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      When God Hates America

      by

      Anyone familiar with the ritual called the State of the Union is also familiar with the fact it invariably ends with the exhortation “God bless America.” Few are probably aware of the fact that the first president to utter it was none other than Richard Nixon, who “dropped the phrase during an attempt at damage control for the burgeoning Watergate scandal on April 30, 1973.” God did bless America at the time, if only by ridding the country of “Tricky Dick.”

      Yet it is probably fitting that it was Nixon who first came up with this phrase. Nixon represents something that is fundamental to the human condition, at least in its American form: the drive to succeed, no matter what, the force of self-delusion (“I’m not a crook”) and the fundamental hypocrisy that is central to the American experience.

      Nixon marks the origins of much of what is wrong today in the United States. It was his so-called Southern strategy — the appeal to the worst racist animus of white voters in the South — that not only won him the election, twice, but which marked the Republican Party for decades to come. Donald Trump owes his victory in the presidential election of 2016 to a large extent to Richard Nixon — a victory that has poisoned the country beyond repair.

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      Trump’s callous response to some of the worst calamities in recent history, from the disastrous impact of COVID-19 to the hellish wildfire inferno engulfing the western states, suggests that God has been looking less than kindly on his “city upon a hill” envisioned to represent a model of Christian charity, as John Winthrop put it in 1630. In fact, one might even suspect that God has come to hate it — that he hates it so much, in fact, that he allowed for the election of Donald Trump, the worthy heir to Richard Nixon.

      Nixon, of course, was a crook. But compared to Trump, he was one of Woody Allen’s “smalltime crooks,” little more than a minor league player. At the same time, however, he prepared the ground and paved the way for the current president who has made the appeal to white anxiety and resentment central to his administration. Trump, of course, has gone out of his way to invoke God’s blessing, waving the Bible (albeit upside down) in front of a church “he rarely attends and whose leaders and congregation work against the policies he trumpets,” in a craven attempt to play to his base: the dwindling number of fundamentalist Christians who consider him their last bulwark against an increasingly discombobulating, if not threatening, reality.

      Walking With Dinosaurs

      Donald Trump is the epitome of the stereotypical American, boisterous and narrowminded (“still the greatest country in the world”), hypocritical to the max (waving a Bible while boasting that he can grab any woman by her private parts and get away with it), and completely oblivious to how the rest of the world regards the US these days (“we should have more people from Norway” at a time when no Norwegian in his or her right mind would want to move to a “shithole country” like the US). At the same time, he is reminiscent of the playground bully who runs away crying, like Scut Farkus’ toadie, Grover Dill, in “A Christmas Story” (“I’m gonna tell my dad”) — when somebody dares to stand up to him, particularly if it is a woman.

      The United States is still the most (practicing) Christian nation among advanced Western democracies. In the most recent Pew survey on religion in America, around two-thirds identified as Christians. To be sure, this was substantially lower than just a decade ago. Yet compared to Western Europe, it is a remarkably high level. This, however, is only part of the story. What is considerably more important is the fact that a substantial number of Americans insist on taking the Bible literally, as the absolute Truth, even if that truth runs against not only science but even common sense (who in their right mind would believe that Jesus walked with dinosaurs?).

      Now, one would expect that those who profess to be genuinely dedicated Christians would follow what the good book teaches. Basic exhortations such as don’t lie, don’t cheat, be kind, compassionate and merciful toward your fellow sister and brother, independent of their ethnic background, economic circumstances or sexual orientation. And, above all, be humble and don’t take the moral high ground with that smug self-righteousness, which is particularly irritating in the eyes of the Lord, whom America’s dedicated Christians claim as their ultimate authority.

      As is written in Isaiah 64:6, “all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.” Or as Jesus once put it, “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). For the self-righteous, such sentiments are alien. The self-righteous are hypocrites who condemn others in order to show that they are morally superior. The Pharisees are a prime example of this kind of smug self-righteousness, which Jesus condemns in the most scathing terms.

      In the United States, the equivalent are TV “evangelists” such as Pat Robertson, the host of the “700 Club,” a Christian news and TV program with an audience going into the millions. Or there are Christian “leaders” such as Jerry Falwell Jr., the disgraced former president of Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, whose sexual shenanigans were too much even for evangelicals who have no qualms supporting a president who has boasted of getting away with … see above.

      And there are TV and radio commentators such as Tucker Carson at Fox News, who is still trying to figure out how to find his way out of Trump’s backside, and Rush Limbaugh, famous for dismissing COVID-19 as nothing more than the common flu and, later on, after tens of thousands of Americans had died from the respiratory disease, charging that following medical experts and wearing masks was “un-American” and nothing “compared to the way we have overcome enemies and obstacles in our past.”

      It would be easy to dismiss the likes of Robertson, Falwell Jr. and Limbaugh as somewhat picturesque if unhinged cranks were it not for the fact that their impact on ordinary people has been, and continues to be, far more pernicious than COVID-19 could ever achieve. There are good reasons to suspect that the Trump administration’s position on COVID-19, global warming and climate change, and white-on-black racism derives from a common root: the belief that the end is near. I am not referring to the end of COVID-19, or the end of the American empire, but of the end of humanity — the end of the world as we know it.

      Fulfillment of Prophecy

      In my former life, I had the opportunity to spend a year as an exchange student with a “fundamentalist” Christian family in Texas. They were some of the most generous people I have ever had the opportunity to encounter. They lived their faith, and it showed. The also introduced me, a Bavarian Catholic who had spent the past eight years of his life in a Catholic boarding school, to a world largely informed by the scripture’s teachings.

      For the first time, I was confronted not only with some of the major Old Testament prophets such as Daniel, but also with the Book of Revelations and its exegesis. Here, the most important book at the time, at least among true believers, was Hal Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth,” which sold millions of copies. The book was very much informed by the Cold War. In Lindsey’s exegesis of the Revelations, Gog and Magog, the “forces” from the north threatening Israel, is the Soviet Union attacking Israel with Mi-24 helicopters (John’s giant locusts). After Gog and Magog’s annihilation, there will be a war “between the Western powers and the Chinese, which will culminate in the end of the world in a thermonuclear blast.” So much for Hal Lindsey.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Nevertheless, the book was turned into a film, with Orson Welles, of all people, serving as the narrator. Both book and movie are based on John’s Apocalypse, which tells of the tribulations visited upon humanity heralding in the end of the world, the last judgment. True believers, of course, most of them Americans, were spared the pain. They were snatched from the earth in a process of divine kidnapping that swept them up into heaven from where they could gloat — the rapture. Evangelical writers, always eager to make a buck from the gullibility of true believers, turned the narrative into a series of books, “Left Behind,” which scared the daylights out of lukewarm believers and turned the authors into millionaires. This might sound funny, ludicrous, kooky, off the deep end were it not for the fact that it appears to inform major figures in Trump’s inner circle.

      One of the central dogmas among those who believe in the truth as revealed by John in the Apocalypse is that the end of history — and the return of Christ — is contingent on the Jews rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem. For a long time, this was inconceivable, given the fact that the site of the temple is occupied by two of Islam’s holiest shrines, the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque.

      Until Trump, American presidents have shied away from sanctioning Israel’s claim to all of Jerusalem. Diehard evangelicals have lobbied for decades that the American government do whatever possible to hasten the process. Presumably, this would allow the Jews to rebuild the temple. This, presumably, would entail destroying the Muslim shrines, which, in all probability, would trigger an all-out confrontation with the Muslim world.

      But in the self-contained world of American “dispensationalism,” Trump’s 2017 decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem was therefore widely seen as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy. Trump himself acknowledged that the move was largely “for evangelicals” rather than Jews who appeared to be rather unenthusiastic about it. But then why would they, given the fate that according to evangelicals awaits many of them during the time of tribulations? Hint: a large number will be “purged out and removed” — a euphemism, I guess, for saying they will go straight to hell.

      Apocalyptic Tales

      With Donald Trump, staunch believers in this kind of apocalyptic tales have assumed influential positions in the administration, above all Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Housing Secretary Ben Carson, who is a Seventh-day Adventist, a Christian sect that holds that “almost all evangelical Christians will soon join with Satan to oppose Jesus Christ.” It stands to reason that their views on history and reality have had some influence on policy. Take, for instance, the environment. According to “rapture theologists,” the earth was given to humanity for its use. Therefore, environmentalism is nothing but “blasphemy.”

      According to one of the most influential “theological” voices in the White House, humans will not destroy the planet because God will “continually renew the face of the earth until He forms a new heaven and a new earth in the end times.” In any case, given the imminent approach of the end of the world, the destruction of the natural environment is hardly of vital concern.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In a similar vein, Trump’s lackluster response to the coronavirus pandemic might have something to do with the fact that among evangelicals, COVID-19 has been seen as a boon. As a leading contributor to the Trump campaign has put it, “The kingdom of God advances through a series of glorious victories, cleverly disguised as disasters.” In response to the pandemic, “millions of Americans” were turning to Jesus Christ, in the process augmenting the pool of likely Trump voters.

      In less than two months, the American electorate is going to vote for the country’s leader. Evangelicals will be a major force; so will be other Christians, including Latino Catholics. As it stands now, there is a chance that Trump will get reelected as a result. Evangelicals will be voting for Trump, but not because they believe that he is model Christian. Quite the opposite. They will vote for him because they believe that he is “God’s tool.” In the aftermath of the 2016 election, polls revealed substantial numbers of white Protestants believing that Trump was “anointed by God.” They also revealed that only a very small minority thought he was elected because God approved of his policies.

      Given what the Gospels have to say about Christ’s positions, it is fairly unlikely that God would approve of Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” or his more or less tacit support of racists and conspiracy theorists. This leaves only one alternative: God chose Trump to punish America for its blatant hybris, hypocrisy and self-righteousness. The Gospel tells us that God “so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Today, it seems that God hates America so much that he brought Donald Trump down upon it so that it understands the full extent of his wrath. Forget about God blessing America. He has better things to do.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The US Must Support Sudan’s Path to Democracy

      by

      In the aftermath of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain formalizing diplomatic relations with Israel on August 13 and September 11, respectively, many experts predict that Sudan will be the next Arab state to follow suit. The main reason for this pertains to the fact that the Trump administration has been putting pressure on Khartoum to abandon the Arab Peace Initiative (API) and open up full-fledged ties with Tel Aviv. Undoubtedly the White House would desperately like to see Sudan take this step prior to America’s presidential election in November.

      In a characteristically transnational manner, President Donald Trump and those around him, such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and adviser Jared Kushner, are reportedly making a quid pro quo deal with Khartoum. The US State Department will remove Sudan from the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SST) list in exchange for Khartoum normalizing relations with the Jewish state. Nonetheless, this is a cynical and misguided way for the Trump administration to approach Sudan as it disregards the significant ways in which Sudan has changed its policies, both domestically and internationally. Ultimately, it would serve US national interests to immediately remove Sudan from this list regardless of Khartoum’s stances on Israel and the API.

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      Since Sudan’s former president Omar Hassan al-Bashir fell from power in the spring of 2019, the country’s democratic experiment has faced myriad challenges. From COVID-19 to human rights abuses committed by the Sudanese military and major economic problems, Sudan has been dealing with many difficult issues amid the post-Bashir period. Today, there is no denying that the popular and non-violent revolution which ended Sudan’s three-decades-long dictatorship is fragile. International support for Khartoum is necessary for Sudan’s democratic struggle to succeed.

      Yet this is not forthcoming, due to a lack of focus in US foreign policy that has resulted in insufficient attention being paid to the specific policy drivers that must be implemented if Washington can hope to engage constructively with Sudan’s democratic process. It would behoove officials in Washington to adopt policies that result in the US helping, rather than hindering, Sudan’s difficult transition to democracy and civilian rule.

      Struggle for Democracy

      After Bashir’s ouster in a palace coup in April 2019, Sudan’s revolutionaries, millions of whom spent months on the streets pressuring the dictator to step down, continued protesting in favor of civilian leadership. In contrast to the many Egyptians who supported the military-backed coup in Egypt that toppled their country’s president, Mohammed Morsi, in July 2013, Sudan’s wider public knew not to blindly trust the country’s military to defend a democratic revolution. By June 3, 2019, hardline elements tied to the Bashir regime, including militants from the notorious Janjaweed militia, massacred Sudanese protesters in the capital, resulting in roughly 120 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

      Yet about two months after that atrocity, Sudan’s military and civilian revolutionaries agreed to a political compromise that came up with a government that is led by civilians but also maintains significant military representation.

      Since August 2019, a sovereign council consisting of six civilian and five military officials has been governing Sudan. Additionally, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok heads a technocratic cabinet comprised of civilians. Sudan plans to run free and democratic elections in 2022, with the interim period of time supposed to give Sudanese civil society an opportunity to regrow after being harshly oppressed under Bashir’s rule. During the present period, there has been a restoration of the freedoms of assembly, press and speech. But the democratic transition was agreed upon in the pre-COVID-19 era and at a time when impacts of the pandemic on public health, the economy and society could not possibly have been foreseen.

      For Sudan’s government, the gravest risk is that it will lose its legitimacy among more Sudanese citizens if the country’s economic situation remains bleak. Youth unemployment stands around 40% and could widen societal divisions if left unaddressed or if tackled in ways that exacerbate and widen existing fault-lines and inequalities. Long lines for petrol as well as staple foods are common in Sudan, where the country’s annual inflation rate reached 167% in September. The global coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown have only exacerbated the country’s economic problems and made it more urgent that actions be taken as soon as possible to support the political transition underway in Sudan rather than wait until 2022, by which time the impact of economic and social dislocation generated by the current crisis might be too late to effect a positive democratic outcome.

      Harm of US Sanctions

      “The single biggest obstacle to Sudan’s economic recovery is the continued U.S. economic sanctions, which … not only impacts trade with and investment from the United States, but from other countries and multilateral entities as well,” explained renowned American Middle East scholar, Dr. Stephen Zunes. Other experts such as the Atlantic Council’s Cameron Hudson agree that Sudan’s long-term economic progress depends on Washington removing its sanctions on Khartoum. Imposed by the US in 1993 when Washington labeled Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism, these sanctions were aimed at punishing Bashir’s government for its links to Osama bin Laden and other global terrorists, plus the regime’s sponsorship of armed Palestinian and Arab groups like Hamas, the Abu Nidal Organization, the Fatah-Revolutionary Council, Hezbollah, Jamaat al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

      Yet today, Sudan’s post-Bashir government is not sponsoring any Salafi-jihadi terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda or the Islamic State (IS). In fact, even Bashir’s government was not doing so during its final years in power. In its 2015 country report on terrorism, the US State Department stated that Washington and Khartoum “worked cooperatively in countering the threat posed by al-Qa’ida and ISIL.”

      Thus, Washington’s current policy vis-à-vis Sudan suffers from being stuck in a previous era in which leaders, institutions and both regional and global circumstances were fundamentally different and in no way reflect the considerable changes in Sudanese politics over the past year and more. Hudson described the continued designation of Sudan as a state sponsor terrorism as representing to many “an anachronism and a symbol of Washington’s own lethargy in updating its policy toward Khartoum.” In sum, problems which the US had with Bashir’s regime decades ago should not be “effectively punishing [the Sudanese] further for having overthrown [the Bashir] dictatorship,” as Zunes argues.

