Porter’s Pensées

Before the election – the election – there were predictions that a Harris win, disputed as it would inevitably be by the Republicans, would spark a new American ‘civil war’. That danger has obviously receded with Trump’s victory, for the time being at least; but the deep divisions in America clearly haven’t. So I suppose a ‘civil war’, at some level – not necessarily military – is still a possibility.

Which raises the following question: how would – or will – the sides line up? In 1861 the issues were pretty obvious: States rights and slavery vs. federalism and slave emancipation. Today however they’re not quite so clear; and also not so geographically distinct. There’s no longer, as I understand it, a meaningful ‘Mason-Dixon’ line between the putative adversaries. The closest to this I’ve seen was a map from the younger Bush era dividing the USA into (1) ‘America’, which comprised the more liberal states on the north-east and west coasts, together with Canada, and (2) ‘Godfuckistan’, which was the name given to the centre and south. (That of course was drawn by a liberal. Why doesn’t it come up for me on Google?) After Tuesday’s election some features of that map remain the same; but not quite so tidily (https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-e&q=electoral+map+of+USA+2024). Pennsylvania for example is now a red state; Colorado and New Mexico blue. Neither the Mason-Dixon nor the America-Godfuckistan lines work any more.

Nor do gender and age, as means of demarcating the sides. The surprises here are the number of women who voted for the misogynistic Trump, and the number of young people who did too; both figures decisively up, although in neither instance forming a majority. But in any case it’s difficult to imagine a genuine civil war between genders or age groups, splitting families, as it must. Levels of education might be a more useful measure: see https://www.livemint.com/news/us-news/voters-with-no-college-degrees-favour-donald-trump-check-who-supported-the-president-elect-us-election-results-2024-11730954001195.html. But how do you arrange a ‘civil war’ between the college-educated, and high school dropouts? Or between the ‘élite’ and ‘deplorables’, as they are sometimes fond of characterising each other? And in what form? Not with guns, surely, despite the ubiquity of these in the USA.

The most likely scenario is a war of ideas and propaganda: essentially an extension of the ‘culture wars’ that are (apparently) raging presently: unpleasant as they are, but mostly peaceful, apart from when protest marches turn into riots. (And bloody riots, if Trump turns the National Guard on them.) Is that the way the country will/would divide? ‘Patriots’ against the ‘woke’? ‘Democrats’ against ‘populists’? ‘Winners’ versus ‘losers’? One set of myths against another?

Could all that turn into what might properly be called a civil war? And how will/would it end? Can anyone visualise a ‘Compromise’ like that of 1850 (you see, I know my American history), to calm it down temporarily? Or does one side have to win?

This isn’t only an American problem. We have a similar ‘divide’ in Britain: the Guardian versus the Daily Mail, for example; and even in Sweden, although the ‘elite’ side is holding up rather better here. It’s clearly a global phenomenon: the growth of ‘populist’, nationalist and essentially reactionary sentiment elbowing out the older and more liberal consensuses (consensi?), to create what we ‘progressives’ will now need to accept is a new political normality. – Except that this normality was probably always there, albeit hitherto hidden under the historical surface from us naïve (élite) liberals, but now revealed more widely by social and other media. And perhaps threatening to plunge other polities into civil wars, too.

So, it’s over. The verdict has been delivered, and the sentence – four more years of Trump – is about to begin. In Britain both Nigel Farage, not unexpectedly, and Suella Braverman appeared on BBC Radio this morning to enthusiastically welcome the news. I wonder how many other Brits share the same opinion? More, probably, than we innocent liberals liked to think.

It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise; and wasn’t to a soft Marxist like me, who rejects the Hegelianism, doesn’t fully understand the economics, and is uncomfortable with the determinism, but has nonetheless long been impressed by the ‘theory of history’ that is found in Das Kapital. The idea of events being driven by underlying material forces – mainly economic – has always seemed to me to be born out by the actual history of both Britain and the USA, the two leading capitalist powers in modern times. Trump, as I’ve suggested before, embodies what might be seen as the latest – possibly the last – ‘stage’ of capitalism: mainly financial, shorn of any innovative or constructive rationale, and its ‘ethics’ reduced to a merely competitive and acquisitive (a)morality.

