Category Archives: Uncategorized

Democracy in the Rear View Mirror.

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            Sometimes foreigners have a clearer view of the strengths and weaknesses of a country than do the natives.[1]  Hence it is interesting that some foreign observers fear for the future of the United States, but for reasons different from those which now preoccupy many Americans.  For six years, Americans have been focused on conjectural threats to democracy.[2]  Some foreign observers, however, perceive a real threat from democracy, at least as it now operates in the United States.  Lee Hsien Loong, prime minister of Singapore, told an American journalist that there exists a widespread perception that “you do not have a bright future because the world is changing too fast for a system like the United States, a democracy with checks and balances.”[3] 

            The checks and balances created by the Constitution divided powers between three co-equal branches of government.  That system seems to have served the United States well for more than two hundred years.  What’s different now? 

            Extreme political polarization lies at the heart of the matter.  The problem is social and human, rather than institutional.  Broadly, the country is split into deeply and unthinkingly distrustful factions that turn any policy issue into a battleground.[4]  The current Congress exemplifies the resulting institutional dead-lock.  Congress has a slight Democratic majority in the House of Representatives and a 50-50 division in the Senate.  The Democrats can pass a small amount of legislation through the process called “reconciliation” because such bills can be passed with the Vice President breaking the tie.  All other bills in the Senate require a 60 vote majority to overcome a “filibuster.”  Use of the filibuster to block legislation has tripled over the last thirty years, with the result that Congress now passes about half as many laws.  Neither party wants to get rid of the filibuster just to pass its wish-list.  The other party will soon be back in power with a narrow majority will then ram through its own wish-list. 

            One solution attempted has been to expand the power of the Executive branch into the vacuum created by the Legislative branch.  After getting shellacked in the 2010 elections, Barack Obama developed a mania for executive agreements in place of treaties and regulations and rules written by bureaucrats in place of legislation.  Donald Trump used the same approach to block illegal immigration from Central America and to plaster China with tariffs.  Now the third branch of government, the Judiciary, has clapped a stopper on such tricks by invalidating the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to impose the Obama-era Clean Power Plan. 

            One example of short-sighted partisanship can be found in a bill intended to enhance competitiveness with China in hi-tech areas.  Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell threatened to block passage of the bill unless the Democrats drop a much-reduced version of President Biden’s Build Back Better bill.  The Democrats want to pass the latter bill to shore up their chances in the 2022 mid-term elections.  They may find common ground with the Republicans in putting short-term party advantage over long-term national interest. 

[1] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1848-1850) is the classic example. 

[2] For the Democrats, this means Donald Trump and the Deplorables.  For the Republicans, it means the Russia collusion hoax launched by the Clinton campaign and then taken up by an element within the FBI. 

[3] Greg Ip, “Gridlock Hamstrings U.S. on China,” WSJ, 7 July 2022. 

[4] On the futility of trying to craft an institutional solution to such social and human divisions, see Philip Williams, Crisis and Compromise: Politics in the [French] Fourth Republic (1966). 

Debt and the Devil.

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Dan Thornton,[1] a former research economist at and vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that “the issue isn’t whether the U.S. will repay its debt, but whether it can service the debt.”[2]

What does it mean to “service the debt”?  According to “Investopedia,” “Debt service is the cash that is required to cover the repayment of interest and principal on a debt for a particular period[3]..… [Individuals and] companies must meet debt service requirements for loans and bonds issued to the public. The ability to service debt is a factor when a company needs to raise additional capital to operate the business.”[4]    

This leads us to the Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR): “the debt-service coverage ratio (DSCR) is a measurement of a firm’s available cash flow to pay current debt obligations. The DSCR shows investors whether a company has enough income to pay its debts.”[5]   

The DSCR is, of a course, an equation.  Debt Service Coverage Ratio = Net Operating Income divided by Total Debt Service. 

“Net operating income is a company’s revenue minus certain operating expenses.” 

“Total debt service refers to current debt obligations, meaning any interest, principal, sinking fund, and lease payments that are due in the coming year. On a balance sheet, this will include short-term debt and the current portion of long-term debt.” 

“Typically, a DSCR greater than 1 means the entity—whether an individual, company, or government—has sufficient income to pay its current debt obligations.” 