      Last year, Prime Minister Hamdok spoke before the UN General Assembly and addressed Washington’s outdated policies in relation to Sudan: “The Sudanese people have never sponsored, nor were supportive of terrorism. On the contrary, those were the acts of the former regime which has been continuously resisted by the Sudanese people until its final ouster. These sanctions have played havoc on our people, causing them untold misery of all types and forms.” There is a risk that the longer these sanctions remain in place, the more the US becomes vulnerable to narratives that portray bureaucratic inertia in responding to changing circumstances as something more sinister, ascribing to Washington malign policy motivations that damage America’s standing and public diplomacy interests.

      A major concern is that Sudan’s economic situation and COVID-19 crisis could jeopardize the country’s transition to democracy. If the period of time between now and the planned 2022 elections is defined by economic crises and resultant social and political unrest, other actors including the military or conservative Islamists tied to the Muslim Brotherhood may find themselves best positioned to take power. The Sudanese public, so energized by the revolutionary success of 2019, may quickly become disillusioned if it perceives its struggle to have been in vain or to have been betrayed. The experience of disillusioned activists in Tunisia and Egypt has shown how some may be drawn toward radicalization if they feel there is no realistic alternative to an authoritarian status quo.

      Policy Recommendations

      In order to best secure the hopes for a future Sudan led by inclusive, secular, moderate and democratic civilians, the US government should end all its sanctions on Khartoum and establish fully normalized diplomatic relations with Sudan. Thus, given the urgency of helping Sudan preserve its hard-fought-for democratic gains since 2019 and US interests in seeing a smooth transition occur in the country, below are four key policy recommendations.

      Embed from Getty Images

      First, Washington should remove Sudan’s designation on the US State Sponsors of Terrorism list. Sudan’s inclusion on the SST list not only bars the US from economically assisting Sudan but mandates that Washington prevent the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other global financial institutions from giving Sudan loans or other forms of assistance. As coronavirus spreads across Sudan, the authorities have had a more difficult time coping with the pandemic because the World Bank came under US pressure in April 2020 to exclude Sudan from a list of developing countries that received help from a $1.9-million emergency fund. Furthermore, the designation requires US citizens to obtain the Treasury Department’s approval prior to engaging in any financial transaction with these Sudanese government. So long as Sudan is on the SST list, it will be difficult to imagine the impoverished country receiving sufficient levels of investment and trade in order to develop and prosper in the future.

      Second, the US should lift all other remaining sanctions on Khartoum and encourage multinational institutions to help Sudan, especially amid the global COVID-19 crisis. Because Omar al-Bashir ascended to power in an Islamist-driven military coup in 1989, and the military that took power in the 2019 palace coup did not come to power as a result of a democratic election, there remain prohibitions under Section 7008 of the State Department Foreign Operations funding. In practice, this prevents the US from providing much assistance to any country where the “military has overthrown, or played a decisive role in overthrowing, the government.”

      Yet the US should not wait to pull these prohibitions until after the 2022 elections, which is what Washington currently plans to do. Darfur-related sanctions are also still enforced, which as Hudson argues “will continue to have a dampening effect on outside investment until durable peace and credible accountability mechanisms have been implemented.” These sanctions deter banks and other financial institutions around the world from taking the risks that currently come with Sudan-related opportunities. Thus, lifting these sanctions could help boost Sudan’s foreign investment climate.

      Third, Washington should reverse its decision, made in February 2020, to end migrant visas from Sudan. This move basically brings all immigration from Sudan to a complete halt, and it will continue to do so even in the post-COVID-19 period if not addressed. As experts such as the Chatham House’s Matthew T. Page have explained, Trump’s domestic political agenda of taking hard stances on immigration issues amid his reelection campaign was largely behind this policy decision, which targeted Sudan and three other African countries. In the process, however, the US loses influence in these developing nations that see the American door slamming on them as only further reason to invest in even deeper ties with China and Russia.

      Finally, the US should stand with Sudan’s government in solidarity against COVID-19. While the US should first end sanctions on Sudan, which would help combat the spread of coronavirus in the country and among its neighbors, Washington should also give Khartoum aid to help the Sudanese authorities deal with the pandemic within their own borders. As other states worldwide have practiced “coronavirus diplomacy” to boost their humanitarian credentials, this demonstration of American soft power could secure some goodwill from the Sudanese public following decades of negative relations between Washington and Khartoum.

      Key Interests

      Ultimately, there is no good reason for the US to be working to undermine Sudan’s democratic experiment, even if that is not the intent but rather the unfortunate byproduct of a bureaucracy that is slow to respond, giving the impression of stasis. Perceptions often play a key role in shaping emerging realities, and for the Sudanese, who feel that their actions in ousting a dictator are deserving of American support, there may not be an open-ended window before expectation turns to disillusionment.

      Moreover, there are key American interests that can be advanced through a US-Sudan rapprochement that follows an unwinding of Washington’s sanctions on Khartoum. In terms of competition among global powers, Washington has long-term foreign policy interests in establishing a positive relationship with post-Bashir Sudan. Washington’s sanctions on Sudan, as well as outright American hostility against the country — most exemplified by the Clinton administration’s decision to bomb a factory in Khartoum in 1998 — have only pushed the country closer to China, Russia, and at previous junctures Iran too.

      Although Sudan is not a high-ranking issue of interest to the diplomatic establishment in Washington nor to the US public, the American and Sudanese people alike could stand to gain in many ways if their governments reconcile and work toward a more cooperative relationship following a rapprochement. As a farmland-rich country situated along the Red Sea at the intersection of the Arab and African worlds, Sudan represents an important part of the conflict-prone Horn of Africa. In this volatile part of Africa, many powers — China, Israel, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Arab Emirates, etc. — are scrambling to consolidate their clout, and the US certainly has its own interests in the immediate and broader neighborhood.

      Embed from Getty Images

      While the focus on countering terrorism and violent extremism has, to an extent, taken center stage in the US, measures taken now that support the political transition to democracy and strengthen Sudan’s economy can have a significant impact in bolstering Sudanese resilience to potential shocks such as COVID-19 that, if mishandled, could undermine much of the progress made on the security and stability fronts.

      Yet beyond such strategic interests shaped by Sudan’s geopolitical position in the wider African, Arab and Islamic regions, the US would in an ideational sense be living up to its professed values if Washington adopted new policies that are aimed at supporting the Sudanese people in their struggle for democracy following 30 years of brutal dictatorial rule. Ultimately, the US is sending the wrong message when it emphasizes the importance of human rights but turns its back on Sudan’s non-violent, democratic revolutionaries while engaging openly with highly authoritarian states around Sudan such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

      From a soft power and public diplomacy perspective, too, greater support for Sudan would be a significant tool for the US to project as the world retreats into a great power rivalry synonymous with the Cold War in the 20th century, not least because the African continent has emerged as one of the frontlines for such perceived geopolitical competition with China.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of Gulf State Analytics.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The US Presidential Election and the Armies of the Night

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      In a compelling article published on Fair Observer earlier this week, Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), speculates on the theme of “what Trump will leave behind” if he loses the November election. The author offers an enlightening perspective on the choices available to people and governments in the rest of the world regarding an American presidential election that promises not so much clarification as a new phase of aggravated confusion.

      Perthes is not optimistic about the outcome of the election, whoever is declared the winner. He focuses on the choices other nations must make at a moment marked both by the twin phenomena of a long-term trend of American decline and the fireworks Americans expect to witness when the results begin trickling in on the evening of November 3. Across the political spectrum, Americans are preparing for some serious post-election trauma.

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      Perthes is guilty of slightly understating the reality of politics in the United States today when he writes that “there is the political polarization in the US, which is as intense as it was during the Vietnam War.” But he is perfectly accurate when he adds that “neither the political nor social divisions in America will simply disappear with a change of political direction.” Perthes’ analysis is correct but he errs, as Europeans tend to do, by being too polite when he compares today’s polarization with that of the Vietnam War era. It is exponentially greater.

