The Neoliberals Are Just the Neocons Minus Forty Pounds

Leftist writer Freddie DeBoer diagnoses the comfortable neoliberal left, which is exactly the same as the comfortable neocon right.

The election 2016 broke them and their entire "politics" and "philosophy" since then has just been an exercise in psychological self-repair, fixated on The Great Psychic Disturber, Trump.

Some of us have spent the past five years begging liberals to confront their problems, most obviously the deep cultural revulsion vast swathes of the country hold towards them. We have asked them whether they can continue to be the party of the elite liberal arts college faculty lounge and hope to win elections. They have responded angrily.

Some of us on the right have counseled those on the Grifter Pseudoright to do likewise. They have also reacted angrily.

What have we gotten instead of a real postmortem? An insistence that Russia stole the election, the attitude that the voters failed Hillary Clinton instead of the other way around, a remarkable tightening of the vice grip with which activists with bizarre niche politics hold the party's messaging and values, and the utter nihilism of the widespread belief that the country's simply too racist and thus no electoral losses are the party's fault.

This is very similar to how the Grifter Pseudoright reacts -- proving, again, they are now just Neoliberal Democrats wearing slightly different team jerseys.

That's the tenor of the liberal position post-2016, that the country's willingness to elect Donald Trump did not reflect any failures of Hillary Clinton or her party but rather that the electorate was full of unrepentant bigots who probably do not even deserve the wise and enlightened leadership of Democrats. Remarkable that the same people so recently laughed at the inability of their opponents to look critically at themselves.

When I think of this refusal to practice introspection, I think of MSNBC host Chris Hayes. I see two great impediments to the American liberal project, and Hayes embodies both: a fixation on Trump that nears the pathological, trapping liberalism perpetually in yesterday's war, and a studious refusal to speak plainly and critically about the way that the Democratic party has become captured by donors and staffers whose politics are not just wildly out of step with the median American but with the median Democrat. Whether for ratings or to satisfy the contemporary lie that Trump is the worst president ever - you can read Hayes's own writing from the Bush era to understand why it's a lie - Hayes cannot quit Donald Trump, and thus like his party cannot settle on a remotely coherent political vision. He's trapped.

The neocons, too, continue pretending that their dispute is all about "Trump's character."

Of course, it's not -- their real problem is with Trump's policies, which they hate. Especially the part about cracking down on illegal immigration and deporting illegal criminals and stopping further illegal immigration.

The neocons want more illegal immigration. They basically want a papered-over Open Borders regime.

They can't admit that.

So they pretend everything is about Trump's "character," while neatly avoiding any discussion of the key issue of immigration.

Conveniently enough!

In fact, almost every point of real dispute with Trump has the neocons on the neoliberal side of the argument with the conservative Trump.

They don't want to admit they're taking the liberal side of the argument -- so they shift it to an argument that sounds kinda-sorta "conservative," an argument about Character and Virtue.

Because telling the truth -- "we're urban liberals and always have had a preference for liberalism" -- just wouldn't sell with the conservative base.

But they're all about truth, honesty, and integrity, huh?

I see Hayes as a synecdoche for a broader tendency - a set of left-liberal Democrats who are relentlessly focused on Trump and Trumpism, January 6th, and their (incorrect) belief that this is an unprecedented threat to the United States. Their politics is resolutely retrospective, seeing in Trump the epitome of all that is wrong with American politics, to the exclusion of the deeper rot which afflicts the Republican party, yes, but also our politics, our institutions, and our people. They tend to be approaching middle age, white, and dudes. They hold some moderate instincts regarding culture war issues but have learned to keep them to themselves, for fear of getting dunked on. They would like very much to not get dragged into any particularly complex conversations about immigration, racism, or trans rights, thank you, preferring to know always where the good guys stand and to stand there. They think you must vote Democrat - you must, must vote Democrat - but allow some vague sense that the party is an impediment to progress. And while they may not go so far as to forbid criticism of social justice politics, or distaste for the toxicity of contemporary progressive culture, they want you to know that the problem is Trump. Always Trump.

This is a lefty criticizing the Democrat Neoliberals.

See why I say there is no distinction between Democrat Neoliberals and the Neocons? (Who are, at this point, Democrat Neocons -- they've supported Democrats three election cycles in a row and will almost certainly do so for at least another two cycles.)

posted by Ace at 04:33 PM

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