Tuesday, April 25, 2017

"His Ascent Is a Death Knell for an Entire Era"

"However deranged Bannon's assumptions, this willingness to call the system into question goes a long way toward explaining Trump's political success.
"Liberals see no such system. Instead, they see more or less qualified individuals who either have the right ideas or not, in government or business: cultural diversity, a fervent belief in incremental rather than structural change, and a firm commitment to meritocratic success. Rather than thinking historically—and preferring to avoid the whole idea of neoliberalism—they profess an ethos. And since they cannot recognize neoliberalism as a system, they cannot acknowledge its political and economic dissolution, its steady descent into incoherence. They cannot acknowledge the loss of the historical soil of their selfhood."

J.M. Bernays at The Baffler considers liberals in the Trump era.

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