This explained a lot for me. As an old person I remember the eras you discuss here, but at the time I didn't really understand the neocon/paleocon split. Now I get it that my neighbors here in rural TN are paleocons resentful of their neoliberal and neoconservative elite overlords. I think the decolonial idea may be correct. It explains all the guns, and the backyard target practice that goes on almost every day here in nice weather. They see themselves romantically, as liberation soldiers, even though they are driving huge expensive trucks and live in big expensive houses that are heated or cooled year round to a comfortable 72 degrees. In fact the only time they come out to practice with their guns is when the outside temperature is almost exactly 72 degrees. Tough guys!
In my county the Republican petit bourgeois establishment has ruled the county uncontested for several decades. They have allowed right-wing thugs with swastika flags to terrorize drag show venues and black churches. But now, young Democrats are coming for them: every local office is contested by a Democrat for the first time in years! The Republicans, in response, are going full-on Christian nationalist: they are talking about "spiritual warfare" and the work that Satan is doing in this county, through the Democrats who are trying to undermine the county's moral values. They don't have any practical solutions to rising housing costs and rising cost of living generally, and they really don't care if young families can buy houses or not. So they say we Democrats are the Devil. The local churches echo this theme.
If we can get through the next year without any political violence, I will be very grateful.
I don't think Republicans should be accusing others of corrupting "the county's moral values" when their enabling Neo-Nazis coercing minority communities. If anything, Democrats should be criticized for lollygagging on certain issues because of the neoliberal wing (i.e., refusing to pressure Israel to stop Palestinian genocide or not implementing single-payer health care).
When far-right types talk about "moral values" they're usually just vilifying individualism while enforcing dated religious doctrine.
This is fantastic man, you’re really spitting with those last few paragraphs. It’s an actually original and persuasive formulation for understanding the mythic aspect of the roles that Iran and the US play for each other. Just great stuff
Mythic~ but so very absurd as an act of self harm on the part of the US. For Iran, they have been affected by the sanctions and attacked by the US. They are trapped. But the US has nothing to gain. Certainly not lost honor, as we can only damage ourselves.
It’s explains the decades of obsession with Iran on the part of some but I suspect Trump is motivated by money more than honor or ideology.
Excellent analysis as always, John. It reminds me A LOT of Adam Curtis’s “The Power of Nightmares” (2004/2005) whose key dialectical insight is that U.S. neoconservatives and radical Islamist movements are indeed mirror images of each other, both rising from the failure of utopian ideologies to offer a "noble lie" to restore their political authority.
There are strong links here also to the Straussian legacy of deliberately telling noble lies, planting manichean myths of a dangerous, unified enemy. This we already know is a central aspect of the neoconservative movement. (Were the paleos ever that hell-bent on always concealing their own inner legacy, one might wonder. Maybe the paleos are more overt, more Schmittian than Straussian.)
Ultimately, Curtis asserts that both Salafist Islamism and its Northern American counterpart are reactionary, nihilistic, and focused on maintaining power through the "power of nightmares" rather than by offering positive, constructive visions of the future… and boy is that nihilistic legacy still going strong!
I would also comment on the paleo/neo divide is a question of belief in democracy. The neos, at least some like Bloody Bill Kristol, genuinely believe democracy is good and the military spreading it is good. Whereas paleos like Buchanan, Carlson, and earlier Jackson, believe there is a purer herrenvolk, the "real americans" who should be making decisions and not allowing feminized, mongrelized masses easily tempted by cheap foreign doodads that make up post-1964 America.
I think the key to the whole 'isolationist' thing lies in the fact that the divide essentially emerges around the first rumblings of the idea that there could be a 'liberal international order' with Wilson and then its culmination with the UN post-1945. Essentially they opposed foreign intervention because of its increasing association with liberal rhetoric and institutions throughout the 20th century, not because they were anti-war per se. Now that that international order seems to be breaking down (and really this was a process which started with Iraq, hence why Trump supported it) there's increasingly little reason for conservatives to oppose wars which are pretty clearly illiberal. Which is to say the Republican Party is essentially returning to its stance in the late 19th century, when it supported a campaign of unabashed imperial expansion.
The obsession with air power from Taft through to the present is also pretty instructive. 'Boots on the ground' has a tendency to provoke mass democratic mobilisations in both the invading country and the invaded, since it actually alters social and political hierarchies in both. Bombing on the other hand is pretty handy for destroying/enervating the civil life through which popular resistance to a regime would emerge - obviously beneficial to Trump, who would much rather welcome a debilitated Islamic Republic into his 'family' a la Venezuela than deal with a genuinely democratic Iran.