So, can the U.S. service its debt, regardless of trying to pay it all back?  Thornton says that the current interest cost of the debt is 1.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  This, he says, is only half of the peak of 3 percent in the post-1945 period.  The Federal Reserve Bank is now raising interest rates to break the current surge of inflation.  We’ve got quite a bit of space before hitting the previous peak of 3 percent.  Thornton says that “I doubt that investors or the public will lose faith in the government’s ability to service the debt at least until debt service exceeds 3 percent of GDP.” 

The United States Government is not quite the same thing as an individual or a private business.  In a pinch, it can take various actions.  It could cut spending.  The Big Three spending categories are Defense, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid.  Together, they amount to about 60 percent of federal outlays in a normal year.[6]  In a pinch, it can increase revenue by raising taxes on all or some Americans.  This would run against a well-established political trend in recent decades.  To raise taxes not in pursuit of new spending, but in favor of improving the credit-worthiness of the country seems chancy.  In a pinch, it could reduce the interest rate and perhaps extend the repayment period to cut payments to creditors by fiat.  IDK. 

[1] On Thornton, see: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-thornton-9922a06a/ 

[2] Letters to the Editor, WSJ, 6 July 2022.

[3] Basically what I do when I make my mortgage payment. 

[4] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/debtservice.asp 

[5] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/dscr.asp 

[6] See: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57170  However, 2020 was not a “normal” year.  There was something like $1.2 trillion in emergency spending on PPL, Recovery Rebates, and suddenly expanded Unemployment compensation. 

Zion Island 34.

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Ringelblum Archive; in private hands. 

                                                                                                DRAFT[1] 

Finding a Home for Zion.

Emanuel Ringelblum.

Memorandum submitted at the request of General Bach-Zelewski. 

            One theme of our modern age is that all the problems of the world could be solved if the Jews would just go away to live in some tropical hell-hole. 

            First it was the German Paul de Lagarde (1827-1891), a great Biblical scholar[2] and anti-Semite.  He wanted to ship the Jews of Germany and Eastern Europe off to Madagascar.  Then it was the Zionists, who wanted to “ascend” to Palestine.  Heat, rocks, dust.  We could all become melon-farmers.  Then it was the British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain, who offered Herzl the Highlands of Kenya.[3]  In 1928, the Russians came up with the idea of a “Jewish Autonomous Republic” in their—anyone’s–Far East.  Forests, swamps, and an extreme climate on the frontier with China.  Delightful!  Jung[4] tells me that he heard from a colleague in the Foreign Ministry that Mussolini proposed to resettle Europe’s Jews in Ethiopia. 

Beginning in 1933, the Nazis began to harry Germany’s Jews into leaving.  It didn’t matter where, but Palestine would be fine.  The same spirit took hold in Poland.  I remember it well.  It started with that bastard Dmowski.[5]  His National Democrats (NDs) were foaming anti-Semites.  Cultural “Polonization,” economic boycotts, riots.  What to do?  If you want them to go, there has to be somewhere to go.  So, the Poles provided weapons to the Jews in Palestine and ran a training camp for Jewish soldiers in Poland.  Maybe they could fight for a place to go?  In 1937, the NDs passed a resolution that “its main aim and duty must be to remove the Jews from all spheres of social, economic, and cultural life in Poland.”  So the Polish government began talking with the French about forced emigration.  Not to France you understand, but to somewhere in the Empire.  The talks focused on Madagascar and a Polish group went for a look. 

The idea appealed to the French.  The indigenous population of Madagascar had become increasingly restive under French rule during the Twenties.  Settling a lot of European colonists who were overjoyed to be out of the reach of the Nazis might change the situation. 

Nothing came of this Franco-Polish idea at the time.  However, there was a certain amount of public discussion.  So, maybe that’s where the Nazis got the idea?  Kleptomania. 

[1] Hand-written note says “NOT to be shown to B-Z!”

[2] Of the OLD Testament, not the New. 

[3] Maybe it says something that Chamberlain sent his un-loved younger son off to the Bahamas for six years to be a sisal planter? 

[4] Possibly Guido Jung (1876-1949), Italian Fascist Minister of Finance, 1932-1935. 

[5] Roman Dmowski, b: 1864, near Warsaw, Russian Poland, 1864; d: 1939, Drozdowo, Poland.  If you don’t believe me, see: Joel Cang, “The Opposition Parties in Poland and Their Attitude towards the Jews and the Jewish Question,” Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 1, #2, 1939, pp. 241–256. 

