Leonid Brezhnev: Democratic role model?

Cas Mudde, an associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia, had an interesting news analysis about Russiagate recently at the otherwise execrable Guardian website.  It managed to make two all-important points in less than 800 words.

One concerned the nature of the investigation.  Rather than an objective, unbiased inquiry into foreign meddling, it argues that Russiagate is nothing less than an effort at regime change.  Since Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s much-ballyhooed Feb. 16 indictment of thirteen Russian individuals and three Russian corporations, Mudde wrote, “social and traditional media have exploded with speculations about the next step, because, in the end, the only question everyone really seems to care about is whether Donald Trump was involved – and can therefore be impeached for treason.  Democratic party leaders once again reassured their followers that this was the next logical step in the inevitable downfall of Trump.”

The purpose of Russiagate is thus not to get at the truth, but to toss out a legally elected US president.  This makes it no different from the US-backed putsch against Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014.  Mudde’s other point, however, is that, unlike the Ukraine, the dump-Trump movement is going nowhere because it lacks the requisite political support.  To be sure, 53 percent of Americans said in a recent poll that exposing Russian meddling should be a top or at least an important priority.  But as impressive as that may seem, Mudde points out that it is substantially less than the 75 percent who assign the same importance to fixing healthcare, the 74 percent who believe that infrastructure investment is a must, the 65 percent who think that the financial system needs straightening out, and  so on.  Democrats are expending vast energy on an issue that voters regard as second-rate.

Mudde clearly thinks that Dems should get their priorities straight and concentrate on the things that count, a belief that this blog does not regard as quite so self-evident.  So let’s re-examine these two points from an anti-Democratic, plague-on-both-your-houses viewpoint and see where they lead.

First, regime change.  Hillary Clinton could have blamed any number of things for her 2016 loss.  Since she carried the popular vote by nearly three million, she could have attacked the Electoral College as an eighteenth-century relic that should have been fixed ages ago.  She could have attacked FBI Director James Comey for re-opening the investigation into her misplaced emails just two weeks prior to the vote.  She could even have blamed herself for not campaigning in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, the three states that narrowly put her opponent over the edge.  But instead she blamed Russia.  As Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes put it in their bestseller Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign:

“That strategy had been set within twenty-four hours of her concession speech.  [Campaign manager Robby] Mook and [campaign chairman John] Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up.  For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public.  Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument” (p. 396).

But why Russia?  The answer is that for a divided and dysfunctional party, there was no other way out.  Russia is America’s chief competitor on the international scene; hence, an anti-Kremlin campaign was a way of overcoming the party’s divisions by projecting them onto a foreign rival.  It was a means of sidestepping the issues that have split the Dems down the middle, starting with HRC’s 40-year record of support for US imperial adventures from the Nicaraguan Contras on.

So Democrats decided to run with it.  Obviously, they had no hope of actually convicting Trump of treason.  But they counted on a steady drip, drip, drip of evidence to either drive him out of office or cripple him until the midterm elections, at which point they would move in for the kill.

But there was a problem.  Not only is there zero evidence of treason – which the Constitution defines as nothing less than “levying war” against the United States (Art. III, sec. 3) – but there is no sign of even lesser forms of collusion.  As even the Christopher Steele dossier admits, Trump’s efforts to do business in Russia were unsuccessful while there is no evidence of Russians using bank loans, sex tapes, or any other items either to cultivate him or compel him to do their bidding.  To the contrary, his admiration for Putin as a fellow tough-talking nationalist seems to be entirely unforced.  He looks up to him as a Russia-firster who ran circles around Obama, Clinton, and John Kerry in the Ukraine and Middle East and therefore as someone worthy of emulation.

This is why months of screaming headlines have come to naught — because there’s no “there” there.  The latest indictments are a case in point.  Not only do they describe an operation that was even more inept and amateurish than skeptics had imagined, but they notably fall short of establishing a connection with either the Kremlin or the Trump campaign.

After nine months of labor, Mueller has brought forth a mouse.  So Mudde is right: what started out as a no-brainer has turned into an all-but-certain loser.  As for his point about the widening gap between the Democratic elite and the broader electorate, the situation is even direr than he imagines.  It calls to mind what a smart French sociologist named Emmanuel Todd said about the Soviets back in the 1970s:

“Certain ruling groups, because of the way they are organized, seem to develop a mentality which is irredeemably stupid.  They are totally unconscious of the nature of social relations of which they form a part.  Bureaucratic organizations strongly encourage indifference to the fate of the masses, because they depersonalize the relations of economic exploitation. …  Structurally induced stupidity is generally manifested in the odious behavior of the privileged toward the exploited, during a prerevolutionary period.  Afterwards, one speaks of the blindness of the class which was overthrown.”  (The Final Fall: An Essay on the Decomposition of the Soviet Sphere [New York: Karz, 1979], 130.]

