(Why) The Dems Don't Need to Pander to the Right — They Need to do Exactly the Opposite
30% of Americans are Committed, Fanatical, Apocalyptic Extremists. 70% are Sane, Decent, Scared — and Ignored.
There's this absurd myth I keep reading these days. It goes like this: the Dems need to swing harder to the right, to win over the "average American voter." Dallying with "socialism," as AOC is doing, or putting together a New Deal, as Elizabeth Warren suggests — that's a surefire way to lose it all.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Exactly the opposite is true. Ignoring the extremists, and empowering the rest of us — sane and decent people — is how to win this election, and the ones that follow, too.
It should clue you in that this myth comes not just from self-appointed and self-anointed experts — but worse still, hardcore extremists who've been anointed, somehow, as sane and reasonable centrists. I think of people like David Frum (who helped start a fake war), Meghan McCain (remind me why anyone should listen to her again? Because of her dad?), David Brooks (who's been wrong about everything in the last few years, from not taking Trump seriously, to pooh-poohing the idea that concentration camps could ever rise), and the kind of right-wing Twitter personalities that condemn Trump…without showing much thought about how he's a symptom, not a cause.
(A digression — apologies. Why should Democrats care what Republican bigwigs think? They shouldn't, obviously. They're not going to act in good faith. But that's not even the point.)
Decent and sane people in general shouldn't care whatsoever what such people think, my friends. The more that we do — the less decent and sane we ourselves become. We join them in indecency and disgrace. Is there anyone we should listen to less than the people that got us into the mess — an authoritarian fascist collapse? But such people are precisely the Frums and Brookses of the world. Brooks has used a New York Times column to, among other things, argue against universal healthcare, retirement, and affordable education…for decades. Frum's ceaseless warmongering laid the foundations for the police state America is rapidly becoming. Trumpism is a synthesis of these strands of extremism — and extremism is what all these ideas are.
Why on earth should…anyone…listen to…Republicans these days? Are we to believe that a David Frum or a David Brooks or a Frank Luntz or a Meghan McCain actually wants the best for…Democrats…let alone Americans — let alone knows how to achieve it? Give me a break. We shouldn't believe they want the best for their country — precisely because they've been arguing against it for decades now. If you want the best for Americans…why are you telling them they don't deserve healthcare? That they should die in pointless wars? That they should bomb villages across the planet…instead of feeding kids lunch? Maybe you see my point.)
Here's a secret. The Dems don't need to reach the 30% of Americans who are by now committed fanatics and extremists. They just need to mobilize the 70% of Americans who aren't.
Yes, really. Let's start with the 70%. 70% of Americans basically want a society like Sweden. They want public healthcare, debt free education, retirement, decent schools, higher incomes, stable jobs, affordable homes, vastly less inequality. They want a decent life on a middle class income, with expansive public goods, In other words, they might not know it — because they've been brainwashed not to ever know how to say it — but 70% of Americans want to go beyond being a capitalist society, and become a social democracy. That's only natural, since social democracy is a more advanced stage for a society to reach.
Now, they don't quite know how to say it — if you'd been brainwashed by only reading David Brooks and Tom Friedman and Ezra Klein for the last few decades, you wouldn't know how to put basic empirical realities either. But it doesn't change the reality. 70% of Americans want essentially a Canadian or European style social democracy.
The catch, the problem, is a funny and strange one — one of style, not substance. Many of this 70% of Americans get conflicted the instant that you put it that way, because then many of them get scared and terrified by…the very idea of what they actually want. "Oh no!! It's SOCIALISM!!!" And then they freak out. "I'm not supposed to want SOCIALISM!!! But I do!!! Aarrggh!! Now what!!" Cue nail-biting and teeth-gnashing. Hair getting ripped out. Cold War annihilation fantasies. It's funny, isn't it? So the Dems' challenge, then, is this: to reach these people, gently educate them, without frightening them into succumbing to their brainwashing — and give them what they want.
And that brings me to the other 30%.
The other 30% of Americans are now committed fanatics. To what? To the cause. To what cause? To turning America into something very much like Russia meets Iran meets Nazi Germany. Did you see the story about the woman in Alabama who was shot, lost her baby — and then got tried and jailed herself? That's so extreme even the Irani mullahs are smiling. Then there are those who wish to put in place something very much like a modern apartheid state — have their "own" schools, neighborhoods, hospitals, and so forth — and little brown kids can and should die in camps. The Nazis would be proud. And then there are those who believe that absolute power should rest with one party, perhaps one figure, or maybe even one family. Russia — whether Soviet Russia or Putin's — smiles.
There is a difficult truth to be faced here. Not just for the Democrats, but for each and every one of us. This 30% of Americans are a lost cause. Precisely because they have committed themselves to another cause to begin with. They have committed themselves so deeply to the cause of turning America into Russia-Iran-Nazi Germany that they are willing to die for it. Perhaps not in open war — but happily enough through the loss of healthcare, retirement, education, and so forth, all of which are shrinking life expectancy at lightspeed.