Zion Island 33.

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Reichsarchiv.  Sipo-SD, Madagascar/Administration/Transport/Controls/Miscellaneous. 

1 July 1950. 

AUSWEIS. 

            The bearer, GANCWAJCH, Abraham, is permitted to operate an ambulance service within the Central Administrative District and also between Theresienstadt and Toamasina.  Vehicles and employees of the service many travel freely at all hours until further notice. 

                                                                        Signed:  Lange, Sipo-SD.

Patterns of American Foreign Policy.

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Has American foreign policy been driven by a pragmatic approach to solving problems of national interest and security?  Has American foreign policy been driven by a series of ideas?[1]  The popular answer is the ideas one because there’s so much evidence that is easily found.[2] 

            For one thing, until very recent times, Americans were a religious people.  Many still are.  So, many discussions of public affairs—foreign and domestic–were couched in religious terms.  Often, they presented the United States as an agent of the Divine, or discussed conflicts in terms of Good and Evil.  President McKinley talked about America’s duty to “uplift and Christianize” the Filipinos.  Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address is explicitly religious.[3] 

For another thing, historians often take a published rationalization for doing something as the actual inspiration for doing that thing.  In the case of the Westward movement, Thomas Jefferson proclaimed the desire to create an “Empire of Liberty” and John O’Sullivan announced America’s “Manifest Destiny.”  In the case of engaging with the larger world, Alfred Thayer Mahan emphasized the “Influence of Sea Power Upon History,” and Woodrow Wilson justified American entry into the First World War as an effort to “make the world safe for democracy.” 

            Despite this eye-catching froth, most American policy has been driven by attempts to find pragmatic solutions to real problems.  The truth is that Americans had been moving Westward in ever-growing numbers since they landed on the Eastern seaboard.  High-flown talk didn’t make them go.  The practical problems were how to fend off foreign competitors (France, Spain, Mexico, Britain) and how to dispossess the Native Americans.  Similarly, by the dawn of the 20th Century, America’s economic development and population growth gave the United States an interest in world trade and made it a country to be reckoned with in international affairs. 

            The United States entered the First World War because Germany, more than Britain, threatened the principle of freedom of the seas and the idea of a world governed by law.  The idealistic war aims came later.  American isolationism in the Thirties ended with the unexpected fall of France in 1940, and the near-collapse of Britain.  The real German danger to American security shifted military, diplomatic, and domestic political positions in a hurry.  The United States adopted the policy of “containment” against the Soviet Union to secure America’s essential trading partners and military allies.  Eisenhower adopted the strategy of “more bang for the buck” to keep down the size of the military budget.  This prefigured his farewell address warning of a “military-industrial complex” that is with us yet.[4]    

            This pragmatism didn’t always have a happy outcome.  The George W. Bush administration made a correct analysis of the sources of terrorism in the Middle East: centuries of Ottoman and Arab bad government, not Western imperialism.  Then it came up with a disastrously wrong solution: knock over a dictator, declare “democracy,” put up some big-box stores, and leave.  You can’t make anything fool-proof.  Fools are too inventive. 

[1] Inspired by reading David Sanger, “Nation-Building’s Siren Song,” NYT Book Review, 1 January 2017. 

[2] The tendency of writers and politicians to say things in print got a lot of these people shot in France after the Second World War.  Meanwhile, bureaucrats and businessmen who had collaborated with the Germans went free.  See: Peter Novick, The Resistance versus Vichy: The purge of collaborators in liberated France (1968). 

[3] See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_second_inaugural_address 

[4] See: Ernest May The World War and American Isolation, 1914-1917 (1959); Ray S. Cline, Washington Command Post: The Operations Division (1951); John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment (1982).   

The Crisis of Liberal Democracy 2.

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Since his election in November 2016, Democrats have been talking about Donald Trump and the Republican Party in terms of a fascist danger.  Trump broke with established policies, especially in foreign affairs.  He continually violated behavioral norms, the “guard-rails of democracy.”  He treated the bogus collusion-with-Russia investigation as if it were bogus.  He cavalierly broke with many of President Obama’s executive agreements and executive orders as if he had the authority to do so.  He escaped prosecution for his corrupt business dealings when intense investigation by Democrat prosecutors in the city and state of New York failed to turn up significant evidence.  He dodged removal from office over his efforts to use government resources to turn Hunter Biden’s business dealings into a black eye for his likely opponent in 2020, Joe Biden.  He failed to adequately condemn radical right groups, while also condemning both radical left groups and the criminals who buzzed around the edges of some of the BLM demonstrations.  The hearings on the 6 January 2020 riot are intended to get Democrats thinking about the danger posed to democracy by Donald Trump and his followers. 