Todd was not just slinging insults.  The Soviet bureaucracy was exhausted by the Brezhnev years.  Socialism had fallen by the wayside, and, as a consequence, the “apparatus” had no idea what to do with itself, what its historical mission might be, or even why it existed at all.  It was indifferent to the fate of the masses because it was socially and ideologically cut off and therefore incapable of attending to anyone’s concerns other than its own.  Stupidity did not flow from the individual, but from the system as a whole – hence, it was “structurally induced.”

How different are today’s Democrats?  America’s 230-year-old political system is also exhausted.  The House is distorted by gerrymandering while the Senate is the most malapportioned major legislative body in the putative democratic world.  (Thanks to the principle of equal state representation, the 53 percent of the US that lives in the ten most populous states has the same voting power as the three percent that lives in the ten least,)  Two of the last five presidential elections have been stolen thanks to the Electoral College while the judiciary is firmly in the hands of conservatives dedicated to the principle of original intent.  (Where Evelyn Waugh once complained that Tories always promise to turn back the clock but never do, the US Supreme Court is proving him wrong.)  Yet even though a structural overhaul is long overdue, the problem is unfixable thanks to an amending clause that allows thirteen states representing as little as 4.4 percent of the country to veto any repair, no matter how minor.

Nothing can be done.  As result, today’s Democrats stumble through the motions not unlike the Brezhnevites of the 1970s.  They pretend to fight Trump while the base pretends to care.  Given that the integuments that once held the system together have long since frayed, the two layers are heading off in opposite directions.  While Hillary Clinton’s summers in a $29-million house in the Hamptons next door to Harvey Weinstein and her daughter rakes in a hefty salary heading up the family foundation, the sons and daughters of those who voted for her are sent off to fight in meaningless wars in the Middle East.

No one cares because “structurally induced” stupidity doesn’t permit them to care.  Instead, it locks them in a system of induced atomization in which the only “realistic” option is to look out for number one.  Trump is stronger than ever, the bogus “resistance” is collapsing, while Democratic prospects for the midterm elections are looking none too bright.  In other words, events are following their expected course.

NYT Edit Page Editor James Bennet: Trump in league with a hostile power.

American politics are in a trough.  The Trump administration has passed the one-year mark while midterm elections are still nine months off.  So there’s nothing for Congress and the press to do for the moment other than snipe, complain, and engage in intricate maneuvers on Capitol Hill.  The result is a steady state of boring, low-level hysteria.  Typically, Trump will do, say, or tweet something that rouses liberals to a fury.  They’ll then scream and shout that they can’t stand it anymore before going back to sleep for a day or two until the next outrage occurs.  Tweet, scream, repeat.  It’s a mindless cycle that promises to go absolutely nowhere.

Indeed, Trump sometimes doesn’t have to do anything at all to get the ball rolling.  An example occurred Tuesday when Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, FBI Christopher Wray, CIA Director Mike Pompeo, and other intelligence heavyweights appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee to testify about Russian cyber meddling.  Vice Chairman Mark Warner, a Democratic tech magnate from Virginia, led the charge:

“What we’re seeing is a continuous assault by Russia to target and undermine our democratic institutions.  And they’re going to keep coming at us.  Despite all this, the president inconveniently continues to deny the threat posed by Russia.  He didn’t increase sanctions on Russia when he had a chance to do so.  He hasn’t even tweeted a single concern.  This threat I believe demands a whole of government response and that response needs to start with leadership at the top.”

Next up was Coats: “Frankly, the United States is under attack….  While Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest cyber threats, other nation states, terrorist organizations, transnational criminal organizations, and ever more technically capable groups and individuals use cyber operations to achieve strategic and malign objectives.  Some of these actors, including Russia, are likely to pursue even more aggressive cyber attacks with the intent of degrading our democratic values and weakening our alliances.  Persistent and disruptive cyber operations will continue against the United States and our European allies using elections as opportunities to undermine democracy, sow discord, and undermine our values.”

And so on for more than two hours.  No evidence was offered, no facts presented, merely faith-based assertions that the Kremlin is “engaged in a coordinated attack to undermine our democracy,” as Warner put it, and that something must therefore be done.

But notice that it wasn’t anything Trump said or did that set Warner off, but what he didn’t, i.e. the fact that he didn’t tweet, didn’t impose sanctions, and didn’t display that the requisite remorse that he’s in the Oval Office and Saint Hillary isn’t.  For Warner, this amounts to a failure of “leadership at the top.”  Warner, whose presidential ambitions are well known, seemed saddened by it all.  The New York Times seemed concerned.  As it worriedly noted in the next day’s news story:

“The warnings were striking in their contrast to President Trump’s public comments.  He has mocked the very notion of Russian meddling in the last election and lashed out at those who suggested otherwise.”