According to Marx, at this stage the whole system should now be crumbling under its own internal contradictions, to be succeeded by revolution, a dictatorship of the proletariat, and eventually socialism. I can’t see much sign yet of any of that; and have no hope – or fear – of its coming before capitalism – and everything else – perishes as a result of climate change. (Which Trump denies.)

8 pm, CET. Awaiting the US election results nervously. If Trump wins it may be a sign of the final victory of capitalism. That’s what he represents and indeed personifies: not America, or democracy, but the worst aspects of a relatively unrestrained and increasingly criminal capitalist system. The America I know is better than this.

I hope to comment on the election more fully when the agony is over; which we’re told won’t be tonight or even tomorrow. (Or this week?) I’ll be sitting up nonetheless, glued in front of the TV, with a KFC ‘bucket’, and a few cans of Coors to hand. (How more American can you get?)

Pray for Kamala. – But of course those Americans who believe in the power of prayer, the ‘fundamentalists’, won’t.

Incidentally: here’s an interesting historical piece, showing that America has never been impervious to fascism: https://www.hnn.us/article/ohios-little-known-fascist-member-of-congress. Is that what’s coming this week?

Swedish companies are nearly a year into a dispute with Elon Musk’s Tesla, over trade union recognition. Unions are powerful here, with 90% membership, and ‘collective bargaining’ being (I think) a legal requirement in industrial disputes.

This is rather like the reform that the late great Labour politician Barbara Castle recommended for Britain under Harold Wilson in her In Place of Strife white paper, before the foolish British unions (and Wilson) turned it down. I suspect it’s one reason for Sweden’s rather better record on the manufacturing front than Britain’s over the last several years. (See https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/01/one-year-on-we-know-this-swedens-trade-unions-are-more-than-a-match-for-elon-musk.)

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By the way (and continuing on from my last post): The Apprentice (film) is well worth watching. The real star is not Sebastian Stam, who plays Trump, but Jeremy Strong, who was also in Succession. Here he plays another villain, the evil Roy Cohn (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Cohn), Trump’s ‘go to’ lawyer, and apparently the most malign influence on him.

I can see why Trump hates the movie so much; and can’t really see why any American who sees it could ever vote for him. Perhaps Cohn’s persona and message – ‘you’re either killer or a loser’ – appeals to them?

Here in Sweden Donald Trump is overwhelmingly unpopular, and indeed reviled; more so even than in most other European countries (https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/50844-who-do-europeans-want-to-win-the-2024-us-presidential-election). Obviously one would expect this, in view of the vast differences between our political cultures. Swedish friends of mine find it genuinely difficult to understand his appeal to Americans; and even with my American experience – I studied US history at university, and have lived and worked there for about two years in all – I’m at a loss to account for it in a way that would make much sense to them. It’s another – and scarier – world.

I’m preparing for Tuesday’s election by soaking myself in Trumpiana. I’ve been watching Trump: An American Dream on Netflix; this evening we’re seeing The Apprentice at the cinema. Maybe I should be doing the same for Harris, but she’s not the main issue here, and not yet – I think – the subject of a movie. Trump is. I already knew a lot about him, of course – don’t we all: an effect of his narcissistic hunger for fame – but there’s still a lot that’s new to me. Roy Cohn is one (though I’m sure he’s familiar to all Americans); the disbarred McCarthyite lawyer who taught him to ‘never concede, never apologise’. Cohn really was a monster; fully deserving his death from Aids, in view (only) of his hypocritical persecution of gay people while alive. We saw a lot of the ‘never conceding’ Trump after the last Presidential election. None of us will be surprised to see it again – if he loses – next week.

Is it naïve, over-simplistic, or just Leftist-prejudice, to look at all this in the context of ‘late-stage capitalism’? As capitalism marches on it becomes redder in tooth and claw. Competition drives it into a ‘winner or loser’-only scenario. Nothing else counts. Morality flies out of the window. Trump learned this from his father, and from Cohn. He makes it very clear in interviews. Americans, or half of them, go along with this, and with a ‘strong leader’ who presents himself – by ‘never conceding’ – as a ‘winner’ all his life. That’s what late-stage capitalism does to you. The electorate knows no better. At this level, capitalism is fundamentally antithetical to ‘democracy’. Which is why capitalists like Elon Musk string along with Trump.