Agree with this. It could be argued that the post WW2 ‘class truce’ arose from capital’s deep appreciation of what millions of disciplined young men who knew how to use weapons could do if conditions deteriorated after the war. The trente glorieuse arose from that keen understanding imo. Now of course no such threat exists at home, but is a possibility abroad.
For this historian, your analysis of MAGA's deep cultural roots is enormously enlightening, John. I have a small addendum regarding the 1990s on. Back in 2017, I posted an article pointing out the notably "Irish-American" character of this group's biggest voices: Buchanan, O'Reilly, Hannity, Bannon. Perhaps useful for you? https://www.newsweek.com/why-are-all-conservative-loudmouths-irish-american-691691
Seems obvious, I suppose, but I’ve always kind of read supposed paleo opposition to foreign wars as mostly being about *losing* them than getting entangled in them. Trump, as is often the case, distills this nicely in his usual predatory animalesque way.
Thus the paleo fixation on air power - technically, America can’t really “lose” a bombing campaign to anybody; the ordnance stockpile is practically infinite and you can reduce enemy territory to rubble without taking casualties and without suffering retaliatory bombardment of the homeland. This is the paleo comfort zone. Smells like victory, so to speak.
The trouble starts, in paleoland, when soldiers go in, they start getting killed, battles are lost, and you open yourself up to the real paleo (and Trumpian) nightmare: embarrassment, humiliation, cracks in the fantasy of total domination. To the paleo sensibility (and objectively), America has “lost” rather a lot of wars in this sense since WWII, and it’s losing that’s impermissible.
Brilliant seminar. Extremely easy to see how the ‘Lost Cause’ narrative on the right will be that Trump was captured by the globalists (Jews) and that’s what led to the American Suez that is unfolding as we speak.
More than a little depressing in that the liberal democratic, if frustratingly incrementalist, march of modern history feels utterly overwhelmed by the forces of reaction in your story, as admittedly they do appear to be in many ways right now. But I don't really think that is our likely future, and for that reason alone I probably value your fascist parallels most. We have faced down this reactionary modernist shit before and can and will again. Hopefully, short of another world war and the slaughter of millions. Anyway, fascinating history. And the comparison of MAGA and the Islamic revolution is just plain brilliant trolling. You win the internet when the internet feels completely unwinnable. Stay strong.
Really interesting stuff, a lot to chew on. I think for people of my age, for whom the Iraq War dominated foreign policy discussion, it's hard to realize how much Iran as a bruise to America's national honour was a feature of 80s politics.
I guess I just assumed Trump's anti-Iran views were formed by 2010s-era Fox News anti-JCPOA programming plus having Jared Kushner as a son-in-law, but I think this is convincing that there's probably deeper currents there.
The Perot stuff is insane: I read your book, but somehow that detail of him trying to hire a private special ops force had faded from my memory. Time to watch the On Wings of Eagles miniseries as uh... historical research?
'[Taft] was not opposed to American power as such. He wanted a strong Air Force. He wanted American sovereignty unconstrained by alliances and institutions he saw as entangling the republic in other people’s quarrels. The Taft tradition is not “America should stay home.” It’s “America should answer to no one.”’ - Why not both? This tradition seems very suited to the era of drone warfare. Substitute remote operators or robots for air force pilots - and America can ‘stay home’ and ‘answer to no one’ simultaneously. Cutting edge reactionary modernism.
Great article. Thank you. I'm reading your book and After Nations by Rana Dasgupta. I would also recommend the current issue of NLR-Susan Watkin's and Ervand Abrahamian's columns are spot on.
Fantastic as always and, as others have noted, the turn in the last few paragraphs is so sharp. Recently read Kathleen Belew's 2018 book "Bringing the War Home" and she anatomizes the white power movement of the 80s which was no longer interested in serving the state but declared war against it. Currently we're in the peculiar position where the ideological heirs of that movement occupy higher and higher positions in government or adjacent to it: what does that "revolution" start to look like? The "leaderless resistance" strategy turn circa 1983 leads directly to Jan 6. Back then they counterfeited money - both to raise funds for the Cause and to "undermine public confidence in currency". We have crypto, memecoins, doing some of that work (whether consciously or not). What they wanted was not a conservative preservation of an existing way of life but a post-revolutionary future which in some ways is imbricated w/ an apocalyptic future.
This explained a lot for me. As an old person I remember the eras you discuss here, but at the time I didn't really understand the neocon/paleocon split. Now I get it that my neighbors here in rural TN are paleocons resentful of their neoliberal and neoconservative elite overlords. I think the decolonial idea may be correct. It explains all the guns, and the backyard target practice that goes on almost every day here in nice weather. They see themselves romantically, as liberation soldiers, even though they are driving huge expensive trucks and live in big expensive houses that are heated or cooled year round to a comfortable 72 degrees. In fact the only time they come out to practice with their guns is when the outside temperature is almost exactly 72 degrees. Tough guys!
In my county the Republican petit bourgeois establishment has ruled the county uncontested for several decades. They have allowed right-wing thugs with swastika flags to terrorize drag show venues and black churches. But now, young Democrats are coming for them: every local office is contested by a Democrat for the first time in years! The Republicans, in response, are going full-on Christian nationalist: they are talking about "spiritual warfare" and the work that Satan is doing in this county, through the Democrats who are trying to undermine the county's moral values. They don't have any practical solutions to rising housing costs and rising cost of living generally, and they really don't care if young families can buy houses or not. So they say we Democrats are the Devil. The local churches echo this theme.
If we can get through the next year without any political violence, I will be very grateful.
I don't think Republicans should be accusing others of corrupting "the county's moral values" when their enabling Neo-Nazis coercing minority communities. If anything, Democrats should be criticized for lollygagging on certain issues because of the neoliberal wing (i.e., refusing to pressure Israel to stop Palestinian genocide or not implementing single-payer health care).
When far-right types talk about "moral values" they're usually just vilifying individualism while enforcing dated religious doctrine.
This is fascinating, and I'm so pleased that it's NOT audio, as I read faster than I listen.
This is fantastic man, you’re really spitting with those last few paragraphs. It’s an actually original and persuasive formulation for understanding the mythic aspect of the roles that Iran and the US play for each other. Just great stuff
Mythic~ but so very absurd as an act of self harm on the part of the US. For Iran, they have been affected by the sanctions and attacked by the US. They are trapped. But the US has nothing to gain. Certainly not lost honor, as we can only damage ourselves.
It’s explains the decades of obsession with Iran on the part of some but I suspect Trump is motivated by money more than honor or ideology.
Excellent analysis as always, John. It reminds me A LOT of Adam Curtis’s “The Power of Nightmares” (2004/2005) whose key dialectical insight is that U.S. neoconservatives and radical Islamist movements are indeed mirror images of each other, both rising from the failure of utopian ideologies to offer a "noble lie" to restore their political authority.
There are strong links here also to the Straussian legacy of deliberately telling noble lies, planting manichean myths of a dangerous, unified enemy. This we already know is a central aspect of the neoconservative movement. (Were the paleos ever that hell-bent on always concealing their own inner legacy, one might wonder. Maybe the paleos are more overt, more Schmittian than Straussian.)
Ultimately, Curtis asserts that both Salafist Islamism and its Northern American counterpart are reactionary, nihilistic, and focused on maintaining power through the "power of nightmares" rather than by offering positive, constructive visions of the future… and boy is that nihilistic legacy still going strong!
I would also comment on the paleo/neo divide is a question of belief in democracy. The neos, at least some like Bloody Bill Kristol, genuinely believe democracy is good and the military spreading it is good. Whereas paleos like Buchanan, Carlson, and earlier Jackson, believe there is a purer herrenvolk, the "real americans" who should be making decisions and not allowing feminized, mongrelized masses easily tempted by cheap foreign doodads that make up post-1964 America.
I think the key to the whole 'isolationist' thing lies in the fact that the divide essentially emerges around the first rumblings of the idea that there could be a 'liberal international order' with Wilson and then its culmination with the UN post-1945. Essentially they opposed foreign intervention because of its increasing association with liberal rhetoric and institutions throughout the 20th century, not because they were anti-war per se. Now that that international order seems to be breaking down (and really this was a process which started with Iraq, hence why Trump supported it) there's increasingly little reason for conservatives to oppose wars which are pretty clearly illiberal. Which is to say the Republican Party is essentially returning to its stance in the late 19th century, when it supported a campaign of unabashed imperial expansion.
The obsession with air power from Taft through to the present is also pretty instructive. 'Boots on the ground' has a tendency to provoke mass democratic mobilisations in both the invading country and the invaded, since it actually alters social and political hierarchies in both. Bombing on the other hand is pretty handy for destroying/enervating the civil life through which popular resistance to a regime would emerge - obviously beneficial to Trump, who would much rather welcome a debilitated Islamic Republic into his 'family' a la Venezuela than deal with a genuinely democratic Iran.
