Friday night, I sat paralyzed watching the Rachel Maddow Show. Her hour was an urgent alarm jammed with bad news. The Insurrection is well entrenched in our government and our society. We barely survived January 6th . The people most responsible for the US’s survival were state Republican officials and two Attorneys General who refused to be coerced into taking the last step in destroying the Rule of Law. They are now being forced out of office to make way for Trump extremists. Rachel and her quests delivered a stunning analysis of the perilous state our Democracy is in. The odds that we will lose the 2022 elections are high. We will lose control of both Houses. Trump’s supporters will turn all elements of the government, particularly the Judiciary, into a lethal weapon. Clearing the way for Trump or his designee to march into the White House in 2024. It’s important to see Rachel’s 09/23 MSNBC broadcast to experience the whole narrative. It is historic, by definition.
Rachel began her show by reading an unusually long excerpt from an opinion piece by Robert Kagan, who Rachel said in her intro to the story, ” I’ve never agreed with him.” (Pause, as if self-censoring). What she read sat me back in my chair. It was the clearest analysis of our situation, its threats, the strength of the enemy, and the weaknesses for democratic forces. Just the quote that Rachel read had conveyed more than the hours of analysis by the mass media and many left commentators.
Who is Robert Kagan? He is a columnist who writes for the Washington Post and is a contributing editor to The New Republic and The Weekly Standard. In addition, he is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute. His career includes being a member of the United States Department of State, Policy Planning Staff, serving in the State Department Bureau of Inter-American Affairs from 1986-1988.
His Conservative credentials include being foreign policy adviser for Jack Kemp, (R New York, Rep.) and being Secretary of State George P. Schultz’s speechwriter, during the Reagan Administration. Kagan also was foreign policy advisor to John McCain, 2008 Republican Presidential Candidate. Yet, during the 2016 Presidential Campaign, Kagan endorsed Hillary Clinton while renouncing the Republican Party.
He is considered an important neoconservative foreign policy theorist. He and fellow neocon William Kristel, commentator, founded the no-longer existent, Project for A New American Century. It’s neocon ideas were used by Newt Gingrich to push for total American military domination of the world, guided by American Morality. Many members of the Project ended filling important positions in George W Bush’s Administration. After 9/11, the neocon, go it alone, quick-draw, cowboy philosophy was on clear display.
So why in hell, would I read his op-ed in the Washington Post? Kagan knows the hearts of the Insurrectionists and appreciates the long-term effort that has gone into the destruction of our democracy. If anyone can provide an important point of view, it would be him. It is a must read to understand the evolution of the authoritarian personality cult that is about to overwhelm our fragile democratic experiment.
Kagan points out that the Founding Fathers had a healthy dislike for political parties and demagogues. They thought that in 18th Century American society, with its dispersed agrarian population and energetic competition between the states that it would create a system of checks and balances to protect against nation-wide extremism. Indeed, they believed in, as Kagan points out, “(small-R) republican virtue, a love of freedom not only for oneself but also as an abstract, universal good; a love of self-government as an ideal; a commitment to abide by the laws passed by legitimate democratic processes; and a healthy fear of and vigilance against tyranny of any kind.” Kagan observes how unusual the Founders’ belief in republican virtue was when normal people then believed much as Trump supporters do now. “… these are normal people in the sense that they think and act as people have for centuries. They put their trust in family, tribe, religion and race. Although jealous in defense of their own rights and freedoms, they are less concerned about the rights and freedoms of those who are not like them. That, too, is not unusual. What is unnatural is to value the rights of others who are unlike you as much as you value your own.”
Again, Kagan’s analysis of our dire situation needs to be read.
About the Image
The image is a composite, the sky and flag are individual images covered by Creative Commons usage. I manipulated both images and color corrected so that they would work together.
The Flag is by Mike Mozart, JeepersMedia, CC-BY.
The sky is by Fractal Artists, CC-BY.
The image above, Stormy Skies 2, is mine, CC-BY.