            Now the views of political scientists on feeble democracy in other countries are being cited as warnings for the United States.[1]  In particular, “some scholars argue that Americans hoping to understand their country’s trajectory should look not to Europe but to Latin America.”  Peru (1992, 2000), Venezuela (1999—the present), Ecuador (2018), and Bolivia (2019) all offer examples of constitutional crises over the transfer or retention of power in politically fragmented nations.  Europe, in contrast, has few political similarities to the United States. 

            The parallels that make the comparison so appropriate in the eyes of some are two-fold.  First, the United States shares with Latin American countries a presidential system of government.   Most European countries have a parliamentary system.  In this system, the party or coalition of parties that wins the majority of votes in a free and fair election gets to form the government.  There are not alternative centers of power.  In contrast, the American constitution divides power between three theoretically co-equal branches of government.  Each seeks to maximize its power, holding the power of the other branches in check.  Extreme social and political polarization can interact with a divided government to create a deadlock over who should rule. 

            Second, in such a crisis, it is often up to “elites” to decide the fate of democracy.  These “elites” include “lawmakers, judges, bureaucrats, police and military officers, local officials, business chiefs, and cultural figures.”[2]  They need to reach some consensus on what should be done, who should keep or yield power.  They act from , unpredictable motives. 

            “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.”[3]  Still, this analysis could suggest that people are formulating a rationale that de-legitimizes the existing constitution of the United States.  Nobody wants a government like the ones in which Latin Americans are trapped; while even Boris Johnson hasn’t (yet) discredited parliamentary government.   They are doing it before the 2024 election.  It also could suggest that it casts doubt on the reliability of elites.  It could look like preparing emergency measures to over-turn an election in defense of democracy. 

[1] Max Fisher, “During Constitutional Crises, Democracies Aren’t Always Democratic,” NYT, 19 June 2022. 

[2][2] What, in the Middle East, would be called the “deep state.”  Although what if “cultural figures” included RuPaul? 

[3] “Suspicious Minds” (written by Mark James, 1968). 

My Weekly Reader 22 June 2022.

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            What’s wrong with American foreign policy?  In a nut-shell, we won the Cold War.[1]  More exactly, the problems of American foreign policy stem from what we and others made of that victory.  Talk about “the End of History and the Last Man Standing,” and a “New World Order” reflected the unfocused, ungrounded optimism of the aftermath.  Capitalist democracy offered the one viable political form.  Where it did not yet exist, it soon would.  Economic and cultural globalization would triumph.  Where it did not yet exist, it would.  Material prosperity and cultural assimilation would shift the balance of international relations from conflict to cooperation.  Where it did not yet exist, it would.  This amounted to the creation of what the political scientist Stephen Walt calls “liberal hegemony.”[2] 

            The United States became the hegemon.  Yes, in 1989-1990, the United States managed the peaceful re-unification of Germany as the Soviet Union abandoned its empire in Eastern Europe.  Yes, in 1991, the United States led a coalition that ejected Iraq’s army from Kuwait and then stopped short of invading Iraq.  However, those punctuated the end of the Cold War era’s hard-earned lessons of self-restraint.[3] 

            Subsequently, in 1999, the United States allowed the expansion eastward of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO); in 2001, the United States invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Taliban while in hot pursuit of Osama Bin Laden, but then chose to stay on in a prolonged effort at nation-building; in 2003, the United States invaded Iraq, setting off a gory civil war and anti-Western insurgency[4]; in 2011-2012, the United States took the part of street demonstrators against the traditional elites in the “Arab Spring”; in 2011, the United States provided the air power needed to bomb the government of Muammar Gaddafi out of power in Libya.  All the while, the United States espoused the cause of international human rights and democratic transitions in countries where the ruling elites rejected both.[5] 

            Inevitably, some countries began to push back.  The most obvious case has been that of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.  With NATO creeping ever-closer, Putin tried to disrupt Ukraine’s move toward the European Union and NATO.  When popular resistance blocked that effort, he seized the Crimea, fostered revolts among ethnic Russians in two “oblasts,” and now has gone to war.  Putin also meddled—in a minor way—in the 2016 American presidential election.  China, India, and a host of lesser countries have refused to comply with American-led sanctions. 

