Palin and the left

Great post by Daniel Larison on Bible Spice here, though I think this is a little too pat:

"What McCain misses in his article is that liberal journalists actually take great delight in the Palin phenomenon. Yes, of course, they don’t want to see her in power, but I think they do want to see her prosper and thrive as the face of the Republican Party. An American right led by or identified with Palin is one that they can very easily ridicule and discredit, and at the same time they can be confident that a Palinized GOP poses no threat to anything they value."

Some liberal journalists and bloggers want to see this. Most partisan-left types, perhaps. Others, like Steve Benen and myself, would much rather see a mainstream, serious Republican Party. The reasoning is simple. No party holds onto power for too long in our system. Right now, the GOP is entirely off its rocker, but if the economy gets much worse it might find itself in power, anyway, albeit completely lacking the tools to engage on the issues. As a Democrat I would naturally prefer that the Democrats always be in power, because I prefer their ideas to the Republicans'. However, as an American who wants the best for my country, I am well aware that a Democratic majority is only an economic slump away from becoming a Republican majority, and therefore I have as much stake in there being a viable Republican Party waiting in the wings as anyone else, because I want America to be as well-governed as possible. And having a smart, engaged Republican opposition also helps when the Democrats are in power, as they could theoretically engage in constructive criticism designed to make the majority's policies better.

But it's pretty obvious that we don't have anything like that kind of Republican Party at this point. Instead of rethinking the ideas that led to the Bush disaster, the Republicans have doubled down on those very ideas. There is sometimes a kernel of truth in their complaints about Obama, but it's mostly just populist nonsense designed to make President Obama and the Democrats politically toxic. I'd much prefer a right led by 2005-vintage Mitt Romney to one lead by Sarah Palin, to answer Larison's remark specifically, but it's at least possible that Palin could lead the Republicans into utter catastrophe and oblivion by running solely on her culture warrior antics, and therefore bring about some creative destruction for the Republicans by discrediting the Teabagger types and letting some different folks seize power. This did happen in 1972, where George McGovern's loss led the way toward the subsequent shift of the Democrats toward the center, but I'm more skeptical of it happening with today's Republicans, as backlash and culture warrior nonsense seems to me to be the substance of the conservative movement, rather than an unfortunate symptom. Most Republicans tend to support this backlash stuff in a way that was never true of Democrats and "New Leftism". I can see the case, though I'd just as soon they picked someone else.

The right and cultural sensitivity

Admittedly, the right long ago abandoned any semblance of a workable foreign policy in favor of brash, aggressive, aggrieved nationalism. But their recent freakout over President Obama bowing to the Japanese Emperor is pretty lame, even for them. The major problem seems to be that they think that such a bow is somehow a sign of submission, but this isn't really the case among Japanese. Indeed, it couldn't be. The Japanese Emperor and the U.S. President are of roughly equal rank--they're both heads of state--and in Japan, a bow is a sign of respect that is shared among equals. From my understanding, in fact, Japanese have different bows for different settings, levels of formality, and disparities of rank, though I'm hardly well-versed enough to explain them all.

One could chalk this up to ignorance, but I do think that the right needs to understand the importance of cultural sensitivity in a way they simply do not now. Indeed, many on the right would snigger at such an assertion and complain about political correctness, but this sidesteps the issue. Political correctness involves using language to make it more difficult to discuss and fix social problems, and its use by (usually well-intentioned) left-leaning academics was memorably exploded by David Foster Wallace in Authority and American Usage. But there's a difference between calling the disabled "differently abled" and calling black folks African-American rather than, well, any number of things. The latter is showing respect to the wishes of a community, and the former is condescension in order to make the speaker feel better about him- or herself.

Bowing to the head of state in a country where that is a tradition is an example of respect--of, dare I say, cultural sensitivity. Refusing to do so would be something of an insult, and those who would condemn Obama for something like this are, as always, coming at these issues from a place of extreme nervousness and insecurity rather than strength. Respecting other people and other cultures doesn't diminish America, though refusing to do so would, for it would make us look arrogant and petulant. It doesn't diminish America in any way for the President and the Emperor of Japan to exchange bows. But I suppose it doesn't diminish Washington Times editors for making a silly political point out of it, as they already occupy the bottom of the barrel, as it were.

The Courage of Chris Hitchens

Allow me to associate myself with these words from Freddie deBoer:

The stand against Nazism and all fascism is our duty, but it is one that we wage best by recognizing as one that can remain unspoken. The reduction of that duty to grist for the mill of professional ambition dulls its edge and trivializes one of our most important political responsibilities.