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To change the subject: on today’s UK election of a black woman as Tory party leader, which may have surprised many, see https://bernardjporter.com/2024/10/11/race-and-the-tory-leadership/. But that scarcely matters by the side of this coming Tuesday’s vote.

I feel I have a duty to comment on this issue, as an imperial historian, and as the author, fifty-six years ago (gosh!), of the first academic study of early British anti-imperialism. The question is this. Should Britain apologise and compensate ex-colonial countries for the damage she did to them in the past? The suggestion came up – again – at the recent Commonwealth leaders’ summit in Samoa (see https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c207m3m0xpjo). The current British government has apparently promised to ‘consider’ it.

Among those who disagree with this – ‘nothing to apologise for’ – is the dreadful Robert Jenrick (see https://bernardjporter.com/2024/10/12/jenrick/). Here’s his rationale, published in the Daily Mail (where else?): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14012923/ROBERT-JENRICK-Britains-former-colonies-debt-inheritance.html. – Jenrick of course is one of the two remaining contenders for the British Conservative party’s leadership; and is defending British imperialism here probably in an effort to bolster his Right-wing credentials among the elderly Conservative party members who currently comprise his electorate, many of whom will be old enough (as I am) to remember the Empire while it was still – just – a going concern. For Jenrick, as is clear from that Daily Mail article, this is a ‘Culture Wars’ issue, with ‘patriots’ on the one side facing ‘woke’ liberals – ‘Leftists peddling pseudo-Marxist gibberish to impressionable undergraduates’ – on the other.

Now, when it comes to this kind of question I usually lean towards the ‘woke’ side; but not all the way by any means, and not enough to make me entirely happy with all this ‘historical reparations’ cant. That may surprise anyone who has read my ‘imperial’ history books, and assumes that I must be one of the ‘anti-imperialists’ about whom I wrote my first one. Which I am. But that doesn’t affect my attitude towards the issue of compensating ex-colonies for crimes and atrocities that my forebears undoubtedly committed there a hundred or more years ago. ‘Apologies’, perhaps – they come cheap. And we should teach about the downside of empire (all empires) in schools, so that new generations won’t come out with the rosy view of British imperialism that Jenrick seems to have picked up. But money?

My main reason for objecting to colonial reparations, qua ‘reparations’, is that they assume a ‘guilt’ on one side of the colonial ledger which history doesn’t really bear out. The British empire was more complex than that. Not everything that happened under it – ‘good’ or ‘bad’ – can be attributed to it. Wider factors were involved, including impersonal ones, like the development of global capitalism. ‘Britain’ as an entity was not necessarily wholly responsible; the British people even less so. When they were, it was not always out of malevolence. The best of intentions can often have the worst of effects. (Look at the Iraq war.) And so on….

I started to elaborate on this in the first draft of this post; but it went on too long, because of the complexity of the issue. The post was turning into a book; and not only a book, but – as I came to realise – one that I’d written already. That was British Imperial: What the Empire Wasn’t (2016). You can find out there (it’s only 200 pages) why I can have no truck with this idea of ‘compensation’ for colonial crimes. Or that Britain should take credit for the ‘benefits’ that Jenrick claims the empire brought.

And that’s before we come on to the more general question of the present-day ‘compensation culture’: the belief that we can atone for past sins – even those we could be said to be still profiting from, like all those National Trust mansions built with slave money – by shovelling money at the descendants of their long-dead victims. Money should go to where it’s needed, whatever might be the putative and historical source of that need. History – which in this case is much misunderstood – should play no part in this. That’s my second reason for breaking ranks with my fellow wokeists on this question; while still holding on to my credentials, I hope, as an ‘anti-imperialist’.

Until fairly recently calling Trump a ‘fascist’ was widely considered to be an exaggeration at best, or a typical left-wing slur at worst. It’s sometimes called the Reductio ad Hitlerum, or ‘Godwin’s Law: ‘as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches One’. No serious commentator wants to fall into that trap. I’ve always avoided the unadorned word for this reason, generally modifying it with the prefix ‘proto-‘, which is supposed to indicate that Trump might be preparing the ground for something that could resemble ‘classical’ fascism more closely, but isn’t quite there yet. I still prefer that formulation, partly because, as an (ex-)academic historian, I feel I need to be careful with historically-loaded words.