      Here is today’s 3D definition:

      Political polarization:

      The intended consequence of a cleverly managed electoral system designed to meet the requirements of a consumer culture that reduces the notion of political choice to exactly two products that are only distinguishable by their packaging.  

      Contextual Note

      The war in Vietnam pitted the hardline anti-communist defenders of the idea that the US was the “world’s policeman” against those who were committed to a more relaxed way of realizing the American dream. It was a largely generational divide rather than an ideological one. For American youth, raised in the new post-World War II consumer culture, every individual entering adulthood had to make a crucial decision while moving on from the years in which the study of schoolbooks vied for their attention with fun. They now had to begin focusing on constructing their identity as responsible consumers.

      The draft and the prospect of two years fighting in the jungles of Vietnam represented a serious obstacle in their quest to define a respectable consumer lifestyle for themselves. This forced many of them to consider the more radical consumer choice of simply dropping out. If they could manage to avoid the draft, that might translate as either living on a commune in the wilderness or, for some, in an urban neighborhood colonized by the promoters of flower power.

      In other words, the polarization at work at the time became a contest pitting a majority of adults — traditional Republicans and establishment Democrats — who supported what President Dwight Eisenhower had called the dominant military-industrial complex against a highly visible contingent of intellectuals, hippies and peaceniks seeking to redefine what being a consumer and enjoying American prosperity meant. The most conservative hawks preferred reducing the polarizing choice war to the simple idea of “It’s America — Love It or Leave It.” The rebellious youth who experienced the “summer of love” preferred to both love it and symbolically leave it, following LSD promoter Timothy Leary’s advice: “Tune in, turn on, drop out.”

      Today’s polarization is far more complex and far more dangerous. It cuts across a variety of categories, political, economic and cultural. Ultimately, it opposes contrasting styles of collective identity. It plays out in a variety of combinations in connection with the extreme individualism at the core of US culture shared by the entire population. “Love it or leave it” defined a consumer choice. If the rebellious youth at the time failed to show the appropriate amount of love for the system, the solution was to send the police, the FBI or the National Guard to step in, as they did at Kent State University in 1970. As a child of the 1960s, Donald Trump remembers that logic and is now seeking to duplicate it.

      The difference today is symbolized in the person of 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse. The new message is “love it … or face the wrath of other armed citizens.” Thanks to two presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the police have morphed into a military force armed with equipment designed for counterinsurgency in the Middle East. But their ability to win wars in other countries or on domestic city streets has been thrown into doubt. “We the people,” brandishing their guns and flaunting their Second Amendment rights, are ready to take over where armed authority has failed. Donald Trump and Fox News have encouraged them to rise in mass to the challenge.

      Historical Note

      Fifty years ago, the symbolism of political polarization focused on the great American tradition that led to the nation’s founding: a popular revolution. The new symbolic reference has lost all its revolutionary fervor. If a symbolic reference is needed, it can only be civil war. The conflict that emerged in the 1960s pitted rebellious youth against an oppressive authority. In the Trump era, the legitimacy of any institutional authority has been undermined to the point that armed citizens appear to be ready to take things in their own hands.

      Things were much simpler back in the 1960s. Nobody was happy with Lyndon Johnson’s war. For conservative Republicans and establishment Democrats loyal to Johnson (and later Nixon), the war should have been prosecuted more aggressively since the aim was to prove once and for all that American might is right. For the nation’s youth, who were being asked to participate in the fighting, pursuing war was unjustified morally and politically. They felt it as a betrayal of the promise made to the consumer society.

      The protests against the war led to an asymmetrical struggle between the American prosperity machine that refused to admit its dependence on a neocolonial foreign policy and a vast segment of the population that believed the American dream was about enjoying that prosperity rather than dying to defend it. There was no real contest other than psychological warfare and the occasional skirmish.

      Even the idea of “love it or leave it” reflected the culture of the consumer society. The hawks were simply offering youngsters an alternative. They refused to understand that, because of the draft, the choice young men had was not a simple binary one. Loving it meant dying for a cause that had no meaning they could understand. Reacting like the consumers they had been conditioned to be, some came up with the idea of escaping to Canada as an attractive third choice. Canada represented the same culture, but without the war.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Richard Nixon abolished the draft in 1973. All subsequent wars have been fought by a professional military. Young men can now concentrate on other things, such as how they might pay off their student loans over the next 20 or 30 years of their lives. Today’s polarization is also generational, but it is no longer about overseas wars. The difference today is that the youth, for the first time, has become aware of the oligarchic nature of both political parties and the fact that it serves to protect those who suffer the least from the ills of society.

      But there is another difference, far more significant. Those ready to defend the system against the multiracial protesters with their personal arsenal are equally defiant of the controlling oligarchy. Only they fear and hate any group that they do not culturally identify with. They fear that reforms intended to redress ills that may even affect their lives translate as the imposition of new rules or restrictions on their way of life. Many are ready to go to battle to prevent change to a system that has encouraged what they see as “alien” tendencies. They value their possessions and feel that that ownership itself is being threatened.

      One thing they own in increasing numbers is a gun and rounds of ammunition. They are currently preparing for battle. This is not merely polarization. It is the prelude to civil war, but one of a new kind, with no organized opposing armies.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Is America Edging Toward a “Racial Holy War”?

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      Since the Vietnam War era in the United States, radical-right groups have articulated an apocalyptic vision under which white people would be restored to their “rightful place” of dominance on the North American continent. Over the years, various groups and personalities have expressed this vision in slightly different ways, though have involved the toppling of the government followed by extensive bloodletting. The term “RAHOWA” — racial holy war — originated with Ben Klassen and his World Church of the Creator, and was then taken up by Matt Hale and his successors.

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      Another key figure from this generation of white nationalists, Tom Metzger, founder of the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), argued that “white revolution is the only way” to achieve the restoration of Aryan dominance. Inspired by William Pierce’s 1978 novel “The Turner Diaries,” Robert Mathews and his Silent Brotherhood sought to ignite RAHOWA in the early 1980s by launching a terrorist campaign in the American Northwest before the FBI and other law enforcement agencies brought his adventures to an abrupt end. Louis Beam, a former Klan leader and long-time advocate of white racial revolution, thought that “leaderless resistance” might lead the way toward RAHOWA. 

      New Era

      The tactics these 20th-century advocates of RAHOWA planned to employ required a vivid imagination to be taken seriously. The late Richard Girnt Butler, then head of the Aryan Nations, remarked that Mathews “had made his move too soon” — as if a few more months would have made a difference in the outcome. In fact, at the time, neither small groups of would-be Nazis such as the Silent Brotherhood nor the “lone wolves” had the slightest chance of igniting a racial holy war. They tended to be self-defeating and more than slightly ridiculous.

      The atmosphere in which successor generations of radical-right groups such as the Atomwaffen Division, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Fraternal Order of Alt-Knights or the Boogaloo Boys operate has changed significantly from the post-Vietnam era, in ways that seem more favorable to revolutionary objectives. The internet has been a boon to and an essential tool of these newer contestants.

      Today’s radical rightists can, inter alia, recruit members, share conspiratorial and apocalyptic visions with large online audiences, send messages or memes to various targets (such as Jewish journalists during the 2016 presidential campaign) organize in-person gatherings (like the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017), and display pictures of like-minded militants in action.

      Further, the United States is far more polarized than it was in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. Thanks in part to Fox News, right-wing talk radio celebrities, Breitbart News and the various other online outlets (including The Daily Stormer) for the expression of inter-group hostility, trust in government institutions is at an all-time low. The same generalization applies to interpersonal trust, at least since polling on these questions began in the 1950s. Americans not only mistrust government institutions but mistrust one another as well.

