreading democracy by force in the Middle East. Both efforts having failed, American society has since sought to remake its own democracy in increasingly extreme (and anti-democratic) ways - both on the "woke" left and on the "populist" MAGA right.

These analogies are suggestive, not exhaustive. And they amplify and complement my earlier (cf. January 2) more institutionally oriented observations about the political, social, and economic factors which have contributed to what some have labelled our country's current "cold civil war." 

So, if this is where we are as a nation at the beginning of 2024, where do we expect this current context to take us this year?

To be continued.

 

Three Kings Day

Whatever the peculiarities of the U.S. Catholic calendar, at least New York City's "Alternate Side of the Street Parking" calendar correctly recognizes today as "Three King's Day," one common name for Epiphania Domini ("The Epiphany of the Lord").

Here in the United States, Epiphany now seems little more than a barely noticed, very vestigial postscript to Christmas. Historically, however, Epiphany is actually the oldest festival of the Christmas season. It is older than Christmas Day itself, and (noticed or not) it still ranks among the principal festivals of the Church’s calendar. In many more traditionally Catholic countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Latin America), it has long been the principal Christmas gift-giving day. In the Eastern Churches, Matthew’s story of the magi is read on Christmas Day, and Epiphany is primarily a celebration of Jesus’ baptism, the beginning of his mission as an adult. Here in the West, we will briefly postpone the principal commemoration of Christ’s baptism, focusing on Epiphany almost exclusively on the story of the magi.

Almost 20 years ago, in 2005, when I was a parish priest, I attended World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany. Cologne’s great Gothic Cathedral, which was the architectural model for New York's famous Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, was originally built to house the relics of the magi, which were supposedly brought to Cologne by Emperor Frederick Barbarosa in 1164. Thus, the theme for the 2005 World Youth Day was We have come to worship Him [Matthew 2:2], and one of our World Youth Day activities was to walk across the Hohenzollern bridge as pilgrims to visit the cathedral and venerate the magi. 

The magi, according to Pope Benedict XVI [Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives, tr. Philip J. Whitmore, 2012], "were not just astronomers. They were 'wise.' They represent the inner dynamic of religion toward self-transcendence, which involves a search for truth, a search for the true God and hence 'philosophy' in the original sense of the word."

Unlike Luke's more popular Christmas account, Matthew's story of the magi illustrates the paradoxes highlighted by Christ's coming into the world. To quote Benedict XVI again: "What from the lofty perspective of faith is a star of hope, from he perspective of daily life is merely a disturbance, a cause for concern and fear. It is true: God disturbs our comfortable day-to-day existence. Jesus' kingship goes hand in hand with his Passion."

By way of warning, the story of the magi  illustrates how easily we all may miss the point. When Herod heard the Magi, he was greatly troubled and all Jerusalem with him. They were troubled, instead of being overjoyed like the Magi! What troubled them? What made such good news seem to them like bad news? The same Christmas star that filled the magi with hope somehow seemed like an evil portent to those who sensed the threatening challenge it posed to their power and priorities. What disposes some people even today to misplace their priorities such that they too react to the good news of the Gospel as if it were bad news? The tragedy inherent in such misplaced priorities is highlighted in the story Herod. According to Saint Quodvultdeus [Sermo 2 de Symbolo], Herod resolved to kill the newborn Christ in order to save his own throne, "though if he would have faith in the child, he himself would reign in peace in this life and for ever in the life to come."

And then there were those putatively wise religious experts whom Herod consulted. They correctly quoted scripture. But, for all their knowledge of the subject, they seemed to lack the knowledge they needed the most. Thus, none of them did the obvious thing, go to Bethlehem. Only the pagan magi did! Talk about missing the opportunity of a lifetime! Perhaps, that is the judgment to which the routinization of religion has made so many of us most liable!

The magi, on the other hand, were overjoyed, not troubled. The magi set out as true pilgrims – and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother … prostrated themselves and did him homage. In the old liturgy when these words were read or sung in the Gospel on Epiphany, everyone was directed to genuflect. It was the liturgy’s dramatic way of physically bringing the point of the story home, helping us to identify personally with the pilgrim magi, experiencing what they experienced, prioritizing what they prioritized.

In the United States, January 6 every fourth year is also the statutory date for Congress to count the electoral votes for president and vice president. Since 2021, this date has become a sinister one in our national memory - like FDR's "a date which will live in infamy." It has become a vivid reminder of the lengths to which misplaced priorities and the pointless pursuit of unprincipled power may lead, once politics has been divorced from any transcendent purpose. Once again, we have been warned!

Photo: The Three Kings on their way to worship the Lord, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY.