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George Scialabba's avatar

For Pete's sake, Damir, adherence to constitutional norms is damn well something to cluck about. Don't tell me you've "moved on" from Jan 6, 2021 and the protracted effort to overthrow a perfectly valid presidential election? It was a pretty serious constitutional violation; the Georgia episode alone -- "Just get me 11,000 votes, and the Republican congressmen will do the rest" -- should have landed the bastard in jail. Threatening to hold up aid to Ukraine unless they ginned up an investigation of a rival candidate's son also demonstrated a somewhat casual attitude to constitutional principles. As did his obstruction of every investigation of his crimes and misdemeanors. As did his recent effort to evade Senate approval for his nominees by means of recess appointments. And so much more.

Please, Damir, stop twittering about "new visions" -- that's just idle Beltway chatter. Since Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party has been waging relentless class war against the bottom half of the population. All the bottom half has is smart, honorable young intellectuals like you. Don't desert them in a vain attempt to craft some bit of discourse that will ever-so-briefly capture the attention of the empty-headed custodians of The Conversation.

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Sam Mace's avatar

Thanks for this Damir. I tend to see this moment for liberals as the 'You can't always get what you want' moment. They're facing a real challenge in not only substantiating their philosophy which has arguably helped create a set of circumstances which has created what I consider to be a very serious backlash which potentially threatens the substantial civil rights and political gains made in the late 20th century. But this backlash is precisely because of conditions which liberal philosophy either ignored or said was a good thing.

I think what keeps me up at night (besides my ever more precarious academic employment) is not the Trump Presidency but the notion of Presidentialism in politics and society itself. Seeing what is happening in South Korea, and even in my own country the UK, where we have no president but presidentialism is running amok makes me nervous that many of us are looking for that 'big figure' to fix things without recognising that the state and society are too complex for a singular person to fix today. There may have been a great man theory of history which held up in the past but I no longer believe this is true at all.

Entering a world where Zuckerberg and Musk control significant platforms also makes me increasingly nervous. One is run by a guy who thinks Augustus was amazing and the other is running around with the most powerful man in the world like an overgrown toddler trying to smash stuff up. This is not a recipe which is going to end well for our ability to communicate. Given that we increasingly rely on such platforms as well there seems to be little hope for radical change in society and politics without altering our behaviour online. Given bluesky's success some may think this is the answer but we see similar problems emerging in our use of that platform as well....

So, for me, I think we're entering a true period of simulacra where we are increasingly finding it difficult to find authenticity. This is why I am not so psyched about the rise of this new brand of conservatism. Just as Nietzche declared God is dead, I do fear deeper value is dead and all we have left is performance.

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