      Donald Trump was elected president in 2016 based largely on his ability to channel this mistrust as well as support for white nationalist violence. As David Neiwert put it in his 2017 book, “Alt America,” “Trump seemed to encourage the violence directed both at protestors at his rallies and at minorities generally, by expressly suggesting  the use of assaults and threats against them in his fiery rally speeches.” Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, before and after the election, has helped to legitimize the radical right’s racist and anti-Semitic threats, fomenting violence to a wider-than-usual audience.

      In office, Trump has done what he could to loosen the guardrails of constitutional government, by seeking to “capture the referees.” In other words, he has sought to strengthen the executive’s control over government functions at the expense of congressional authority and various federal regulatory bodies, including the Federal Election Commission. He has encouraged his audiences to violate norms of civil conduct. Trump has also sought to “capture the referees” by appointing to the federal judiciary right-wing ideologues with limited courtroom experience. The justice department under Attorney General William Barr has become an instrument in the pursuit of Trump’s personal vendettas.

      Inflection Point

      Against this background, and with Trump seeking reelection, the United States faces a serious crisis involving the COVID-19 pandemic, high levels of unemployment and a massive wave of protests ignited by police killings of defenseless African Americans, most notably the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Some observers think the country has reached an inflection point at which the democratic order is under serious threat.

      The present situation is one that groups on the extreme right could only have imagined a few decades ago. Among the new radical-right aggregations, the Boogaloo Boys, distinguished by wearing Hawaiian shirts over combat paraphernalia, hope to exploit the current racial unrest and promote an atmosphere conducive to civil war. Acting as agents provocateurs, Boogaloo Boys members have participated in the Black Lives Matter demonstrations. They carry out violent attacks on the authorities and encourage other protesters to do the same. In this way, they hope to provoke an excessively violent reaction by the police and other authorities. The Boogaloo Boys and their “compatriots” hope to set off an escalatory spiral of violence leading to a white backlash and something approaching race-based civil war.

      This Boogaloo approach will probably not achieve its ultimate objective. Nonetheless, their tactics seem more plausible, given the current situation, than those attempted by their late 20th-century radical-right predecessors. This new path to right-wing revolution bears considerable resemblance to the so-called strategy of tensions pursued by Italian neo-fascists and rogue police officers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, during Italy’s Gli Anni di Piombo — Years of Lead. In the Italian case, exposure by journalists and the commitment of Italy’s elected officials to defend the country’s democracy prevented a right-wing seizure of power. Let us hope the same holds true for the United States.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Justice Ginsburg Secures Progressives for Biden

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      Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died and the political seas have changed. She was a beacon of American conscience in a nation that has no conscience to spare. For those of us in America who see a nation in steep decline, this loss further deepens the gap between hope and reality. Most importantly, Justice Ginsburg’s death puts the last of the nation’s three core constitutional institutions at deep peril. The Congress is already a dysfunctional failed deliberative body, and the executive has been overwhelmed by corruption and incompetence.

      This doesn’t leave much to fall back on. Progressives will allow for a moment of silence to celebrate Ginsburg’s life. And then, it will be time for her death to propel our determination that Trump be deposed and his acolytes dethroned. We will need to get even angrier than we have been and more committed to the singular objective of winning the presidency.

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      Many progressives surely wish that these were different times. Then, we could focus on social and racial justice, on a national plan to confront the coronavirus pandemic, on universal access to meaningful health care, on economic equity, on affordable housing, on quality public education and on reimagining good governance. But we cannot do that now.  Now, we have to do everything that we can to get Joe Biden elected president.

      On the plus side, there continues to be a somewhat encouraging sense in America that maybe, just maybe, all the lies, all the ignorance and incompetence, all the corruption and all the chaos are finally catching up with the demonstrably worst American president in modern times. And that is saying a lot given that George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon would be the competition. So with that said, and only Biden to choose from, staying focused on the singular goal will be easier.

      The Inspirational Candidate?

      To reach that goal, it would be nice to be able to say that Biden is an inspirational candidate who can will the nation to a better place, can open the eyes of the willfully blind, and define an agenda of transformational change. But he is not that candidate. Rather he is a candidate who can win the presidency, surround himself with honest and committed advisers, and begin the long and difficult trek toward undoing the Trump damage.

      For me and many others, being the only serious candidate not named Trump is enough to ensure my vote and to ensure that I will do what I can to get him elected. For others, however, it may be important that Biden be for something, not just against Trump.

      As Biden tries to define his agenda and demonstrate his policy priorities, he will have to do so carefully. The effort may win over some wavering or undecided voters, particularly if he focuses on health care issues and articulating an understanding of the intractable racial morass that is today’s America. Appealing to a tired nation with calm and a resolve to simply make things better could help as well.

      Embed from Getty Images

      However, there is peril for Biden in detailing much of anything beyond broad general policy themes. This peril lies primarily on his left. For the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, too much “visionary” detail of a future beyond November 3 can provide more insight than may be healthy for Biden’s campaign. For now, since it remains critical that “all the roads of our discontent must merge at this time to meet the singular threat” of a Trump reelection, progressives can and likely will stay focused on this prize alone.

      Yet, as Biden begins to define the policy goals of his future administration, the details as they are emerging crushingly disappoint. The goals are so connected to yesterday that it is hard to envision a better tomorrow. It will be easier, for sure, to live without the daily lies and the pernicious undermining of the nation’s institutions, but it will be no easier for those in need to live with a return to “normal.”

      To provide early solace, Biden and his administration will surely strive to return some measure of good governance to federal institutions, a key metric if there is ever to be the transformational change that America’s outdated and tired “democracy” so critically needs. However, it will all seem so incremental, especially to those in need now who have waited so long and to those who have spent a lifetime advocating for those in need.

      Final Tribute for RBG

      This is where Justice Ginsburg as that beacon of conscience can enter the fray anew. She never gave up on her extraordinary drive to simply right things that were wrong. She is gone, but her zeal has to live on in enough of us to get this election right and then move on to the hard challenges that lie ahead. As I have moved from sadness to resolve, I have looked at a lot of what Ginsburg had to tell us. There is something about the following quotation that seems worthy of the moment: “Yet what greater defeat could we suffer than to come to resemble the forces we oppose in their disrespect for human dignity?”

      Maybe it is respect for human dignity that so separates Biden from Trump, Democrats from Republicans, and progressives from conservatives. Look at the quotation again, and then reflect on the sickened and dying in our communities in the midst of a crippling pandemic. And then take as a clarion call that Trump, the Republicans and the conservatives in those same communities are fighting to deny access to healthcare to millions yesterday, today, and tomorrow. That is depraved. That is inhumane.

      If Joe Biden does not win the presidency, those with a palpable disrespect for human dignity will surely further stain America. If Biden is victorious, there will be a renewed urgency for progressives to step to the fore to stress that any new administration must commit to a respect for human dignity as the core principle required to elevate America to be so much better than it is. If Justice Ginsburg knew this, maybe the rest of us can learn it, some for the first time.

      We must make that commitment for ourselves, for our nation and as a final tribute to the extraordinary Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

      *[This article was co-published on the author’s blog, Hard Left Turn.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      America’s War on Abortion

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      Despite the World Health Organization (WHO) releasing a statement earlier this year articulating that, “services related to reproductive health are considered to be part of essential services during the COVID-19 outbreak,” legislators in some US states have been making relentless efforts to declare abortion services as non-essential during the pandemic. Lawmakers in Oklahoma, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, Louisiana, Ohio, Tennessee and Iowa are having to contest extensive lawsuits in connection with the issue.

      On March 23, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked all licensed health care professionals and facilities, including abortion providers, to comply with the executive order issued by Governor Greg Abbott that stated that all surgeries and procedures that are not medically necessary to correct a serious condition or preserve life will be postponed. Thus, all procedural abortions in the state of Texas were banned amid the COVID-19 outbreak to conserve medical resources. After a union of abortion-rights groups, including Planned Parenthood, sued the state of Texas over this temporary yet extremely restrictive measure, the bans were partially lifted, with abortions resuming again at the end of April.

