Adding to the list of incompetent things Trump has done: this article says it all. Trump has increasingly focused on symbolic culture-war fights and cosmetic projects that distract from the bigger challenges facing his presidency. I also thought Williamson’s broader critique of the “first lady” concept was an unexpected angle—he argues we’ve created quasi-royal expectations around the presidency and its family that don’t really fit a constitutional republic. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, it’s a thought-provoking read. Do you think these kinds of cultural controversies genuinely matter to voters, or are they mostly political distractions that pull attention away from issues like the economy and foreign policy?
MontusBatwing2 on
I don’t always check the bylines, so it’s always fun when you get a paragraph into a piece and you realize immediately that you know who wrote it.
>“First lady,” if the ghastly term cannot be avoided, is the dumbest pseudo-office in our republic.
Oh, is it Kevin D. Williamson? Yeah, it is. Who else?
SenranHaruka on
These culture battles generally *are* his governing mandate. Any parallels to monarchism only futher elucidate some Historical Empathy for why Monarchy is the default state of human government. American conservatives are merely reinventing monarchy from first principles: “Our political leader needs to represent certain cultural virtues in order to be legitimate as his embodiment of them protects our relative social status implicitly.”
It’s been said before that conservatives control the political system and liberals control the cultural institutions and both of them are jealous of the other’s power. Trump represents an attempt to convert that political power into cultural hegemony, and Monarchy is the oldest technology to do that. Using the resources and majesty of the state to signal to the populace what acceptable behavior, opinions, and cultural practices are, to define in groups and out groups, all to ensure that the reverse does not happen, that a rising rival cultural hegemony is not able to secure political authority and radically transform the society in a way that weakens the currently privileged..
Even his accession to the republican party leadership is something out of a king arthur fable or DUNE. Conservatives spent decades creating a legend or a myth of an idealized conservative warrior who would pull the proverbial sword from the stone, a prophesied set of cultural performances that would make him the ideal leader. Only instead of a demigod deeming him worthy to hold Excalibur giving him that legitimacy, his ability to antagonize and offend liberals, signal crude yeoman values, and defend white rapists while deporting brown ones, is what makes Trump the lisan al gahib.
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Adding to the list of incompetent things Trump has done: this article says it all. Trump has increasingly focused on symbolic culture-war fights and cosmetic projects that distract from the bigger challenges facing his presidency. I also thought Williamson’s broader critique of the “first lady” concept was an unexpected angle—he argues we’ve created quasi-royal expectations around the presidency and its family that don’t really fit a constitutional republic. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, it’s a thought-provoking read. Do you think these kinds of cultural controversies genuinely matter to voters, or are they mostly political distractions that pull attention away from issues like the economy and foreign policy?
I don’t always check the bylines, so it’s always fun when you get a paragraph into a piece and you realize immediately that you know who wrote it.
>“First lady,” if the ghastly term cannot be avoided, is the dumbest pseudo-office in our republic.
Oh, is it Kevin D. Williamson? Yeah, it is. Who else?
These culture battles generally *are* his governing mandate. Any parallels to monarchism only futher elucidate some Historical Empathy for why Monarchy is the default state of human government. American conservatives are merely reinventing monarchy from first principles: “Our political leader needs to represent certain cultural virtues in order to be legitimate as his embodiment of them protects our relative social status implicitly.”
It’s been said before that conservatives control the political system and liberals control the cultural institutions and both of them are jealous of the other’s power. Trump represents an attempt to convert that political power into cultural hegemony, and Monarchy is the oldest technology to do that. Using the resources and majesty of the state to signal to the populace what acceptable behavior, opinions, and cultural practices are, to define in groups and out groups, all to ensure that the reverse does not happen, that a rising rival cultural hegemony is not able to secure political authority and radically transform the society in a way that weakens the currently privileged..
Even his accession to the republican party leadership is something out of a king arthur fable or DUNE. Conservatives spent decades creating a legend or a myth of an idealized conservative warrior who would pull the proverbial sword from the stone, a prophesied set of cultural performances that would make him the ideal leader. Only instead of a demigod deeming him worthy to hold Excalibur giving him that legitimacy, his ability to antagonize and offend liberals, signal crude yeoman values, and defend white rapists while deporting brown ones, is what makes Trump the lisan al gahib.