US Politics Mega-thread - Page 5054

On September 20 2016 14:25 IgnE wrote:
This "I hope the republicans take their head out of their asses and start acting more reasonable" sentiment doesn't make sense to me. It's the "wisdom" of the self-proclaimed moderate, who favors only one neoliberal, technocratic party with a view towards scientific corporate governance. It's no surprise that HW Bush is voting for Clinton; he is cut from the same apolitical cloth as her. The Bushes and the Clintons just vie for who gets to be the American CEO for the next 4 years. There is no reason to think that a "return to sanity" for the republicans would yield anything different.

If Trump represents the pure aestheticization of politics, he is, at least, harnessing something truly political. The insurrection of the tea party in its divers forms may simply be a deep political reaction to the unabated state of exception that was inaugurated on September 11th. When Clinton truly killed off politics with his Third Way in the 90s, it became apparent that the two parties were only trading off managerial responsibilities of American capital. True disagreements have been minor, akin to philosophical differences over management style or business strategy, rather than political in the true sense. That may also have been the last breath of constitutional liberalism, as Newt's House was really the last Congress to effectively wield power over the executive.

But with 9/11, the political elite were able to seize an opportunity. The war on terror led to a perennial state of exception, and sovereignty could rematerialize in the office of the President (i.e. "he who decides on the exception"). This did not necessarily mean, however, that politics would reinstate itself; in fact the sovereign power for the last 15 years has been in the political dark, operating mostly out of view. When Obama makes decisions on drone strikes, signs executive orders, negotiates the TPP, and sets administrative agency policies he is operating from the position of the sovereign, outside of the vast abstract, juridical framework that has been built up in our liberal constitutional order, and which was designed precisely to dissolve the unified sovereign into multiple components. But he makes those decisions as Bush did before him. They are cut from the same cloth, both acting as stewards of a unified American interest having won an apolitical popularity contest.

The tea party, Trumpism, and Berniebros should be seen as reactions to this hegemony of the economic sovereign. They signal a return to politics, or a return to "us vs. them". Rising inequalities and the growing pains of global capital in transition are creating serious stresses on the liberal democratic order. It has become quite apparent that not all Americans, let alone all people, share the same interests. To wish for a return to the good old times of Bush v. Clinton in the 90s where both parties could put up "respectable" candidates is to ignore the serious problems in our politico-economic structures. And they are only going to get worse.