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      According to Marie Stopes International, the suspension of services could lead to anywhere between 1.2 million and 2.7 million unsafe abortions during the pandemic across the 37 countries where the charity operates. A large part of these will occur in the United States, owing to a lack of safe abortion facilities. Thus, the uproar caused by the US restrictions has breathed new life into the standoff between pro-life and pro-choice advocates, an argument the relevance of which has not diminished with time.

      May 15, 2019,was a decisive and divisive date for women in the United States, particularly in the state of Alabama, which saw the passing of the Alabama Human Life Protection Act. Under this law, women who undergo an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy can be held criminally culpable or civilly liable for homicide. The act bears only two exceptions: if the fetus has a lethal anomaly or if the pregnancy poses a threat to the mother’s life. Since the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade in 1973, this is the first time abortion is being criminalized in the US. The passing of the act has triggered a domino effect, opening the availability of abortion up for debate in several states. In Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana and Missouri, blanket bans on abortion have been passed.

      Of the 27 Republicans in the Alabama Senate, 25 of those who voted the act through were white men. As Nahanni Fontaine, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, Canada, tweeted, “These 25 men, who will never be pregnant, just legislated more rights to rapists than to women, girls & victims of rape/incest.”

      Hundreds of pro-choice demonstrators marched to the Alabama Capitol to protest the bill, with slogans like “My Body, My Choice!” and “Vote Them Out!” Then-Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg vocalized their opposition to the passage of the act. Celebrities like Jameela Jamil, Ashley Judd, Amber Tamblyn and Busy Philipps talked about their own abortion stories as an act of protest. Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Billie Eilish, Sophie Turner and Emma Watson have also spoken out against the bans. Even Tomi Lahren, a conservative commentator, has voiced her opinion against the ban, calling it “too restrictive.” The postulate that “Men shouldn’t be making laws about women’s bodies” flooded the internet.

      Pro-Life?

      On the other side of the argument, pro-life supporters think that the 6-week-old embryo is a living being and that aborting it is murder — even in the cases of incest and rape. Often, religion is used to justify such ideology. The main argument that pro-lifers bring to the table is that because at six weeks of gestation the fetus inside its mother’s womb has a heartbeat, it must be recognized as a human being.

      In 2015, 89% of all abortions in the United States happened during the first trimester, prior to week 13 of gestation. During this period of time, the fertilized zygote is generally attached to the wall of the mother’s uterus through the placenta. At this stage, the embryo is incapable of surviving independently from its mother. Hence, the embryo — which becomes a fetus at seven weeks gestation — cannot be considered an entity in itself.

      Pro-life advocates go on to say that adoption is an alternative to abortion and also highlight the fact that abortions may result in medical complications later in life. However, more than 60% of children in foster care spend two to five years, and 20% spend five or more years, in the system before being adopted. Some never do. This can lead to issues like a greater vulnerability to depression, obesity and anxiety. Furthermore, new research shows that only about 6% of children passing out of foster care have actually finished college and less than half are employed at the age of 23.

      When it comes to the safety of abortions, a study by the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health shows that major complications in abortion procedures are rare, occurring in less than a quarter of 1% of procedures, which is safer than having a wisdom tooth removed. Abortions performed in a clinical environment are safe. However, that is precisely what these acts are denying women.

      In the case of incest or rape, pro-life advocates are vocal about punishing the perpetrator. However, Republican Congressman Steve King has defended the blanket bans by saying, “What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest?” He went on to ask: “Would there be any population of the world left if we did that? Considering all the wars and all the rapes and pillages that happened throughout all these different nations, I know that I can’t say that I was not a part of a product of that.” The fact that the birth of a child is a physical burden carried out by women, not men, is glaringly absent from this line of thought.

      Embed from Getty Images

      What legislators seem to be impervious to is that rapists continue to walk free while women are made to carry their children. Nearly 3 million, or 2.4% of American women, experience rape-related pregnancy in their lifetime. However, for every 1,000 sexual assaults that take place in America, 995 perpetrators walk free. According to a CNN investigation, 25 law enforcement agencies in 14 states were found to be destroying rape kits in cases that could still go to trial.

      The American justice system is currently incapable of delivering justice to women. No minor — like the 11-year-old rape victim from Ohio — must be forced to carry her rapist’s child to term. Moreover, in cases of incest-related rape, the child born out of the union can suffer various mental and physical deficiencies. Children born to close relatives often suffer from being more prone to recessive genetic diseases, reduced fertility, heart defects, cleft palates, fluctuating asymmetry and loss of immune system function.

      Conservatives insist that women must be responsible enough to use contraception and not use abortion as an alternative. A Gallup poll shows that at least 78% of all American adults who are opposed to abortion are also pro-birth control. However, between 2011 and 2013, 43% of adolescent females and 57% of adolescent males in the US did not receive information about birth control before they had sex for the first time.

      There is a lack of sex education at the primary and high school levels, and women are expected to be aware of contraceptives in a system that doesn’t teach preventive measures in the first place. Moreover, in 2014, 51% of abortion patients were using a contraceptive method in the month they became pregnant, and this goes to prove that contraception does not always stop conception, especially in cases where people are ill-informed about its use.

      A Nightmare for Women

      The deeper one looks into the issue, the clearer it becomes that pro-life advocates are not really saving lives. They are more simply anti-women. The Alabama Human Life Protection Act states that if a woman does undergo an abortion, the doctor carrying out the procedure could go to jail for up to 99 years — a class-A felony charge.

      The ban will disproportionately affect racial minorities. For example, some 36% of abortions are performed on African American women, who make up just 13% of the population. In Georgia, while African Americans constitute 32.2% of the population, they account for 62.4% of all abortions. Policymakers are conscious of this.

      The bill also fails to address the crucial question of who will provide the basic necessities that a child needs to survive. In the US, the average cost of raising a child up to the age of 18, excluding college education, is $233,610. However, 49% of all abortion patients in the United States of America live below the poverty line, with an annual income of less than $11,770. Childbirth costs for many uninsured Americans can easily extend to over $30,000.

      Furthermore, in 2017, a total of 194,377 children were born to women aged between 15 and 19 — a rate of 18.8 per 1,000 women in this age group, a record low. The states of Mississippi and Louisiana, where attempts have been made to criminalize abortion, rank among the first six states with the highest teenage pregnancy rates. The expenses of having an unplanned child become insurmountable for many of these women.

      But making abortions illegal will not stop them from taking place. In 2017, over 6,000 abortions were provided in Alabama. This is despite the fact that the number of abortion clinics had been reduced to just five and that some people had to drive hundreds of miles to get to one. In the state of Georgia, 27,453 abortions were carried out in  2017, 8,706 in Louisiana, 20,893 in Ohio, 3,903 in Missouri and 2,594 in Mississippi. It is unrealistic to suggest that all these women will decide to keep the baby just because of the change in the law.

      Baby Lives Matter

      The only change Alabama’s new law will bring about is in the methods women will use to secure an abortion. In countries where abortion is already criminalized, non-clinical and illegal abortions still cause about 8 to 11% of all maternal deaths. America may soon be no different. Women may be forced to seek help online, where they receive suggestions such as injecting themselves with unknown drugs, falling down the stairs and other horrific solutions.

      Embed from Getty Images

      As the Alabama abortion laws remain blocked by a federal judge, Americans are shadowed by uncertainty with respect to their right to abortion. With the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg earlier this week, the right to abortion enshrined in Roe v. Wade comes under threat of a possible conservative majority on the court.

