This post is a reprint; I originally posted this at OneUtah.org and openleft.com.
I'm posting this now because I'm working on a follow up.
I've written before about the notion that an era is over when it's basic illusions are exhausted and exhausting. It's a deceptively simply statement. The basic illusions are exhausted - they don't work in the real world any more. And they are exhausting - just trying to maintain them wears us out. It's been obvious for a long time that the American political system is at the end of a natural cycle of its life - and it's time to abandon the illusions that have informed it.
Nothing better exemplifies that reality than the utterly insane budget busting tax deal that the White House is trying to shove down our throats. It's bad policy at almost every level. It adds hundreds of billions to the national debt, it buys into every false notion about tax policy that has dominated the last 30 years of politics, it doesn't do nearly enough to help the people who need help and it does way too much to help people who don't need help. When a Democratic president is praising the people who have spent two years telling anyone and everyone he is a Kenyan born muslim socialist nazi intent on destroying America and attacking his base, you know something has gone terribly, horribly awry.
It's an almost textbook perfect example of what happens when the most basic illusions that have dominated out public era have been utterly exhausted; even the defense of it is exhausting. It simply no longer makes sense at any level. Watching as the President and the Administration have tried to sell this piece of policy crap as if it is a Faberge egg is exhausting; the exercise itself is exhausting the White House. It's so bad they brought in Bill Clinton to shill for them and even the maniacally charismatic Clinton seemed to be going through the motions. Sure it was fun watching the big dog talk to the press but the old magic wasn't there.
These basic illusions that are so exhausting concern at its broadest questions of how the world works and how society organizes itself. As I think about these illusions, they cover lots of territory - and I think each of them has proven undeniably false.
- American military might is irresistible and wins every battle. Two words: Iraq, Afghanistan. Starting with the abject failure in Vietnam, the American right began spreading a stabbed in the back myth - that the military could have won Vietnam if it weren't for the scurvy politicians stabbing it in the back. In this version of American military history, Reagan redeemed the military with his adventure in Granada and further proved it by "beating" communism by building up the military to such a point that the USSR collapsed trying to be a strong as us; the first Bush proved America was unbeatable in the Gulf War in 1991. For years, we heard conservatives prattle on that the problem with Iraq was that the media refused to report the good news - we were really winning. Same with Afghanistan. This illusion see US military might as inexhaustible - our numbers are always sufficient because our cause is always just (which is also why we don't need a draft during war time). This is the illusion of American empire that justifies hundreds of military bases worldwide as needful and necessary to protect the good of the world, that sees America as uniquely good because we have willingly shouldered the burden of being the world's peace keeper.
- America never acts without pure and good motives. If we invade a nation, it is to liberate its citizens. If we bomb a city, it is to kill the bad guys who run it and keep its citizens hostage to their nefarious ways. If we wage a war it is to spread democracy. When we act, our motives are pure and out intentions noble; those who resist must therefore be impure and ignoble. American soldiers are always and everywhere heroes acting for good causes and must be honored for their heroism. This illusion tells us that America is the world's necessary nation - without us, there can be no order.
Government is always and everywhere inefficient; private industry will always be virtuous and efficient because the market is so powerful it forces correct outcomes every time. Hiding in this illusion is a second illusion: economics is about morality - good people who are disciplined and work hard prosper while those who fail to prosper were obviously undisciplined and failed to work hard enough. In shorthand this illusion is neo-liberalism which seeks free trade at all costs believing that the "market" is in fact going to deliver moral outcomes; protectionism of developing industries is inherently immoral because it protects them from the market; protectionism must be immoral because it is perceived to protect inefficiency. This illusion holds that the world would prosper best if it were a global United States with no trade barriers of any kind. As part of this illusion, we get a host of policies that include denying unemployment, cutting social safety nets, advocating for privatization of Social Security, cutting taxes for the wealthy and so on. Laffer's supply side economics is an expression of this illusion.
- The nuclear family is the worthiest form of family and society should organize itself to privilege those who form such families; society itself should mirror that family organization. Good people will naturally accept privileging the superior form of family and those who don't are bad people who deserve the lack of privilege. Society itself is partly dangerous because it permits people who don't adhere to this vision; churches should support the vision and will thrive when they do. The strong nuclear family protects individuals from society. Single people, unmarried people who live together, same sex couples, single parent families, and those who form non traditional relationships are untrustworthy and dangerous because they undermine the necessary moral standards by which people should live.
- Christianity is the natural religion of all Americans and of the Western world in general; if the west is to survive it must do so through sustaining orthodox forms of Christianity - non-belief, atheism, secularism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and other faith traditions are a threat to our identity and must be minimized, controlled, and if possible, isolated socially. Europeans have abandoned their necessary role as the primary and stalwart embodiment of christian culture and the US must therefore play that role. It is vitally necessary that Christianity in explicit forms be infused into our national life at all levels even if that means the religious rights of minority groups are trampled. Freedom of religion is a tolerance extended by the Christian majority to the non-christian minority and is not absolute. Christianism - the melding of national identity and Christian faith - is a necessary path forward if we are to protect what is most important in the world. As part of this illusion, we find profound distrust of academics and intellectuals.
- Finally, one of the most basic illusions of our time that has exhausted itself is the illusion of America's inherent goodness and the belief that all people everywhere wish to mimic us, to become Americans. This illusion is expressed in a myriad of ways - sometimes as people proclaiming that the US constitution is the model for every other Constitution in the world, but also seen when people around the world watch American movies or wear American fashions or listen to American music. Believing this illusion we see people in far away cities sporting American styles and tell ourselves they want to be just like us. If the first illusion was about America's military empire this illusion is about our cultural empire. As part of this illusion, we believe that people must want to have a government like ours and an economy like ours and a culture like ours so they can be like us. This is the illusion of American superiority.
- Defending these basic illusions has become exhausting for Americans. At Tom Dispatch, I read an analysis of the collapse of empires that said wars like Iraq and Afghanistan characterize collapsing empires; they're the kinds of wars that empires wage to compensate for their very real decline in power. The resources expended in these wars are completely out of proportion to any possible victories we could win and all they've done is bleed us dry. There are people who have built entire careers out of "defending" the family yet recent polling suggests that they have long since lost the battle; Americans have accepted a multiplicity of family arrangements as valid - in practice as well as attitude; yet these virtuecrats keep their endless battles raging. Theistic religion in general is in deep trouble; as the religious left in the US grows increasingly non-theistic in its view of the world, as people abandon the institutional church because it is irrelevant to their lives, the Christianists are fighting ever harder to hold onto the redoubts they still hold. Even the once vaunted Southern Baptist Convention is seeing its numbers decline and its influence weaken; the Catholic church may be irreparably damaged by its decades long conspiracy to protect pedophiles. Increasingly large numbers of Americans identity as nonbelievers, as agnostics, as atheists or "spiritual but not religious." The great crash of 2008 and the Great Recession occurred at a time when government regulation was the most lax its been in decades and while profits have returned for the financial sector the rest of the economy continues to suffer; China with its vast regulatory and protectionist economy is growing by leaps and bounds while America struggles; government run health care uses fewer resources for administrative tasks and more for patient care than does private health care. The economic illusions of neoliberalism have been disproved by the real world.
Defending these illusions has become exhausting and it will only get worse. It's time for us to admit that and move on - yes we will create new illusions that will be disproved in time and that's okay. But we can't move into a new era until we accept that the old era has well and truly ended.