Nationalism, Socialism, Patriotism, and So On

What is the Brexit/Trump/Populism revolution trying to tell us? That is what everyone is trying to figure out, whether you are a far right nationalist, a far left socialist, or some kind of squishy moderate in between.

The answer is pretty simple, and it has been right before us for decades. The guy that got it right was Hitler. He just said to the Germans: whether you are a nationalist, a socialist, a German patriot, or a worker, come and get your identity and your protection right here. I'm your man. Or leader as he liked to say.

Let us delve into Mein Kampf and figure out where he was coming from. Before World War I Hitler was a twentysomething in Vienna -- a millennial of the 20th century if you like -- and a rabid consumer of social media, known in those days as "newspapers." And as a German living in Vienna, capital of the Austro Hungarian Empire, he was really pissed off at the multicultural politics of the Hapsburgs, because it made German-speakers into a minority, just one group in the multicultural mix of the Hapsburg realm. He hated this multiculturalism because the Hapsburgs, in his view, kept short-changing the German speakers in order to keep the non-German speakers from rebelling and bolting out of the Hapsburg-ruled empire. The German speakers, he thought, always had to pay to keep the empire together. Hitler was all in favor of unions, by the way, but strongly opposed unions getting mixed up in lefty politics and the Jewish intellectuals that ran it.

The answer, for a German-speaking guy like him, was to redraw the borders of Europe so that all the German speakers could be in a Grossdeutschland of the German speakers. The Austrian Germans would no longer be a minority in Austria-Hungary and the Sudeten Germans would no longer be a minority in Czecho-slovakia, and the Germans in the Danzig corridor would no longer be a minority in Poland.

Oh well. The plans of mice and men.

That's why I say: You get idiots like Hitler, Trump, Farage, & Co. when the usual idiots have screwed up.

Any questions about the usual idiots screwing up between 1918 and 1938?

Of course, after World War II the usual idiots decided that they weren't the problem. The problem was the voters that had been bewitched by the evil H-word. The only solution was the rule of the usual idiots, now called educated Europeans, and various checks and balances to make sure that the wise ones would be in control and that the people could never elect a Hitler again.

Hey wise ones! How's that grand political and cultural strategy of yours doin', pal?

Oh, I see. What is needed is to silence the racists and the sexists and the xenophobes of the "far right" to make sure that only approved ideas are allowed into the public square. Yup, that's turning out to be a real winner, isn't it, especially when the racist sexist Nigel Farage can win an election in Britain with a Brexit Party three months after its formation.

But let us return to the Nazi Party, the National-Socialist-German-Workers Party. I'm willing to do a deal if you wise ones are up for it -- and if you can prove you can be trusted, which you can't, not right now. I suggest that we dump the "national"and the "socialist" part of it. Those two bits are what you lefties might call the "far right" and we righties would call the "far left." Let us reduce our politics instead to a party called the Patriotic Workers Party.

In Germany, I dare say that this party could be called the German Workers Party. In Britain it could be called the British Workers Party, and in the US the Keep America Great Party. These parties would all be about, first, the protection of the homeland from un-assimilated immigrants, and second, the economic protection of the people with a modest but effective set of government programs to help people when they got into economic trouble.

Nothing really radical here: just the basic things that people expect from their government in return for submitting to the government's taxes and sending their kids to go for a soldier when the nation is threatened by foreign enemies.

When you think about it the "far right" nationalism of which we've heard tell is all about making the national community into something of a national cult: a quasi religion, if you like. And I'd say that we level-headed folks don't want that level of enthusiasm. But equally the "far left" socialism, which today seems to include a rigid censorship of non-lefty voices, a huge administrative state, a quasi-religious greenie cult that demands we save the climate by surrendering ourselves to the Green New Deal, and the racist sexism of identity politics, is also something of a cult, a quasi religion that believes that certain people, prophets of race, gender, and climate, should lead us to the Promised Land, and you better shut up if you know what is good for you.

Over at the British Unherd site they describe the Brexit voters like this:

These are the aspirational ones, the hard-workers who lean Left on economics but lean Right on culture and identity, who want to level the economic playing field, want people and business to play by the rules but who also desperately want to leave the EU, slow immigration and get tough on crime. They feel that a way of life is slipping away, they loathe nothing more than being made to feel like they have been duped, and they have had enough.

If I had my druthers I wouldn't "lean Left on economics," because what I want for the workers is a non-system where get to combine private insurance with private wealth-building through paycheck deductions that would not go to the government but to voluntary social organizations -- from fraternal lodges to Fidelity and Vanguard -- that were not trying to buy votes with other peoples' money. But I recognize that most people feel safer with a comprehensive and mandatory approach through government. I don't like it but I get it.

But I would "lean Right on culture and identity." I think that the nation state is the best way of ginning up what I call a "fake tribalism." that makes people feel part of a community. I certainly think it is better than the racial identity politics and the gender identity politics of the left. Really it is "language tribalism."

It makes sense, you know. Politics and culture operate through language, and I'd say that it is ludicrous to believe that people can form a political or cultural community without sharing the same mother-tongue. That's what makes us hu-man, rather than ape-man: the fact that we can exchange ideas and knowledge and friendship through speech rather than grunts and body language and social grooming.

Notice that the global elitists feel like a global elite because they can all talk to one another, probably in English. I am sure that all the elite in Germany is fluent in French and the French elite is fluent in German. But the average German and the average Frenchie? Not so much.

Now I believe that everyone ought to have a religion. I just don't think that anyone's religion should get its paws on the powers of government. As I understand it, about 200 years ago, some crazy white supremacists thought the same thing.