      Following  President Donald Trump’s termination of America’s relationship with the WHO, the US is under no obligation to adhere to the prospects of abortion being an essential service. Despite retaliation from several reproductive rights groups and national medical associations including the American Medical Association, the Trump campaign is selling baby onesies with the slogan “Baby Lives Matter.”

      These bans, though legally restricted to the US, affect women all over the world as they affect any progress toward gender equality and create general disagreement on the issue. According to Marie Stopes International, unless efforts are made to acknowledge the essential nature of reproductive health, 9.5 million women across the world could lose access to contraception, causing up to 3 million unwanted pregnancies and, in turn, between 1.2 million and 2.7 million unsafe abortions and 11,000 pregnancy-related deaths. Considering the current state of affairs around abortion in the US, it is safe to say that a large portion of these figures will be attributed to America.

      Amid deepening economic, social and health care crises spurred on by the global pandemic, the debate over reproductive rights will affect women the world over. When it comes to abortion, laws around it must be written by women, for women. America must listen to its women, who must retain their right to choose, especially during these trying times.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      QAnon: A Conspiracy for Our Time

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      Those of us who, in the late 1980s and 1990s, frequently traveled in the United States might recall being approached by young men, dressed for business in suits and ties, at major airports. They distributed tracts and asked for contributions. No, they were not Mormons but followers of Lyndon LaRouche, one of the most eccentric figures on the American radical right. A perennial candidate for the American presidency, LaRouche was the head of a political cult that subscribed to the notion that current events were orchestrated and manipulated by dark forces, most notably by the queen of England (charged with presiding over the international drug trade) and the “Zionist British aristocratic oligarchy.” Among other things, he was a great proponent of fusion power, a legacy that continues to inspire his admirers.

      Lyndon LaRouche might be dismissed as a nutjob. He was, and at the same time he was far from it. LaRouche was not only the only presidential candidate to campaign for the presidency “with a platform that included his own version of quantum theory.” He was also the only candidate to evoke Plato. In the words of a leading expert on conspiracy theories, LaRouche was convinced that “history is a war between the Platonists (the good guys) and the evil Aristotelians. Anyone who has taken Philosophy 101 can follow the drift: Platonists believe in standards, an absolute truth that can be divined by philosopher kings like Mr. LaRouche. To the Aristotelians everything is relative.”  

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      While Platonists seek to use technology and classical music to the benefit of humanity, Aristotelians are out to thwart them. “With their bag of brainwashing techniques” — such as sex, rock music and environmentalism — “they hope to trick civilization into destroying itself, bringing on a ‘’new dark ages’’ in which the world’s riches will be firmly in the hands of the oligarchy.”

      Brilliant or Unhinged?

      A few years ago, such ruminations might have been dismissed as the delusional musings of a brilliant yet unhinged mind, gone off the deep end. Today, it appears that LaRouche was way ahead of his time. LaRouche, who passed away in 2019 at the ripe age of 96, presumably would have a field day were he still alive today, delighting in the fact that in the first years of the Trump presidency, the “Platonists” have finally come into their own, having made significant gains in the struggle for gaining the upper hand in the quest for cultural hegemony.

      The terms originated with the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci as a heuristic construct to explain why Italian workers acted against their objective interests. For Gramsci, cultural hegemony is strongest when subordinate classes “come to believe that the economic and social conditions of their society are natural and inevitable, rather than created by people with a vested interest in particular social, economic, and political orders.”  

      The struggle over cultural hegemony is a war of position, a slow process of creating and diffusing alternative narratives capable of subverting the hegemonic ones. Success in the struggle over cultural memory means being able to define concepts and fill them with meaning, seductive enough to appeal to a significant portion of the population. This is what has happened in the United States over the past several decades, reflected in what has come to be known as the culture war. In 2016, Donald Trump promoted himself as an “aggressive culture warrior” ready to take on the establishment.

      Central to this strategy was coming to the defense of the white Christian (both Protestant and Catholic) communities, who increasingly saw themselves as strangers in their own land, their values and beliefs ridiculed and disparaged, their voice marginalized and ignored, more often than not drowned out by minorities, such as gays, lesbians and transgender people, whom they consider immoral.

      Central to any religion is the notion that there is an absolute truth, which can only be grasped by faith. You either believe that human beings were created some 10,000 years ago — as a third of the American population seem to believe — or you don’t. You either believe that today’s natural catastrophes are part of a grand divine scheme, heralding the beginning of “the end times” ushering in the return of Christ, or you don’t. You either believe that you are among the few lucky ones who will be spared, via rapture, from having to live through the times of great tribulations, or you don’t. Surveys suggest that a growing number of Americans don’t. As a result, true believers feel even more beleaguered, victimized by a society increasingly not only slowly but inexorably “de-Christianizing” but more and more hostile to their beliefs and way of life.

      In 2016, Barna, a leading Christian pollster, revealed that a large majority of Americans viewed Christianity as “extremist.” For instance, more than 80% of respondents considered it extreme if a service provider refused to serve a customer (as has happened to gay customers ordering a wedding cake for their wedding) because “the customer’s lifestyle conflicts with their beliefs.”

      These results are only one indication that America’s Platonists, to stay with the LaRouchian frame, are on the verge of losing some of the major gains they made in the initial phase of the Trump presidency. In fact, in recent months, a number of Trump’s “culture war allies” have defected; his advisers have warned that with COVID-19 and the uproar over police brutality, the world is fundamentally different from 2016. This does not mean, however, that the conflict identified by LaRouche has abated. It has only moved to a different plane — the realm of conspiracy theory, the most famous one these days being QAnon.

      Just Ask Q

      A recent poll revealed that around 55% of Republicans believe that QAnon is mostly or partly true. Against that, more than 70% of Democrats agreed with the statement that QAnon is not true at all. For those not familiar with QAnon, it is a conspiracy theory that holds that Donald Trump is fighting a globally operating secret cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles, consisting of liberal politicians, “deep-state” government officials and their fellow travelers in finance, the media, higher education and the entertainment industry — i.e., the liberal elite. QAnon might sound absurd and abstruse, yet it has, over the past several months, found a rapidly growing number of adherents and supporters, not only in the United States, but also on the other side of the Atlantic, from Italy to Switzerland, from France to the far corners of central Europe.

      In recent demonstrations against the measures put forward by Angela Merkel’s government in Germany designed to slow down the spread of COVID-19, most notably the obligation to wear a mask, a number of demonstrators identified themselves as QAnon adherents, wearing T-shirts displaying the slogan “Save the Children.”

      Save the children is the relatively more benign side of QAnon — as far as conspiracy theories go. It explains, for instance, why in the United States women have been particularly attracted to it. As Annie Kelly recently wrote in The New York Times, it is motherly love that draws women to the “theory,” with “concerned mothers taking a stand for child sex abuse victims.” Saving children, however, only one facet of Q, and arguably of lesser importance. The reality is that QAnon serves to a large extent as an empty signifier, a term devoid of meaning in and of itself, and as such in a position to accommodate each and every conspiracy theory, folding them “into its own master narrative.”  

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      A prominent example are anti-vaccination activists, the anti-vaxxers, one of the groups participating in the anti-mask demonstrations that have been held in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Their argument is not only that vaccinations pose dangers, but that vaccinations are part of an insidious, evil plot hatched at the headquarters of the global satanic elite. Its supreme villain is Bill Gates, the Ernst Stavro Blofeld of Q’s imagination.

      A German video posted on YouTube and produced by a relatively unknown former radio show host quickly went viral. The author’s claim: COVID-19 is part of a conspiracy conceived by Bill and Melinda Gates, aimed at drastically reducing humanity via mass vaccinations laced with sterilization molecules. So far, the video has been seen by more than 3 million viewers, and its author has been the subject of discussion in Germany’s leading media.

