A time for “calling in”
If the threat posed by the authoritarian right is as existential as it seems, some of us might want to unhunch our shoulders and not be as reflexive about running off potential allies. If Digby’s Monday post about Red Caesarism was not a wake-up call, you just ain’t woke.
About that. A repeated theme in Anand Giridharadas’s “The Persuaders” is “Is there room among the woke for the waking?” Do those on the left edge of the left — at the cutting edge of consciousness, if you prefer — possess enough critical mass to achieve the progressive goals they seek:
Veteran activists Giridharadas profiles have decided they do not. Success means expanding their movements without compromising them. They’ve learned to “call in” progressives with whom they mostly agree rather than just calling them out for their failings, to focus more on conversion than on hunting heretics. They walk a fine line seeking to coalition with more moderate allies without watering down their own goals.
A listserv I once enjoyed blew up when the “call out” fad hit the progressive movement. Where there had been months of friendly banter, meet-ups, networking, and idea exchanges there were suddenly micro-aggressions to be called out, privileges to be checked, and demands for self-criticism reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution. What seemed more like online Esalen turned overnight into Salem. A liberal desire for purification became Puritanism. Community collapsed.
It’s a critical flaw on the left that could prove fatal in the face of a gathering authoritarian movement. We need more room among the woke, etc.
Back in high school, fundamentalists from Bob Jones University (always men) had a shtick when they were street evangelizing. They’d approach, bibles in hand, and ask if you were “saved” or “knew Jesus” or whatever. (Of course, if they approached you they’d already sized you up and decided you were unclean.) If you answered in the affirmative, they’d say, “Praise the Lord,” then pivot to a 20 Questions game I called “Unmask the Heretic.”
They’d interrogate where you went to church, how often, what Bible translation you preferred, etc. Because if you didn’t check all the right boxes, you were a Christian in name only with one foot in Hell. Unclean! You needed saving. Again. By them. By joining their cult … um, church. If you didn’t practice their style of Christianity, woe be unto you.
This is a behavior where fringes of both sides really do do it.
Sure, there have been too many progressive disappointments, too much hippie punching, too many trojan moderates sold as lefties. Perhaps what’s nagging me now, though, is Bob Inglis’ experience with the T-party and his Times op-ed about his regrets about the political small stuff he wasted time on in Congress when there were more serious problems needing attention.
Perhaps it was Gov. Gavin Newsome choosing EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler to serve out the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s unexpired term. Butler checks a lot of boxes. There are plenty of reasons why she’s a good pick. But not enough for the picky.
Look! For a time, Butler consulted for a firm whose corporate clients included Uber and PG&E, writes Lee Fang. Unclean!
CNN reported Monday night that former Trump White House chief of staff John Kelly has spoken out against his former boss. Here’s just a portion. Trump is:
A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.
“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”
Yes, but.
“Interestingly, in this statement from Gen. Kelly excoriating Trump, he mentions awful things Trump did during the 2016 election and yet… Kelly happily went to work for Trump after 2016, first at DHS and then at the White House, as chief of staff,” tweeted the estimable Mehdi Hasan. He added, “By the way, has Gen. Kelly apologized yet to Congresswoman Frederica Wilson for lying about her?”
Unclean!
I can’t understand the need on the left to dredge up past sins of people willing to help when democracy is on the line. God help Cassidy Hutchinson, Michael Cohen, Rick Wilson, Stuart Stevens, and too many more to count.
Over the weekend, Adam Serwer pointed Chris Hayes to a related blog post on the attention economy online. It’s reminiscent of call-outs I saw on that listserv and among evangelical interrogators. Venkatesh Rao of Ribbonfarm identifies as a driver of the attention economy beef-only thinking:
A beef-only thinker is someone you cannot simply talk to. Anything that is not an expression of pure, unqualified support for whatever they are doing or saying is received as a mark of disrespect, and a provocation to conflict. From there, you can only crash into honor-based conflict mode, or back away and disengage.
Ours is not a time for disengaging, not a time for calling out but for calling in to a movement to preserve our imperfect democratic republic. Are we really going to purity-police our friends and potential allies while MAGA works at burning the place down?
Look again at the Guardian article on Red Caesarism incubating in right-wing think tanks like the Claremont Institute:
Their calls for a “red Caesar” are now only growing louder as Donald Trump, whose supporters attempted to violently halt the election of Joe Biden in 2020, has assumed dominant frontrunner status in the 2024 Republican nomination race. Trump, who also faces multiple criminal indictments, has spoken openly of attacking the free press in the US and having little regard for American constitutional norms should he win the White House again.
The idea that the US might be redeemed by a Caesar – an authoritarian, rightwing leader – was first broached explicitly by Michael Anton, a Claremont senior fellow and Trump presidential adviser.
They want a dictator. Their “think tank thinked it up.” Heard that somewhere before? It was funny when Ben Kingsley said it as a fictional “custom-made terror threat” controlled by a puppet master. Not so funny when there are real autocrats-in-waiting.
What was it Damon Linker said? “Thirty years ago, if I told you that a bunch of billionaires and intellectuals on the right are waiting in the wings to impose a dictatorship on the United States, you would have said that I was insane.”
Look, I fully expect many Never Trumpers from the Lincoln Project, The Bulwark, and others to return to their conservative fetishes once we defeat rising fascism together. But for now, we need each other.