Bonfire of the Leopard Face Eating
Warning: If schadenfreude lasts longer than 4 hours, contact your physician.
Before we start: Sarah and I did a pretty good Secret show this morning. Should be out in a bit.
And we’ll be together live this afternoon to break down the national humiliation in Alaska. We don’t know exactly when the two dictators will be done, but look for an alert in your inbox. Or don’t. I won’t blame you if you want to skip this one.
1. ReFrame
Yesterday might have been the most rewarding comments section yet. I’m grateful to all of you for participating so thoughtfully. You’re the best.
And I want to highlight one comment that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about:
I’d like to propose a different take. This was both the inevitable path of conservatism, and Reagan was a bit of a detour.
People tend to forget what U.S. conservatism was prior to 1945. Before that point, the U.S. right was openly pro-fascist. We even had an attempted fascist coup in the business plot. After the war, with the full horrors of Nazi Germany on display, fascism had to move underground. . . .
[B]etween the pressure to disavow Nazi horrors, and the need to present a good face in opposition to the USSR, conservatives picked up liberal imagery and ideals. They talked about individual rights and small government (even if they didn’t really mean it).
But now that the horrors have faded, and the Soviet threat no longer exists, the true conservatives can come back out of the woodwork. This is what conservatives have always been, what they have always wanted. Since the US has never had a monarch for conservatives to champion, we get the alternative, an idealized version of the “nation,” narrowly defined, with an all powerful leader at its head to enact the will of “the people.”
Aka. Fascism.
Over at the Bulwark subreddit, someone (maybe the same person?) expanded on this idea:
Was the rationality (as we all consider it) of Buckley banishing the Birchers to the outer darkness for 2 generations (1950s to 1990s) the CORE of the US political right, something to which the US right may one day return, or the EXCEPTION which began dying off as Buckley grew old and faded away from politics?
I’d claim Eisenhower through G H W Bush when Buckley’s conservatism was the preeminent strain was the EXCEPTION. G W Bush’s presidency was a last gasp, not unlike John Quincy Adams’s presidency for the Federalists.
IOW, if the Buckley conservatism period of the 1950s thru 1990s was the aberration, and Reagan was a bit to the reactionary side of Buckley, then there’s a fairly straight line from the America First movement of the 1930s to MAGA with Reagan more of a regression to the reactionary trend line vs Eisenhower.
I can’t answer this question, but it’s something I’m going to chew on for a long time. People naturally assume that the intellectual paradigms they are born into are the default state. But that’s not necessarily true. Why couldn’t it be the case that “modern conservatism” as it has euphemistically been called—meaning conservatism as it existed in the Republican party from roughly Eisenhower to the Bushes—was a temporary aberration? What if True Conservatism was always the blood-and-soil view that dominated the American right before the Cold War?
What if Trump isn’t a fulfillment of “modern conservatism,” but the book closing on that errant period and conservatism returning to what it has traditionally been in American history?1
One final thought: I read a piece earlier this week by David Wallace-Wells about the potential decline of both the Republican and Democratic parties. In it, there was a smug quote from a young British socialist named Zarah Sultana, “In 2029, the choice will be stark: socialism or barbarism.”
I have no view of whether or not Ms. Sultana is correct or how such a choice would be made in Great Britain.
But if that choice were presented to Americans, then my money would be on them picking barbarism. And any American socialists who think otherwise are irrationally optimistic.
2. Leopards
I want you to have a nice weekend, so let me share some recent stories about Real Americans.
Meet Josh Smith. He runs the Montana Knife Company. He’s a true patriot who isn’t afraid of tariffs because he makes all of his knives right here, in ’Murica. Back in April, he made sure to tell people all about it.
In case you don’t want to watch, here’s the transcript:
This is the shape of the number [holds up an egg] that’s gonna be on our website next to our knives of how much tariff affects the prices of our knives. Because we’ve been preaching this all along: We’re American made. Buy American, you don’t have to worry about this shit.
America! Fuck yeah!
But global supply chains are a bitch. You see, people who make knives need steel. They need machine tools. They need parts for the machine tools. And man oh man was Josh surprised to learn about all of “this shit.”
Here he is three weeks ago suddenly explaining “how this affects business” and complaining that “it feels like sweeping policies, you know, things are being enacted that aren’t really truly being thought out.”
And these policies are hurting patriotic American businesses! Like his! If only there had been some way Josh could have known where his tools came from before he got chesty about how great tariffs were.
Watch the first few minutes as Josh tries to avoid saying that his god-emperor isn’t screwing him. It’s glorious.
The case of Roland Mehrez Beainy is even better.