This comes in a post criticizing self-righteous anti-"Islamofascists". But I think that this conclusion lets Hitchens, James and Applebaum off the hook. What made Gunther Grass, George Orwell and the rest of them significant, brave voices of anti-fascism back in the day was that they were writing in a time when fascism was popular and spreading. Britain was riddled through with fascist sympathizers before WWII, for example, and especially on the right. After the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, that group also included much of the left of the country. For Orwell to do what he did back then was gutsy because he was kind of on his own for a great period of time. Islamofascism (I'll use the word without quote marks from now on) appeals to relatively few people and isn't spreading. Denouncing it--especially in America--takes zero moral courage. So when these idiots pat themselves on the back for it, it's pretty annoying. It's like applauding yourself for saying that you believe that women deserve equal rights to men. Of course they do, at this point it's just assumed.

Putting aside the decidedly unsexy notion of fighting for things that most people say are right but that few people seem too willing to fight for (e.g. opposing torture), if Hitchens really wants to be remembered alongside Gunther Grass and Orwell, the best way of doing that would be to try to find the areas where the current consensus is wrong and to work to correct it. There are the obvious, under-the-radar causes like drug legalization and prison reform, but perhaps there's something else we've never heard of that Hitch could research and bring to our attention. Such a thing probably wouldn't generate the moral thrill of writing scathing, sanctimonious articles about Islamofascism (that don't really matter to anyone), but it would have the benefit of maybe making the world a better place. And I don't really think that Hitchens has done that. As it stands Hitchens is mainly famous for his antitheism and for being pro-Iraq War. I think he's added some value to the former conversation (though I naturally disagree with his views) but I think the other half of that equation cancels it out. I think one could easily make the case that the world would have been worse off without Gunther Grass, Czeslaw Milosz or Orwell. These men helped us to better understand and react to the world. It's unclear to me how the world would have been worse off without Hitchens and those other puffed-up clowns.

I do wonder where Hitchens will wind up in the pantheon, finally. He probably won't make it in. They don't put banal thinkers in the pantheon, after all. But probably the closest match I can think of is Rudyard Kipling. There is the same broadly tragic scope to both mens' thought: Hitchens bolloxed it up when it counted--after 9/11--and Kipling similarly proved to be a man of his times rather than a transcendent figure with his championing of the Empire. The only thing Kipling did that transcended his time and place were his poems, which are still read today. Hitchens doesn't even have that. Of course, Islamofascism will eventually lose in the long run. But that will have nothing to do with Hitchens's work. It will have to do with it being an unsustainable system, as Communism was.

Next up on the TV: Palin vs. Blago

An interesting idea. Probably better for Fox News, though, since both of them are really dumb and Fox needs its lame token liberal, post-Colmes.

Ah, it would never work. Sarah would never share the hosting duties.

A theory for why Lou Dobbs quit

Might it be that Univision is nipping at NBC's heels in primetime ratings? They're taking away our TV jobs! Okay, maybe not really, but it is pretty stunning. NBC has gone from being #1 to knocking elbows with the CW and Spanish-language TV in just a few years Then again, it's not hard to see why people aren't tuning in to a jam-packed lineup of Heroes, Trauma and Leno every Monday.

Immigrants and all other sane people rejoice!

Lou Dobbs is leaving CNN.

Why I'm no longer a Republican

This is from the American Family Association (via Steve Benen):

It it [sic] is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military. The reason is simple: the more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security. Devout Muslims, who accept the teachings of the Prophet as divinely inspired, believe it is their duty to kill infidels. [...]

Of course, most U.S. Muslims don't shoot up their fellow soldiers. Fine. As soon as Muslims give us a foolproof way to identify their jihadis from their moderates, we'll go back to allowing them to serve. You tell us who the ones are that we have to worry about, prove you're right, and Muslims can once again serve. Until that day comes, we simply cannot afford the risk. You invent a jihadi-detector that works every time it's used, and we'll welcome you back with open arms.

This is not Islamophobia, it is Islamo-realism.

Of course, I registered as a Democrat in 2005, so it wasn't this particular press release that made me switch. But it was due to what I was hearing from the right in 2003 and 2004. Basically, I bolted as soon as I started hearing prominent Republicans talking about how prisoner abuse wasn't a big deal, the Constitution only applies to Americans, etc. As Iraq played out, and the abuses of Abu Gharaib became exposed, I slowly came to realize that there was something rotten deep down in the guts of conservatism, as the response from the right was largely to downplay all this stuff. I tended to dismiss lefties that made a big deal of Bush's gaffe about a "crusade" against terror at the time he said it, but as time has gone on I think that it might well have been the most illuminating thing about the issue that George W. Bush ever said. For a lot of these people--and I personally know a few of them--we are fighting some sort of religious war against Islam. A lot of people think the apocalypse is upon us, and that Islam is purely evil. As a Christian but not a fundie, this presents something of a problem to me as my only interest in fighting terrorism is to keep me safe. Period. I have no particular quarrel with Islam, and I imagine that most Muslims are more interested in the "live and let live" idea than fighting an apocalyptic jihad. Some don't, but these aren't the mainstream of public opinion and shouldn't be taken as such.

