Democracy is Just the Worst

From July 22, 2019

Ever since 1832 we have been gradually excluding the voters from government. Now we have got to the point where they vote just once every four or five years purely on which bunch of buffoons will try to interfere with our policies. — Sir Humphrey Appleby

The summer lull has come early to the world of international relations. Apart from Iran really, REALLY wanting to be attacked by anyone at all, very little seems to be happening. Britain in the late stages of an interregnum in Downing Street. Europe is on vacation. And the U.S. is already mired in presidential politics, which means domestic silliness. And in-between squabbles over who can give away the most in least amount of time and who can and can’t use which bathrooms, when the candidates are forced at virtual gunpoint to acknowledge the existence of other countries, what they say scary. Or at least very depressing.

The Democrats seem to be stuck reciting the refrain of 2004 and 2008. “Iraq is bad.” “If you voted for Iraq you’re bad.” “Mea Culpa, I voted for Iraq, but now I super-wouldn’t vote it.” Of course, “Iraq” as they’re talking about ceased to be in issue over a decade ago. Too many people are unwilling to admit that the Surge worked, and Obama was handed a (admittedly very fragile) non-problem, and proceeded to smash it against a wall as if to prove something. It’s as if Walter Mondale had gone on-and-on about Vietnam while debating Reagan. It’s getting kind of old.

And who cares, anyway? The only people who seem to hate the Iraq War more than Democrats are the current batch of Trumpy “Republicans.” (I find it remarkable that they still at times label “Never Trumpers” as RINO’s, despite the fact that those targets all voted Bush, Dole, Bush, Bush, McCain, Romney and when it is in fact the New Stalwarts who were never dedicated to the party.) These new Republicans, like any example of a purity police, hate the heretic much more than the infidel. And in their mania to “mainstream” Trumpism as the “real” conservatism, all competing forms must be destroyed. While this is primarily the subject of domestic politics, foreign policy is equally subject to redefinition.

(As an aside, there is a fascinating war going on in intellectual conservative circles between those advocating “traditional” individual rights, limited government and those arguing for post-liberalism, anti-enlightenment, pro-society attitudes. Kind of scary, kind of cool.)

But back to the Democrats. They’re all about free trade, and NATO, and standing up to Russia. That’s great, but I’ve been around long enough to know that it isn’t honest. It’s honest only so much as it is anti-Trump. If Trump started bombing Moscow tomorrow, the Democrats would suddenly be all over Russia like Sanders on a honeymoon. And the front-runner, the “adult," the “moderate,” — a supposed Foreign Policy Expert — was wrong on every major foreign policy and trade issue he was presented with while in the Senate, except of course Afghanistan, which no senator opposed. And the Iraq War, which he now super-opposes. Mea Culpa. (Credit where credit is due. He was generally correct on Balkans issues in 90’s.)

Despite everything have written above, I can’t blame these policies on the parties themselves, per se. These are, in every sense, retail politicians. They are skilled at knowing what the public want, and giving it to them. Non-politician Donald Trump perhaps even more so than the others. People don’t want to think about foreign affairs. I’ve never quite understood why, but it is clearly the case. Foreign entanglements make them have to hear about places they don’t know. Sometimes they even see casualties and don’t know why, but don’t care enough to become educated about what, exactly, is going on and whether there is merit to the effort. Politicians see this, and so we get promises to bury our heads in the sand and let those people in other countries burn down the world if that’s what they want. So, unless something happens, it appears that many of us will be without a political home for the foreseeable future.