In many previous posts, I focused on the problems of anger and resentment in today’s political discourse. Some may respond it’s okay to be angry when the other side is so evil, and there is a point there. But even in those cases, being against something is not the same thing as solving the problem. In fact, it often leads to more, even worse problems. How so?
Exhibit one is the Biden administration and immigration. Remember how incensed people-on-the-left became over what they called the “Muslim ban” and the effort to “build the wall” during Trump I? It all seems so quaint now, doesn’t it? They were so secure in what they were against (i.e., Trump’s racism), they ignored the problem, which was increasing levels of illegal immigration at a time of economic and social insecurity. Democratic strategists, including some who were pro-massive immigration, warned the incoming Biden administration that there was a huge wave of people waiting to enter the United States one way or another. But being seen as “against” Trump’s policies was more important. Biden figuratively opened the flood-gates, and when the threatened wave materialized, he temporized. Biden and others first claimed those objecting were simply racists, and when the numbers kept increasing (and the videos becoming more and more disturbing), they suggested there was no problem. Remember Secretary Mayorkas assuring us the border “was secure?”
Then they tried to redefine the issue, to one about processing illegal immigrants. They tried to pass a bill which mainly meant to create more immigration judges to address the backlog, and then an app to regulate the flow of people to eliminate the crowds surging across the border. It was only after everything else failed that they enacted policies which largely stemmed the flow: an option always available to them, but one which they ignored because it admitted that perhaps Trump had correctly identified the problem. And they suffered an ignominious electoral defeat as a result. I still contend that even Biden’s disastrous debate performance was not as important as the complete loss of credibility around the immigration issue. What he (or later, she–Kamala Harris) said didn’t matter, because they clearly had no clue.
Lest you think this is a partisan affair, consider exhibit two: the Trump administration and prices. Trump attacked the inflation which the Biden administration tried to downplay, going a step further and claiming he would reduce prices. This was an impossibility, but played very well, especially when the Biden administration was claiming (again) things were going much better. I don’t know what Trump was thinking, perhaps he reasoned that “drill, baby, drill” would result in very low oil prices which in turn would reduce the Producer Price Index (PPI) and make things cheaper. Oil prices do have a strong effect on the PPI, but so much of the US economy is in services and not related to products it was unlikely to drive down prices overall. Trump was so against Biden’s inflationary initiatives that he made promises he couldn’t keep!
And that was before he attacked Iran, which he (and everybody else) knew would increase oil prices, at least in the near term. Now the Trump administration is reduced to various ridiculous claims: citing some products which are less expensive, or highlighting the stock market (which is booming due to Artificial Intelligence), or claiming it’s not even a war. These feeble excuses will garner the same electoral effect, I imagine.
Nor is the “anti” problem strictly American; it’s gone global! You may have heard that the Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) Partei in Germany recently won a state-level election. AfD is a right-wing party, which is automatically suspect in Germany due to its history (i.e., the National Socialist or Nazi Party took power democratically–mostly–which made postwar Germany virulently suspicious of right-wing movements). AfD began in the former East German (Communist) states as an anti-Euro (the currency) movement. If you know one thing about history, recall this: nothing is more certainly anti-Nazi than a Communist. Despite this historical fact, all the other German political parties and the government bureaucracy joined together to shun the AfD as a neo-Nazi threat. The intelligence services labelled the AfD as extremists. All the other parties, including those on the right, agreed to create what they call the Brandmauer, or firewall. No one will cooperate with the AfD regardless of policy or situation.
For years this kept the AfD on the political fringes of power, even in the former eastern German states. Funny thing about that “anti” Brandmauer: it meant the AfD was outside the system, the power structure, which made them the only political movement untainted by the system, and therefore, an alternative in name and reality. As Germany went through the convulsions of Merkel’s “Wir shaffen das” (we can do this) welcome of seven million immigrants, then economic dislocation due to Germany’s reliance on cheap Russian natural gas, then the ongoing China shock of massive automobile imports, an alternative is exactly what Germans are looking for.
