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Today's Topics:
1. Beyond the deplorables
([email protected])
2. Re: Beyond the deplorables (Ted Byfield)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2023 07:58:10 -0700
From: [email protected]
To: "<nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the
nets"
<[email protected]>
Subject: <nettime> Beyond the deplorables
Message-ID:
<[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Question from a non US citizen: is Hillary Clinton's statement
on a
recent CNN interview that "Supporters of Donald Trump may need
to be
?deprogrammed? a candidate for the most idiotic remark ever made
by a
senior politician ? To me it encapsulates much of whats wrong
with the
progressive liberal engagement with the world beyond its own
silo boiled
down to a sinister soundbite. Its important to understand whats
going on
if only as a clue to anyone looking to better understand the
Trumpian
appeal.
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Sat, 07 Oct 2023 13:26:06 -0400
From: Ted Byfield <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: <nettime> Beyond the deplorables
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
On 7 Oct 2023, at 10:58, David Garcia wrote:
Question from a non US citizen: is Hillary Clinton's statement
on a
recent CNN interview that "Supporters of Donald Trump may need
to be
?deprogrammed? a candidate for the most idiotic remark ever
made by
a senior politician ? To me it encapsulates much of whats wrong
with
the progressive liberal engagement with the world beyond its
own
silo boiled down to a sinister soundbite. Its important to
understand whats going on if only as a clue to anyone looking
to
better understand the Trumpian appeal.
Yes. Accurate or not, it was profoundly bad judgment on every
level. But profoundly bad judgment is the Clintons' (plural)
hallmark
style. At least Bill mostly has the sense to STFU, particularly
at
sensitive moments ? like, say, the delicate,
once-in-a-zillennium
conjuncture when GOP House leadership is in chaos, Dems are
wooing
(alleged) GOP moderates to break Trump's stranglehold on the US
imagination, and Trump's empire of litigation is crumbling
around his
head. Hillary Clinton ("HC" hereafter), in contrast, does the
opposite: that's exactly then when she, one of the most
QUOTE-polarizing-UNQOUTE figures in US politics, will call
attention
to herself with a "deplorable"-grade soundbite.
HC is difficult to talk about, because she occupies a supposed
political center"that's largely of her own and her husband's
making,
through their reorientation of the Dems away from working-class
and
minority concerns and toward a toxic mix of *financialized
identity*. There are more common name for that, like "OK
Boomer": a
nexus of political-economic structural biases hidden behind a
glass of
Pinot Grigio and repartee made up of denialist, 'splainy
"truths." To
criticize HC is to criticize not just her as a person or as a
symbol
but the fragile edifice of self-seeking hypocrisy that imagines
itself
to be both the "center" and the "left," somehow, as well as the
"resistance," the "reality-based community," the only thing that
stands between "us" and the apocalypse, etc.
Similar things could be said about various Blairites in the UK,
and
I'm sure other politicians in other contexts. But in HC's case
there
are additional complications, stemming from her gender ? which
isn't
optional or external, is it? ? and the history of how it's has
been
used, counter-used, meta-used, etc. Much of what I said above is
about
imaginaries, but HC's gender aspect is *very* real. Criticisms
of her
resonate deeply with many women, and that resonance itself
matters: as
a moment, a truth, a guide, a lesson, and more.
I'd be delighted to see women take control of the US for the
next few
centuries, but with a few exceptions, and HC is one of
them. She's
immensely accomplished and, unlike many prominent figures, has
mostly
tried to do what she thinks is right. But it's one thing to
acknowledge someone's achievements and status, quite another to
reframe them by saying ? as people did in the last election ?
that
"she's the most qualified." She was *more* qualified than Trump,
which
is a hilariously low bar; but qualifications don't entitle you
to
something you desire. She sees herself as the presidential heir
apparent and her return to the White House as a restoration. And
that,
I think, explains her penchant for saying aggressively
ill-judged
things at aggressively ill-judged times: they're a gambit for
attention.
That's the why, but not the why *now*? She knows very well it
was an
insanely provocative thing to say, tailor-made to garner
attention. She's certainly aware of debates about whether Biden
is
"too old," non-debates about the fact that Harris would be
unelectable
if she ran for president, and the fact that No One Ever wants a
Biden?Trump rematch. My guess: HC said it not just to get
herself back
in the news, but to get herself back in the political imaginary
as a
fallback candidate for the Democrats.
The fact that she's basically right is incidental,
imo. "Deprogramming" evokes some very weird, and
under-'processed'
threads in US cultural history, mainly centering on allegations
of
Chinese communist "brainwashing" in the '50s, to the flowering
of cult
culture in the '70s, to the networked neo-paranoia of the '90s
(with
the Clintons at center stage, no less). The conceptual divide
that
these things share in common is precisely the dissolution of the
individual into a larger ideology; but in explicit US culture,
individualist discourse always prevail ideological discourse ?
so
framing the problem in that way will *always* be taken,
paradoxically,
as a personal attack en masse. It certainly isn't a pragmatic
effort
to build bridges and persuade the opposition; it's for her
supporters.
tl;dr: she's firing up her own base.
Ted
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