            Is there any reasonable policy to follow?  Walt advocates a return to George Kennan’s ideas.  At the dawn of the Cold War, Kennan argued that only a few critical areas needed to be defended from Communist aggression: Western Europe, Japan, the Americas.  The list has grown, but America’s range of action in recent decades has out-run its real means and needs. 

[1] The long concluding episode in the struggle against aggressive tyrannies from 1940 to 1990.  In this conflict, the United States and its allies opposed, first Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and second, the Soviet Union and Communist China.  Yes, we got our hands dirty in this struggle, but it was, I think, a fight worth making. 

[2] Steven M. Walt, The Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy (2018).  I want to thank my former student Hanna Shatuck for bringing this book to my attention years ago. 

[3] The defeat of George H. W. Bush by Bill Clinton had multiple causes.  Perhaps one of them was a desire to escape the burdens of the “hard and bitter peace.” 

[4] The invasion’s encouragement of Kurdish nationalism, turned a NATO ally, Turkey, into an American enemy. 

[5] Admittedly, most of this effort focused on smaller states.  China was another matter. 

Zion Island 33.

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United States National Archives.

RG 457.2: Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, 1917-1993. 

TOP SECRET. 

US Army, Signals Intelligence Service. 

Germany.                                                        Ref.  No.: XXXXXXXXX

                                                                        Issued:

                                                                        Copy No.: 137

From: Berlin.

To:  Theresienstadt. 

Date: 30 June 1950. 

Headquarters Sipo-SD, Theresienstadt, Madagascar.

For the attention of Standartenfuhrer LANGE,

State secret! 

RE: Request for information. 

            Wolfgang GRAF VON BLUCHER, Colonel of Fallschirmjager.

Born 1917, Altengotten, Thuringia.  Minor aristocracy, despite the name.  Father died in 1924; leaving the family in straightened circumstances.  Mother managed a private school education for her children.  1934: Abitur.  1935-1936: Reich Labor Service.  1936: Enlisted in Wehrmacht upon release from RLS.  1937: Transferred to Luftwaffe as a volunteer for the paratroops. 

Speaks English (very well) and French (passably). 

Wartime Service:

1939: Poland. 

1940: Belgium (Capture of Fort Eben-Emael).  Iron Cross. 

1940: Gibraltar.  Knights Cross of the Iron Cross.  Blucher was one of three brothers who all volunteered for the paratroops.  His brothers were killed on Gibraltar. 

1941: Russia.  Relieved of command; acquitted by court-martial, but transferred to Abwehr. 

1942—the present: Various tasks for the Abwehr. 

Never belonged to Hitler Jugend or to the Party. 

            Helmut ARPKE, Sergent, Fallschirmjager. 

            Born: 1917, Graudenz, Prussia.[1]  Son of an auto mechanic.  Completed high school.  Worked from youth in his father’s garage.  1935: crossed border from Poland to re-join the Reich.  1935-1936: Reich Labor Service.  1936: Enlisted in Wehrmacht upon release from RLS.  1937: Transferred to Luftwaffe as a volunteer for the paratroops. 

            Speaks Polish fluently. 

            Wartime Service:

            1938-1939: Trained as a Combat Engineer and demolitions expert. 

            1940: Belgium (Capture of Fort Eben-Emael).  Knights Cross of the Iron Cross

            1940: Gibraltar.  Iron Cross; Wound Badge. 

            1941: Russia. 

            1942—the present: various tasks for the Abwehr. 

            The two men served in different companies of the same regiment.  Their companies launched a joint attack on one entrance of the Gibraltar tunnel complex.  Despite fierce resistance by the British, the mission was accomplished. 

            It is not possible to discover at this time the nature of BLUCHER’S mission.  Will continue inquiries, but would be glad to learn whatever you discover on your end. 

You will recall the circumstances of BLUCHER’s relief in Latvia and subsequent court-martial.  Also, Governor Bach’s role.  Urge you not let past history or personal animus interfere with relations. 

            Heil Hitler! 