Agree with this. It could be argued that the post WW2 ‘class truce’ arose from capital’s deep appreciation of what millions of disciplined young men who knew how to use weapons could do if conditions deteriorated after the war. The trente glorieuse arose from that keen understanding imo. Now of course no such threat exists at home, but is a possibility abroad.
For this historian, your analysis of MAGA's deep cultural roots is enormously enlightening, John. I have a small addendum regarding the 1990s on. Back in 2017, I posted an article pointing out the notably "Irish-American" character of this group's biggest voices: Buchanan, O'Reilly, Hannity, Bannon. Perhaps useful for you? https://www.newsweek.com/why-are-all-conservative-loudmouths-irish-american-691691
Really good stuff.
Seems obvious, I suppose, but I’ve always kind of read supposed paleo opposition to foreign wars as mostly being about *losing* them than getting entangled in them. Trump, as is often the case, distills this nicely in his usual predatory animalesque way.
Thus the paleo fixation on air power - technically, America can’t really “lose” a bombing campaign to anybody; the ordnance stockpile is practically infinite and you can reduce enemy territory to rubble without taking casualties and without suffering retaliatory bombardment of the homeland. This is the paleo comfort zone. Smells like victory, so to speak.
The trouble starts, in paleoland, when soldiers go in, they start getting killed, battles are lost, and you open yourself up to the real paleo (and Trumpian) nightmare: embarrassment, humiliation, cracks in the fantasy of total domination. To the paleo sensibility (and objectively), America has “lost” rather a lot of wars in this sense since WWII, and it’s losing that’s impermissible.
Brilliant seminar. Extremely easy to see how the ‘Lost Cause’ narrative on the right will be that Trump was captured by the globalists (Jews) and that’s what led to the American Suez that is unfolding as we speak.
More than a little depressing in that the liberal democratic, if frustratingly incrementalist, march of modern history feels utterly overwhelmed by the forces of reaction in your story, as admittedly they do appear to be in many ways right now. But I don't really think that is our likely future, and for that reason alone I probably value your fascist parallels most. We have faced down this reactionary modernist shit before and can and will again. Hopefully, short of another world war and the slaughter of millions. Anyway, fascinating history. And the comparison of MAGA and the Islamic revolution is just plain brilliant trolling. You win the internet when the internet feels completely unwinnable. Stay strong.
Really interesting stuff, a lot to chew on. I think for people of my age, for whom the Iraq War dominated foreign policy discussion, it's hard to realize how much Iran as a bruise to America's national honour was a feature of 80s politics.
I guess I just assumed Trump's anti-Iran views were formed by 2010s-era Fox News anti-JCPOA programming plus having Jared Kushner as a son-in-law, but I think this is convincing that there's probably deeper currents there.
The Perot stuff is insane: I read your book, but somehow that detail of him trying to hire a private special ops force had faded from my memory. Time to watch the On Wings of Eagles miniseries as uh... historical research?
'[Taft] was not opposed to American power as such. He wanted a strong Air Force. He wanted American sovereignty unconstrained by alliances and institutions he saw as entangling the republic in other people’s quarrels. The Taft tradition is not “America should stay home.” It’s “America should answer to no one.”’ - Why not both? This tradition seems very suited to the era of drone warfare. Substitute remote operators or robots for air force pilots - and America can ‘stay home’ and ‘answer to no one’ simultaneously. Cutting edge reactionary modernism.
Excellent, John. Pulls together so many puzzling aspects of the various strains of conservatism.
Great article. Thank you. I'm reading your book and After Nations by Rana Dasgupta. I would also recommend the current issue of NLR-Susan Watkin's and Ervand Abrahamian's columns are spot on.
Fantastic as always and, as others have noted, the turn in the last few paragraphs is so sharp. Recently read Kathleen Belew's 2018 book "Bringing the War Home" and she anatomizes the white power movement of the 80s which was no longer interested in serving the state but declared war against it. Currently we're in the peculiar position where the ideological heirs of that movement occupy higher and higher positions in government or adjacent to it: what does that "revolution" start to look like? The "leaderless resistance" strategy turn circa 1983 leads directly to Jan 6. Back then they counterfeited money - both to raise funds for the Cause and to "undermine public confidence in currency". We have crypto, memecoins, doing some of that work (whether consciously or not). What they wanted was not a conservative preservation of an existing way of life but a post-revolutionary future which in some ways is imbricated w/ an apocalyptic future.