How disturbing.  Bad as this was, a follow-up editorial on Thursday was even worse.  Entitled “Why Does Trump Ignore Top Officials’ Warnings on Russia?,” it began by declaring: “No one knows more about the threats to the United States than” Coats, Wray, Pompeo, et al., “so when they all agree, it would be derelict to ignore their concerns.  Yet President Trump continues to refuse to even acknowledge the malevolent Russian role

But of course Trump refuses to acknowledge Russia’s role – presuming it even exists – since doing so would mean agreeing that he was illegitimately elected.  This strange refusal to place his own head on the chopping block proves that he’ more illegitimate than ever.

The Times flailed away at the president for failing “to confront an insidious problem that strikes at the heart of the democratic system,” which is to say Russian interference, and for refusing “to impose sanctions for election meddling and aggression against Ukraine.”  It thus blames Trump for refusing to escalate an international conflict that is already dangerously out of control.  Then came climax.  Why has Trump failed to act?  “Some have said he is giving Russia a green light to tamper with the 2018 elections,” the editorial concluded.  “That would have once been an absurd suggestion.  It can no longer be dismissed out of hand.”

Trump, you see, has invited Russia to mount a hostile takeover of US democracy.  It’s no longer out of the question that he’s helping a foreign power to wage war against his own country.  That’s means he’s not just a lousy president, but something far worse.

How seriously are we to take over-the-top rhetoric like this?  After all, it’s the winter doldrums when politicians and editorial writers will say anything to stave off the boredom.  But the answer, unfortunately, is that it’s worth taking seriously indeed — very seriously.  It’s rather like Trump’s absurd sabre rattling toward North Korea.  It may not result in an actual shooting war now.  But it will eventually if he keeps at it long enough.

Calling Trump a traitor obviously makes the Times feel good about itself.  It makes it feel like it’s doing something – speaking truth to power and all that.  But the effect is to undermine democracy as much as anything done or said by Trump.  After all, a traitor is not someone you vote out of office, but someone you take outside and shoot.  Accusing the president of acting in concert with a hostile foreign power means that the time for talk is over and that moment has come to pick up the gun.  The more the American system breaks down, the more US society is beginning to resemble the antebellum period when the only way to resolve a constitutional deadlock over slavery was via civil war.  Is this really where the Times wants to go?

Fasten your seatbelts, America.  You’re in for a bumpy night.

Plainly, I’ve let this blog lapse for far too long.  The  United States seemed to be a stable place when I started it back in 2014.  To be sure, foreign policy was disintegrating at a rapid clip, particularly in Syria.  But all seemed more or less normal at home.  Barack Obama’s approval rating by the end of the year was a respectable 48 percent, Hillary Clinton was living quietly in Chappaqua, Bernie Sanders was an obscure senator from Vermont, while Donald Trump was still a hugely entertaining buffoon whom no one took seriously.

Since then, a few things have changed.  Obama is writing his memoirs and giving speeches on Wall Street, Clinton is in semi-exile, Sanders is gearing up for 2020, and instead of holding forth on “The Apprentice,” Trump now does so from the Oval Office.  Politics have cratered, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle where idiots like Adam Schiff and Chuck Schumer have passed the GOP on the right when it comes to beating the drums for a new Cold War with Russia.  The infighting on Capitol Hill has intensified as Republicans charge their opponents with attempting to drive Trump from office and liberals fire back that anyone saying any such thing is clearly on the Kremlin payroll.  While no one knows where all this will end, the one certainty is that the breakdown can only intensify.

All of which is perfectly in keeping with my thesis, first propounded in my 1996 book, The Frozen Republic, that America’s 1787 constitutional arrangement has entered the last stages of senility and that a massive overhaul is both overdue and impossible under anything resembling present circumstances.  Only a clean sweep will do, one proceeding from the assumption that the Constitution is hopelessly out of date along with the ideological assumptions behind it.  If history has an iron rule, it’s that change is unstoppable and that any attempt to halt the process only insures that it will be all the more radical when it finally arrives.  Yet this is just what the US has attempted to do by tying society up in a constitutional straitjacket for close to a quarter of a millennium.  Now that the arrangement is coming undone, we will all have a chance to see what happens when the old rules collapse and society is forced to begin again from scratch.

There is much to explore here, e.g. the relationship between political structure and economics, the role of law amid a growing constitutional breakdown, and so on.  Meanwhile, we can all sit back and watch as the gaudy spectacle unfolds.  Will Trump fire Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller?  Or will Mueller save his own neck by forgetting about Russiagate and charging former FBI Director James Comey with perjury by falsely introducing the famous Steele dossier as evidence before a federal court?  How long before the war of nerves in Washington leads to fighting in the streets?  And what will the effect of a growing blowout on Wall Street?  (Hint: it can only cause the crisis to intensify.

Fasten your seatbelts.  It’s going to be a bumpy night….