The 30% of Americans who are committed fanatics by now are happy, too, to sacrifice not just themselves to the cause of turning America into a fascist-authoritarian-theocracy, but everyone they love, too. Is it any surprise then they're happy to put kids they don't know and love in cages in camps?
This 30% of Americans can best be described as martyrs. They're not wearing suicide vests, to be sure — although every now and then one of them shoots up a church, school, office. But they are martyrs nonetheless — people who are happier dying for a cause than living for one.
These are the martyrs of American collapse. They would much rather die young for their noble cause — than simply live long, healthy, happy, plentiful lives, but give up on that cause. They are doing it every day, in fact — that's what falling life expectancy is.
In this, America mirrors the radicalization of the societies it has been taught to hate, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and so on. It is a mirror image of these societies now. Not all the people in these countries are committed fanatics — just determined enough minorities of martyrs. But that is what happened in America, too.
You cannot persuade a martyr. Not with facts, reason, evidence, truth. That is why you can't speak rationally to a Trumpist. They aren't thinking — their brains aren't working anymore. Just like the Muslim martyr dreams of 72 virgins in Paradise, the American martyr dreams of kids in cages in camps leading cleansing a land until it is pure and free: paradise. These are simply two different versions of the same thing. You can't speak to a Muslim extremist rationally any more than you can a Trumpist, because everything in their lives is devoted to death — not life.
The only real motivation of fanatics is always the apocalypse, the final judgment. A time and place when everyone is judged — and they alone are found to be pure and worthy. That's true across history, from the Bolsheviks to Muslim extremists, to today's Trumpists. When all that you desire is the apocalypse, because you will rise to the top, and be judged worthy at last — why not bring it about? Why not destroy everything first?
That is why, just like Muslim extremists, Trumpists are quite happy to do barbaric, terrible, unimaginable things — with a delusional, dissociative smile. Mass killings, camps, torture, genocide, and so on. The process of radicalization is just the same. A dream of a promised land — had by an apocalypse — in which they alone are judged worthy. They will be recognized at last for what they are — pure and noble and superior. The sooner and faster that apocalypse arrives, then, all the better.
There is no reaching people like this. They can change, it's true — but not through anything you do, really. Not through any kind of rational debate. Not through any semblance of evidence or facts. They must first become disillusioned, in a genuine sense — they must see this belief system to be an illusion. Sometimes, that takes a confrontation with true atrocity — seeing the victims firsthand, of their terrible beliefs. Often, not even that works. The Germans didn't really get rid of the hardcore Nazis until they died out — mostly, they were just pushed underground.
It's a stupid, foolish argument to say something like — "you must pander to hardcore right wing fringe extremists — or you'll never win that election" — the argument of the Frums and the McCains and the Brookses. But it's not just stupid and foolish because it's obviously an oxymoron — if we do that, we just become the bad guys too, don't we?
It's stupid and foolish because it completely, utterly, absolutely fails to see the reality of America now. It is a nation much like an Iran or a Pakistan or a Russia. Where 30% or so of people are committed fanatics to the cause of bringing about an apocalypse that proves them worthy and pure. They are martyrs, in other words.
And the more that we pander to martyrs, my friends, the more that America will realize a similar destiny to nations like Iran and Pakistan. It will become a fascist-authoritarian state, too. These countries used to be relatively civilized places, not so long ago. Tehran and Lahore were something like the Parises of their regions — literate, cultivated, artistic places. Now they are mere shadows of that. Because day by day, people grew radicalised. Not everyone — just enough. 30% of people or so became martyrs to the cause of apocalypse. The result was destabilization and collapse — into theocracy, fascism, authoritarianism. Within just thirty or forty years.
That is America's destiny if it begins pandering to extremists. If it keeps on doing so, in fact — the way that Pelosi and Schumer appease, following Obama's lead, instead of opposing. It will collapse just like the countries it has been taught to hate.
That's not just irony. There is a deep truth there. Both these countries were taught to hate each other, weren't they? Ah, you see? Martyrs. Apocalypses. End times. Bang! When all a society begins to dream of is death and paradise, my friends, obviously, the here and now will be ignored.
The Dems don't need to even try to reach the martyrs of American collapse — the 30% of people who are so committed to the cause of turning America into Iran-Russia-Nazi Germany that they're quite happy to die for it, to sacrifice their families for it (so why would they care about putting kids in camps?). They just need to reach the 70% of Americans who are still sane, still decent, still humane. And mobilize them.
But that will only happen with courage, with passion, with truth. With fight, nobility, struggle. It won't happen with Pelosi-Schumer style appeasement — but with Warren-style fierceness.
The Dems would be fools to listen to the Frums, Brookses, and McCains of the world. And yet we both know that is exactly why they will. Being wiser and more courageous is our challenge, my friends — yours and mine.
Umair
June 2019
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