      In Italy, a former deputy of the Five Star Movement managed to expound the “theory” in parliament. In justification of her opposition to proposed anti-COVID-19 emergency measures, she charged Bill Gates with having, for ages, devised plans to reduce the world population and establish a “dictatorial hold on global politics” designed to gain “control over agriculture, technology and energy.” For years now, the deputy charged, Bill Gates had argued that vaccinations and reproductive health would reduce the world population by 10% to 15% and, more importantly, “only genocide could save the world.”

      Particular Resonance

      QAnon started out as an obscure internet-based conspiracy theory. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, it has morphed into a cult, an ersatz religion, a great narrative that gives sense and meaning to an increasingly disconcerting, if not frightening reality. In LaRouchian terms, it is the ultimate Platonists’ dream. QAnon is true because common sense says it is true. It is true because a substantial number of ordinary people believe it is true. It is true because some celebrities of newly acquired internet fame, who got their degree from the “University of Google,” say so. It is true because it can be found on social media.

      In a world where truth claims are subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny, QAnon would easily be debunked as utter nonsense. In today’s chaotic world, however, any attempt to unmask Q not only appears to strengthen the resolve of the theory’s adherents but also attracts new converts. In the process, it has turned into a movement “united in mass rejection of reason, objectivity, and other Enlightenment values,” as Adrienne LaFrance has put it in The Atlantic.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The example of the Moldovan Orthodox Church provides an illustration of the far reach of the movement. In May, the church released a statement charging that the “global anti-Christian system wants to introduce microchips into people’s bodies with whose help they can control them, through 5G technology.” Vaccination, developed and promoted by Bill Gates the church stated, “introduces nanoparticles into the body that react to the waves transmitted by 5G technology and allow the system to control humans remotely.”

      Given widespread public skepticism toward scientific knowledge, if not outright rejection of it, it seems QAnon is the perfect narrative for all those who live in an alternative reality where Donald Trump is the white knight In shining armor indefatigably laboring to thwart the diabolical plots of satanic avatars and their deep-state allies — Gates, George Soros, Warren Buffett, Tom Hanks and Jane Fonda. The list is long, and anybody can add to it.

      Under the circumstances, it is hardly surprising that QAnon has had a particular resonance among white evangelicals, who generally “exhibit the strongest correlation, among any faith group, between religiosity and either climate science denial or a general anti-science bias.” At the same time, white evangelicals are the voting bloc most committed to Donald Trump, a constituency he cannot afford to lose. This might explain why Trump has refused to reject QAnon out of hand, instead expressing his appreciation of the fact that its adherents “like me very much” and “love our country.”

      Evangelicals are LaRouche’s ideal Platonists. When belief clashes with scientific knowledge — as it does on evolution — they invariably side with faith as the ultimate source of truth. Unfortunately, these days, in the face of a devastating pandemic, a seemingly never-ending series of environmental catastrophes and mounting global tensions, evangelicals are hardly alone in seeking refuge in an all-encompassing “theory” that provides answers, comfort in the knowledge not to be alone and, most frighteningly, a rationale for violent action. These are chilling prospects, given the upcoming US presidential election. Whatever happens, tensions are bound to rise, with potentially devastating consequences.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      What Trump Will Leave Behind If He Loses

      by

      Whether Donald Trump will serve four more years as president of the United States will be decided on November 3. America’s partners should nonetheless already be thinking about what Trump will leave behind — namely the consequences of his policies — if he loses the election and agrees to hand over power to his challenger, Joe Biden.

      Every US president sets priorities for domestic developments as well as for the country’s positions in foreign and security policy. Given the international weight of the United States — still by far the most powerful nation in the world in terms of absolute power, even when compared to China — American presidents will always shape the international order, too.

      What the Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Means for America’s Political Future

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      Incoming presidents of any party have traditionally accepted many of the legacies of their predecessors, while simultaneously setting new accents. This is not surprising; it is a characteristic of a functioning state. The foreign policy, security, economic and ecological challenges that a new president faces the first day in office are not, after all, fundamentally different from those challenges that were on the table the day before.

      Only Trump has consciously departed from this pragmatic and statesmanlike tradition. Fighting against the legacy left behind by his predecessor, Barack Obama, has been a central part of his agenda. Consequently, Trump rescinded financial market rules and environmental laws of the Obama administration, withdrew the US from the nuclear agreement with Iran, and also pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris Climate Accord and other international agreements.

      Should Trump be replaced by Biden, the new president will certainly reverse some of the most blatant measures of his predecessor — if only to regain trust and strengthen the international reputation of the United States again. This applies, in particular, to the Iran nuclear agreement and the climate accord. Biden will not be able to turn the wheel of history back to the end of the Obama era, however. He will have to deal with — and his presidency will partly be shaped by — a Trump legacy that cannot simply be undone by resigning some important international agreements.

      Four Elements Stand Out From This Legacy

      First, there is the political polarization in the US, which is as intense as it was during the Vietnam War. A new president may attempt to reunite the country politically and to mitigate the growing social inequalities through social and tax policies. However, neither the political nor social divisions in America will simply disappear with a change of political direction.

      Second, the tense relationship with China will test the Biden administration from the beginning. Trump certainly did not cause the rise of China. Even Obama had tried to redirect the focus of American policy toward Asia — he saw China’s rise as a game-changer but, overall, still regarded Beijing as a partner. In the meantime, China’s policy has become more challenging.

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      There is a wide-ranging bipartisan consensus in the US for taking a tough stance toward Beijing. President Trump, however, has weakened America’s position in the rivalry with China by duping friends and allies, leading the US out of international institutions and agreements, and thus creating empty spaces that China could, and did, fill.

      Strategic rivalry between the US and China is likely to remain a guiding paradigm of international relations, even under a Biden administration — a conflict that structures world politics with power-policy, security, economic, technological and ideological dimensions. How this rivalry will be shaped and evolve will largely depend on future US policy.

      Third, a new president will have to deal with the loss of international trust. Much here depends on the personality of the individual in the White House. As president, Biden would likely enjoy an advance of international trust. This could even help him to push for certain demands that not only Trump has articulated — not least that America’s NATO partners increase their defense spending. Any successor to Trump, however, no matter how much they may be trusted as a person, will be confronted with a new form of skepticism, if not fear, among international partners that any agreement they may negotiate today could be called into question after another change in the White House.

      For this reason alone, new negotiations with Iran or future arms control talks with Russia and/or China will become more difficult. Negotiating partners will want to offer less if they cannot be sure that future presidents will also abide by an agreement. American negotiators, however, are more likely to demand more in order to make such agreements more acceptable across the political spectrum in Congress, and thereby prevent a new president from simply turning them over.

      Finally, multilateral institutions and international organizations have been weakened, not only as a result of Trump’s policies but also his active contributions. For the first time since the end of the Second World War, we live in a world with fewer binding rules than four years ago. Important arms control agreements have been terminated, the World Trade Organization has been weakened, and the legitimacy and financial resources of the United Nations have been under attack.

      A new president can certainly try to change course and recommit the United States to shaping and supporting multilateral institutions, but other actors on the world stage have become more self-confident and assertive during the last four years. These actors, China above all, are unlikely to be interested in the emergence of binding new international rules that could restrict their freedom of action.

      And Europe? It is simply not enough to hope that Trump will be voted out of office and then relax if it happens. The European Union and its member states must seriously think about how they could help a new US president to regain international trust for the country. Europe can hardly expect that the United States under Biden will set out to safeguard international order on its own. Nor should it expect a Biden administration to simply adopt Europe’s multilateral agenda.

      Instead, Europe needs to strengthen its own capabilities, and it should take the initiative and press for a joint strategic analysis and agreement with the US on future issues — climate, digitization and the relationship with China, among other areas. Moreover, Europe will also have to explain how it envisages fair burden-sharing in order to create a more symmetric transatlantic relationship.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions relating to foreign and security policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More