I want to do a little thinking out loud about 'turning points'. There are little ones and big ones, world-historical turning points, like the shift from what we now call the premodern to the modern. And there are smaller one's like the shift from the New Deal paradigm in American politics from the '30 through the '70s to the Neoliberal one in the 1980s until at least now. A basic theme of this blog since its inception has been that at least since the sixties in the U.S.--it starts earlier in Europe--we are currently, undergoing a world historical turning point from modernity to whatever comes next. We call it "postmodernity" for want of another term, because all we know now is that "modern" assumptions in the way they shape our social imaginary are not working, and whatever comes next has not yet presented itself in a way that we can positively characterize.
As with the shift from the premodern to modern, say in the 1600s, such turning points don't happen all at once. In England it happened sooner than in France, where it happened sooner than in Central Europe, where it happened sooner than in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and there earlier than in the Middle East and elsewhere in the developing world. And wherever it happens, it's confusing because there are as many continuities as there are discontinuities, and it's hard to know which discontinuities are significant, and which are just random or irrelevant.
So there are major world historical turning points like the shift into modernity, and then there are smaller, more local adjustments to it. In some posts later this week I want to talk about the French Revolution as such a local adjustment to better understand the way continuities and discontinuities lie side by side. But today I want to just throw out an idea about how what's happening in our presidential politics might be a local adjustment, but interesting nonetheless.
Are we in the midst of a turning point in our politics in the U.S right now? Probably not, but it's a more interesting question for me at the end of the summer than it was at the beginning. It's hard to say who's more fed up: the right or the left. Either way when you combine the disaffection exhibited by Trump and Sanders supporters, it's clear that a large percentage of Americans are deeply alienated and they are acting out. Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in their combined effect and in their different ways represent a serious rejection of establishment politics, and that rejection appears to be qualitatively different from previous cycles.
A part of me says we've seen this movie before. Sanders is just Howard Dean redivivus, and Trump is Herman Caine. But maybe that's rearview mirror thinking. I never, for instance, thought Solidarity had a chance in Poland in the 80s because I thought that they'd wind up like Czechoslovakia in '60s. During a turning point the old rules don't apply, so Poland in the early 80s wasn't Czechoslovakia in the late 60s. And similarly 2016 isn't 2004, and Sanders isn't Howard Dean (who btw has already endorsed Hillary)(nor is he Dennis Kucinich*), but maybe, just maybe, Sanders is our gruff, unpolished version of Lech Walesa. Both are honest, serious men, both were or are in a little over their heads, and both have this way of exceeding your expectations.
Trump is a ridiculous figure; he is not a serious man, and his chances of being elected president are far lower than Sanders. But it has become clear that the people who are attracted to Trump are non-ideological and generally low information; they're mostly just fed up. Their anger and frustration needs to be channeled, and Trump offers one way for them to channel it. But if Trump leaves the stage, Sanders might for many current Trump supporters be the next best choice. I suspect that the anti-immigrant theme that seems so strong among Trump supporters is intensely real for a few, but is soft-symbolic for most. It's a symbolic issue for low-information people to channel frustrations the cause for which they don't understand. Sanders has an outside chance of becoming an alternative channel for them. Stranger things have happened. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Again, it's a long shot, but I find myself watching more carefully than I thought I would be. Even Sanders realizes that his getting elected won't mean much unless he catalyzes a sweeping out of congressional Republicans in the way Dems were swept out in '94 and '10. If there's now congressional sweep, then his election won't qualify as a turning point; it will just be an anomalous discontinuity.
*I'll have more to say about Jacobin magazine and Jacobins in general in the course of my reflections on the French Revolution. But I find it astonishing that any historically well informed group would use the Jacobin name as a way of branding itself. I guess it means for them that they're real, serious leftists, not just namby-pamby liberals or progressives. But the historical Jacobins' most representative figures were the paranoidal, bloodthirsty prigs Robespierre and his weird, little sidekick Saint-Just, not to mention psychopaths like Carrier and Collot d'Herbois. Why would anybody want to identify with them? Why not call your magazine Khmer Rouge?