So I’m struck currently by the way the word has suddenly emerged into ‘respectable’ discourse about Trump, without bringing almost universal derision on to the heads of those who use it. Now even Kamala Harris has used it: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/23/harris-trump-fascist-hitler-comments-election; and – more remarkably – JD Vance, albeit a few years before he became Trump’s vice-presidential candidate: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/jd-vance-once-compared-trump-hitler-now-they-are-running-mates-2024-07-15/. I think this means that the word has broadened its definition over the past few years, loosening its ties with the specific philosophies and policies of Mussolini and Hitler, and now covering more general Right-wing views that can be considered ‘extreme’.

By that definition, there can surely be little doubt that Trump qualifies. Among the most characteristic elements of fascism thus understood are illiberalism, crude nationalism, racism, anti-immigration, authoritarianism, dictatorship, the cult of the individual, masculinism, anti-intellectualism, lying propaganda, control of the media, and popular rallies. Trump exhibits most of these traits, or would like to; in a political environment that in some respects is reminiscent of 1930s Germany. It really doesn’t matter what we call it. The situation of America currently is proto-Fascistic, at least. Whether it goes any further than this we’re waiting – nervously – to learn on November 5th.

Of course it’s inevitable, when you get to my age; but it can be devastating nonetheless. I lost another great friend yesterday – the fourth in about a year. We hadn’t seen each other for years, but we were close then, and the memory of him is filling my thoughts just now, making it difficult for me to blog. Give me a few days.

In a move reminiscent of Corbyn’s time in the UK, the Swedish Judiska Centralrådet – the equivalent, I presume, of the Jewish Board of Deputies in Britain – has effectively blacklisted the Swedish Vänsterpartiet (Left-Socialist), for its supposed anti-Semitism, or inadequate response to anti-Semitism; and for its alleged support for terrorist organizations. (See https://swedenherald.se/article/the-jewish-central-council-shuns-the-left-party.)

As a (very inactive) member of Vänsterpartiet, I must say I was as surprised by this as I was by the similar charges made against the Labour Party six or seven years ago, which since then have been pretty conclusively disproven (see Asa Winstanley, Weaponising Anti-Semitism, 2023) – although they’re still dredged up by the Tories occasionally. (Mud always sticks.) In both countries serious studies have shown that anti-semitism is mainly found on the Right of politics, as you might expect, and may in any case often be confused with anti-Zionism, which should be regarded as a different creature. Leftists are almost always against racism in any form. With specific reference to Sweden, the tiny handful of examples I’ve seen cited there (and I’ve not researched the topic in any great depth) have mostly featured Moslem members of the Malmö branch of the Vänster party, who had already been thrown out as a result.

One common feature of both these charges is that they have targeted anti-capitalist parties especially. Make of that what you will; but it’s disturbing. Another may be that neither the Jewish Board of Deputies nor Judiska Centralrådet is necessarily representative of British and Swedish Jews.

In view of the atrocities currently being visited by the IDF on Gaza and Lebanon, we shouldn’t be too surprised that Israel is coming in for criticism and condemnation. There was always the danger of this morphing into a wider and less discriminating anti-Semitism; just as I remember Nazi atrocities – like the Holocaust – sparking Germanophobia in and after World War II. Netanyahu should be aware of that.

Nineteenth-century anti-democrats would recognise in recent events in the USA many of the dangers they warned against, if the ‘great unwashed’ were given the vote. They would point to the empowerment of ignorance, of short-sighted prejudices, of wild conspiracy theories, and of the most primitive and violent of human feelings in public life. On 6 January 2021 we saw all these operating in the lawless chaos that broke out on the streets of Washington DC, and even inside the Capitol building, triggered by Trump’s refusal to accept the result of the previous November’s election. (For anyone who may have forgotten it, there’s an excellent TV documentary telling the whole story, which I saw the other night on SVT2, but I think is available here: https://www.channel4.com/programmes/trumps-heist-president-who-wouldnt-lose.)

