The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States in November 2008 was not only notable for the historic breakthrough it represented for African Americans, but for the dignity and eloquence shown in defeat by Obama’s rival.
Senator John McCain was quick to concede and spoke of “the honour” of calling Obama to congratulate him because “his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance”.
But McCain did much more than that; as the defeated candidate, he spoke of what a great day it was for America and his words then cry out for remembrance, not only because of their contemporary potency but because they serve as a stark reminder of how far American political standards have fallen.
That Obama had managed to win, McCain said, “by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire him for achieving . . . America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship . . . Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for this country. I applaud him for it.”
McCain also urged his own supporters to offer “our next president our goodwill and earnest efforts to find ways to come together”.
Obama’s election also made racists deeply uncomfortable, and that strain hardened; race, as always, is a factor in the current election, as is immigration, and as has been widely highlighted, inflation, grocery prices and class and education divides are also driving preferences.
But the most worrying thing in relation to the current campaign and what is coming is the absence of any sense of an appetite to calm tensions after the storm, the sort of desire encapsulated in the magnanimous and mature words of McCain.
It is hardly surprising historians and others are reaching back to analyse the Nazi playbook such is the prevalence in American political life of nativism and the “cruel and prideful bigotry” McCain hoped had been cauterised.
Whether Trump is a fascist or, in American journalist George Packer’s description, an “all-American demagogue,” he and those around him are clearly seeking to promote and exploit “the politics of cultural despair,” a description used by historians tracing the rise of the National Socialists in Germany.
One of those historians, Saul Friedlander, has highlighted the mix of “ideological fanaticism and pragmatic calculation” and the sometimes “uncontrolled fury” that would burst in to the open in the 1930s, triggered by obstacle, threat or defeat.
Trump has no central ideology, but as Richard J. Evans, who has written a trilogy of books on the Nazis has illuminated, it is also the “consenting elite” around the demagogue who have deep and damaging influence, and this is of particular relevance in relation to legal and political checks on the balance of power.
Evans is loath to term Trump a Hitler given Trump’s isolationist tendencies, but “I still think he and his supporters are a real threat to democracy in their fanaticism and denial of truth”.
Liberal and academic perspectives, however, are far removed from the decisive US county battles next week. What matters is how many are embracing political polarisation as intrinsic to their social identity while they grapple with bread-and-butter challenges.
Propaganda, lies, fear and “othering” thrive in this cauldron as “the elites” are lambasted. A shared identity thus becomes out of reach, or as Richard Slotkin identifies it in his recent book A Great Disorder, webs of beliefs and practices that can bind nations are ruptured as there is no higher affinity between those who have little in common.
The Democrats have been slow to recognise these fault lines and have not found an effective response. What many see in the Democrats is too watery, a preoccupation with balancing different wings, always on a tightrope, far too late in challenging Biden’s frailties and too deferential towards corporate interests and cultural righteousness. Their talk of heartbreak at what is happening in the Middle East is hollowed out by continued US financing of so much of that carnage.
Historically, extremist movements have evolved from a pessimism and preoccupation with community decline that morphs into militant nativism, as seen today in response to a much-aired American narrative about “watching a small town die,” with decent people feeling cheated.
Demagogues provide easy slogan-based solutions in response to this psychology of resentment, deny calamitous climate change, indulge in racist dog whistling and gain much from visibility and shock tactics.
As France’s far-right politician Eric Zemmour advised, “if you want to win be radical, even outrageous . . . people expect firmness and conviction”.
Outrage rather than hope has now come to define the titanic American political contests.
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Publish date : 2024-10-31 06:34:00
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