SS Brigadefuhrer KALTENBRUNNER, BERLIN.

State secret! 

[1] This part of eastern Germany was transferred to Poland after the Great War.  Germans who remained in the “Polish corridor” after the territory transfer felt themselves to be a persecuted minority. 

Zion Island 32.

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United States National Archives.

RG 457.2: Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, 1917-1993. 

TOP SECRET. 

US Army, Signals Intelligence Service. 

Germany.                                                        Ref.  No.: XXXXXXXXX

                                                                        Issued:

                                                                        Copy No.: 221

From: Theresienstadt. 

To: Berlin. 

Date: 28 June 1950. 

Headquarters Sipo-SD, for the attention of SS Brigadefuhrer KALTENBRUNNER, BERLIN. 

State secret! 

Request for information. 

            Please send all available information on:

            Wolfgang GRAF VON BLUCHER, Colonel of Fallschirmjager.

            Helmut ARPKE, Sergent, Fallschirmjager. 

            The two men arrived Theresienstadt by plane today. 

Wearing civilian clothes, but carrying proper military identification. 

            Refused to declare to Arrival Authorities the purpose of their visit. 

Met by official car, driven to Headquarters of the Governor, and then to a private villa. 

            Can you determine their mission? 

            Heil Hitler! 

Commander of Sipo-SD Lange, Theresienstadt, Madagascar, Standartenfuhrer.  

State secret! 

The Crisis of Liberal Democracy.

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            The American Revolution began as a “liberal” revolution.  It stayed that way.  The French Revolution began as a “liberal” revolution.  It soon went off the rails as ever more radical groups seized power and pushed their agendas.  Eventually, they went too far for almost everyone.  Then came a course correction, the “Thermidorian Reaction.”  The basic lesson to be drawn is that people can push an idea too far for anyone’s good. 

            Our recent history[1] illustrates this historical lesson.  The chosen solution to the economic crisis of the Great Depression of the Thirties came in an expansion of government responsibilities and in the power needed to meet those responsibilities.  This worked, so after 1945 the political left adopted the cause of government expansion as the solution to any problem that crossed their line of sight.  It became a kind of religious belief among people who were otherwise increasingly secular.  Their extreme optimism about the possibilities of government action ignored both the possibility of over-regulation and the limits of competence of bureaucracy.  The tumultuous Seventies (“stagflation,” racial strife) triggered a Thermidor. 

            Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan adopted a different approach.  Their economic “neo-liberalism” sprang from the thought of Milton Friedman and Joseph Schumpeter.  There were limits to economic management by the government; high taxes and intrusive and incoherent regulation choked capitalist dynamism; markets were more efficient; and the “nanny state” corrupted individual virtue and eroded personal responsibility.  This worked, so after 1980, the political right adopted the cause of government contraction as the solution to any problem that crossed their line of sight.  It became a kind of religious belief among people who were otherwise often familiar with religion.  Their extreme optimism about the possibilities of the market and the individual ignored both the possibility of under-regulation and the limits of individual action in the real world.  Essentially, “there’s no pockets in a shroud,” as my Welsh grandmother used to say. 

            The obvious course is a turn back toward some middle ground.  It is also the course not taken by angry, loud voices on the left and right.[2]  On the left, liberal democracy has been portrayed as a false front concealing the realities of what amounts to a white, male, upper-class “dictatorship of the bourgeois.”  On the right, liberal democracy has been portrayed as a false front concealing a powerful “administrative state” that panders to the interests of selected “people of color” at the expense of the “real” country.  One trouble among many others from this polarization of American politics is that the very idea of “liberal democracy” is being attacked from both sides. 

            Is there any solution to our problems?  A “9/11-style commission” isn’t likely to do much to arrive at a shared understanding.  The torrent of crises in the daily news constantly distracts attention from fundamental issues.  Changes in emotional expression–the celebration of sensitivity, feeling, and experience—are desirable.  Perhaps our greatest hope is in that no one can imagine a viable—or desirable—replacement to liberal democracy in places where it is deeply entrenched.  The changes that distress so many people have all been tied to great social and economic progress, not to decline.  So we will just have to keep trying.  Harrumph. 

[1] I’m 68, so my notion of “recent” may differ from that of other people.  “Objects in mirror,” etc., etc.

[2] Francis Fukuyama, Liberalism and Its Discontents (2022).