Now is the AfD a neo-Nazi party? There are neo-Nazis who support it. It is anti-immigrant, in much the same way the Trump administration is, as AfD supports re-migration. It is much cozier to Putin’s Russia than any other German party. But Nazi? Not even close. By way of analogy for those who don’t follow German politics, there are avowed Communists in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), who are welcomed in the Democratic Party. Is the Democratic Party therefore a Communist party? There are white-supremacists who support the Republican party stances on immigration: is the GOP therefore white supremacist?
Setting aside those arguments, the Brandmauer has made the AfD more outside the mainstream and therefore more successful. Instead, the Germans should have looked south to how Italy handled the Brothers of Italy movement. That group had similar right-wing positions and tenuous ties to earlier Italian fascist groups. But there was no firewall, as Italian politics admits no permanent friends or enemies. Brothers came to power, and found that running government is a moderating influence. I recall a visit to Italy no long after Giorgia Meloni became Prime Minister. A gypsy-cab driver in Naples regaled my wife and me on a drive up Vesuvius with a textbook, MSNBC view on the dangers of “the female Mussolini” (i.e., Ms. Meloni). According to him, it was only a matter of time until the brown shirts were goose-stepping past the Colosseum. Today, Meloni is the longest (continuous) serving Italian Prime Minister in postwar history, and widely considered one of the shrewdest, most successful European leaders. Brown shirts were optional, apparently.
My final exhibit is trivial, but shows just how ridiculous an “anti” mindset can become: witness the Trump Ballroom. I worked in Washington, DC, for thirty-straight years. I had a few occasions to visit the White House, and I always had the same two impressions. First, a sense of awe at what had transpired there, from Roosevelt to Reagan. And second, a feeling of disappointment because the place was, frankly, a little shabby. Nobody wanted to change or fix anything because “LBJ may have pissed in that urinal” (hypothetically) or because any change would be opposed bureaucratically (endlessly) or it could open the incumbent to charges they were tinkering with history or self-aggrandizing. Imagine that.
I never attended one, but I knew several people who did go to White House banquets, and they all had a consistent opinion: it was equal-parts memorable and embarrassing. Anything larger than a small dinner party had to be moved into tents on the White House lawn, with porta-potties (not kidding). Now these were very nice porta-potties, but seriously, for the British Royal family? Everybody knew it was a problem, but nobody was willing to fix it. Along comes Trump, a man so shameless and uninhibited by the rules he literally tears down the East Wing and builds a ballroom. I tend to agree with Chief Justice Roberts who characterized the entire effort as “likely unlawful.” If I said it, that would be one thing; it’s another thing altogether coming from the mouth of the Chief Justice, even in a minority opinion.
What’s this got to do with an “anti” mentality? Trump was able to pull off this so-called renovation through a series of maneuvers. He started demolition/construction without approvals, claiming he had the authority. When challenged, he stacked the deck of the various boards to post-facto approve his moves. There really was no way to stop him, which is what Chief Justice Roberts was referring to. Here’s the truly crazy part: The National Historic Trust sued to stop him, but to have standing, they had to show a “concrete” damage they suffered. They offered on the grounds that it damaged one woman board member’s “concrete and particularized interest in physically viewing, appreciating, and studying a historic building as it is.” There are some precedents along this line, but the Supreme Court was unwilling to buy it (neither did a lower court). The 5-4 decision found the plaintiffs had no standing, that is, no right to bring a case. Think about this, for a moment. To stop a ballroom which was necessary and was already well underway, and to which all other obstructions had been dismissed (even though those dismissals were dubious-but-legal), the “anti” crowd was willing to ask the US Supreme Court to establish a precedent that anybody could sue anybody else if it changed how they viewed a physical object. Living somewhere that law is more capricious and lawsuits infinitely less frequent, it is stunning such an argument was even put forward.
“Anti” politics is not even politics, which is the art for the possible. “Anti” politics is simply vengeance, mindless of the consequences. The good news is the punishment often fits the crime. It can usually be avoided. Biden had control of both Houses of Congress and could have put forward comprehensive immigration reform; he decided to posture instead. Trump could have relied on experts to develop policies (beyond more oil) to reduce inflation, but who needs experts? German political parties could have cooperated and moderated the AfD (they still might). And the ballroom? Let it be built, and after Trump is gone, name it for Obama. Problem solved.