We must hope that there’s no reprise of this next time around. That of course is due very soon – on our (British) ‘Guy Fawkes Day’ (!), as it happens. It should make for exciting viewing, for those of us relaxing comfortably – and safely, for the moment – on our sofas in front of our TVs, with an ocean and 200-odd years of history between us. I’ll certainly be staying up for it.

But of course the result will affect us too, in Europe, in the Middle East and in Ukraine especially. How exactly it will bear on us we can’t yet tell; mainly because Trump (if he wins) is so unpredictable. What effect will his declared admiration for foreign dictators like Putin or wannabe dictators like Netanyahu have; or, overruling (‘trumping’?) this, his oft expressed – and traditionally American, although it’s been in abeyance in recent years – American isolationism? His flights of fancy could take him, and us, anywhere.

And of course he has admirers in Europe – on the far Right of British politics, for example – who are envying his ‘populist’ appeal, and taking lessons from it. (We’ve had our ‘popular’ riots in Britain too.) The specific issues may be different in each case (although immigration features in both), but the basic trigger is the same. That is a collapse of trust in politics generally, and therefore in government, or perhaps ‘democracy’ itself; although it’s usually expressed in other terms – as distrust of the corruption of democracy by ‘élites’, the ‘deep state’, ‘liberals’ (in America), Leftists, judges, intellectuals, foreigners, the ‘woke’ tendency, the BBC (or MSM in the US), pro-Palestine marchers, and Gary Lineker. That makes up a tidy group of straw men whom the copycat Trumpists in Britain can vent their hate on. And hatred is always a powerful weapon if you want to get the great unwashed on your side. Vide 1930s Germany.

How can we counter this – if of course we wish to? For ‘intellectuals’ like me, education would seem to be an obvious corrective, with recent surveys, both in the UK and in the US, indicating a clear correlation between low levels of schooling and more ‘populist’ or Right-wing views. I’ve long advocated the incorporation of logical and critical thinking into all levels of education, if they’re not there already (as I like to think they often are in History courses: mine, anyway). One problem with this is that one person’s ‘critical thought’ can be seen by others as political ‘indoctrination’, on one side or the other; and is certainly not likely to be favoured by those – and there are many of these, especially in America – who regard History as primarily a means of instilling ‘patriotism’. (‘Why are you studying British history?’ an American student of mine recalled being asked by his Republican neighbour. ‘America has the best history in the world!’) Beyond this there’s the larger problem, alluded to already, that the ‘populist’ Right will usually dismiss ‘intellectualism’ entirely, regarding it as intrinsically ‘élitist’, biased against ‘ordinary people’ like them, and its findings as being mere opinions, on a level with any prejudice. ‘I’m a free American, and can believe anything I want’. (I’ve quoted this before: https://bernardjporter.com/2024/09/21/stupidity-3/.) It’s difficult in argument to navigate around this kind of thing.

But ‘this kind of thing’ – people’s opinions – must be at least partly determined by wider societal pressures, which these days are inclining folk to disbelief, disrespect and mistrust, fuelled by immoral government ministers and an amoral press. And – to take it a bit further – these pressures in their turn may be influenced by the state of the society we are now living in, both in the UK and in the US, seen more broadly; which I – and I’m not alone here – regard as a ‘late (or ‘last’?) stage of capitalism’. The power of capitalist-accumulated money in the public sphere has long been obvious in America, of course, but is also currently increasing in Britain; personified in the former country by the cheating capitalist Donald Trump – an Ayn Rand ‘hero’ if ever there was one; and over here by the fabulously rich – albeit rather smoother (that’s a Public School education for you) – Rishi Sunak.

Of course the path travelled by capitalism has never been a smooth and uncluttered one, but has always encountered bumps and setbacks along the way; which will explain the interlude we’re experiencing just now in Britain with the election of a Labour government which may be able to tame the beast; and the possibility that in America Kemala Harris – unconvincingly characterised as a ‘Marxist’ by Trump – could do the same if she wins on November 5. Unlikely, I realise; but if not it will simply bolster my quasi-Marxist reading.

One thing I’m reluctant to accept is that aforementioned belief of my nineteenth-century anti-democrats, that democracy is too good for the ‘great unwashed’, because they’re irredeemably stupid. But these days I’m finding it more and more difficult to disagree.