It does seem like we're hearing the return of the, "Well, we hear about moderate, peaceful Muslims, but why don't they speak out against the bad ones?" argument, one of my biggest pet peeves. This rhetorical construction exploits the notion that silence implies assent. But it doesn't have to signal assent. It could merely signal indifference. Most Muslims hate al-Qaeda, but they also hate America. They aren't particularly concerned with denouncing their coreligionists for the benefit of making the likes of Michelle Malkin happy. Furthermore, I suspect that few Christians in public life would like to be forced to denounce every single act of Christian intolerance that ever occurs in order to make, say, Michael Moore satisfied. What this rhetorical frame does is to try to insinuate that we shouldn't take moderate Islam at its word. In a world where the Muslim community outnumbers America by 4-to-1, this sort of assumption makes the world a very frightening place indeed. The Right has a clear interest in making the world seem like a scary, dangerous place, so that we just put them in charge and not ask too many questions, for risk of emboldening the enemy. It's what they do. Which is why, barring real evidence that there's something to fear here, that sort of thing can't be inferred, and the burden of proof should, as always, be on the accusers of these sorts of slurs and not on the accused.

It's a lynch mob mentality, basically. I tend to dislike this particular phrase, but considering conservatives' history, it kind of fits: for them, Muslim is the new black. I personally don't know how policymakers should respond to Fort Hood: presumably, enhanced security procedures at military facilities concerning firearms are the best response to this. But that doesn't address the underlying ugliness that is prominently on display here. It's ironic that it was George W. Bush who talked at length about how Islam wasn't our enemy after 9/11--for my money, it is one of the few good parts of Bush's legacy--and it's the one that's been the most rapidly dismantled by the right. I guess he wasn't convincing enough.

Good employment news?

Unemployment is now over 10%, but Noam Scheiber is optimistic:

Grant and Gertner argue that the dynamics of the current recovery, in terms of those unemployment peaks, look a lot more the pre-1990 business cycle than the post-1990 business cycle. Which is to say, they resemble the era of "jobful" recoveries rather than the era of jobless recoveries. During the current recession/recovery, the number of people out of work 5-14 weeks peaked the same month as the presumed end of the recession (May, according to Bloomberg), and the number of people out of work 15-26 weeks peaked a month later.

The only real hitch in Grant/Gertner analysis was that final category: people out of work at least 27 weeks. As Grant and Gertner conceded, the number of people out of work that long hadn't yet peaked. In fact, in the last set of data prior to today, the number actually jumped pretty sharply, from 4.988 million to 5.438 million.

Which is why the latest 27-weeks-and-over number is so encouraging. After jumping by 450,000 in September, it only jumped about 150,000 in October, suggesting that the number of very-long-term unemployed could be about to level off. If it does peak in the next month or two, that would really strengthen the Grant/Gertner case that employment growth could come a lot more quickly than we think, since it resembles what we observed before 1990, when "jobless" recovery wasn't yet part of the lexicon.

This made me laugh

"Erickson said defeating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would 'send a message' and 'hamper Obama' in the second half of his term." -- TPM

I mean, it would be embarrassing to lose the Democrats' leader, but replacing Reid with Chuck Schumer strikes me as a potentially exponential increase in the boldness and ability of the leadership.

Republicans poised to lose to Boxer in 2010

As a Californian, I'm well aware that Sen. Barbara Boxer is not the best conceivable senator the Democrats could hope for. She is a fine progressive, but not the most talented politician in the world and there's certainly a possibility that a fiscally-moderate, socially-liberal Rockefeller Republican could mount a strong contest to her. California is Democratic and liberal, but there is a real strain of mild fiscal conservatism in the state that its most successful politicians are able to tap. Schwarzenegger is as popular as polio in the state right now, but he's the sort that can make a race of it. Carly Fiorina is probably not--I'm guessing she's Rockefellerish, but the political moxy she showed as a stumper for McCain makes me think she's not likely to be able to beat Boxer. But it's not inconceivable to me. Since NY-23 is over, though, it looks like it's time for the teabaggers to meddle in exciting new races, and that means California:

A California Republican aiming to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) next year has gotten a boost from conservative Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) [...] "California is ready for a turn back to freedom," DeMint said. He said DeVore has a "record straight up the way mine is" and applauded the candidate for flying to Washington to meet him.

DeMint is on the cutting edge of these sorts of things, so look for this to pop up on the wingnut radar soon. The California GOP is one of the most inexplicable entities on the planet--they don't seriously try to gain power, they don't try to help solve peoples' problems, and they mostly just do everything possible to throw a wrench into California's government (which is not exactly hard) and jeer any attempt to fix any mess. There are a few of them who aren't worthless, but one frequently wonders why they even bother to run for office, considering how poorly they frequently acquit themselves.

My point is that California Republicans will so totally back DeVore against Fiorina, and while I doubt that they are so deluded as to think that a Jim DeMint-style Republican will win the seat, I guess they'll be able to have some satisfaction that they'll be represented by a very liberal Democrat instead of a moderate Republican. Putting myself in their shoes, that makes no sense to me at all, but I guess it makes sense to them.