Monthly Archives: September 2022

FACULTY Q&A

The first round of Brazils presidential election happens this weekend, Oct. 2. The 2022 elections reflect a nation divided between two well-known candidates, current President Jair Bolsonaro and former President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva.

Are Bolsonaro and Lula populist leaders? Is there such a thing as right-wing and left-wing populism?

Henrique Kopittke, a doctoral student in the University of Michigan Department of Sociology, studies the relationship between populism, democracy and social movements in Latin America. In the following Q&A, he discusses its impact on the upcoming elections.

How do you analyze current populism, democracy and social movements in Brazil?

My research deals with processes in which popular mobilization and social movements may result in the strengthening of populist challengers. This is not a process that happens deliberately or linearly. Instead, it is a history of the closure of political options, of how one form of politics came to dominate others and why.

There are a lot of competing definitions of populism. These accounts generally agree that populists idealize and may seek to enact their form of popular sovereignty, fuel anti-establishment sentiments, and postulate a fundamental antagonism between the people and the elite. Whether populism erodes or enhances democracy is a point of contention.

Populists may expand popular sovereignty and civil rights to long-excluded segments of society while subverting institutional mechanisms of accountability. This may occur to render a more superficial image of politics, with authoritarian beliefs, better expressed by Bolsonaro when he stated, The minority must bow down to the majority.

Social movements further complicate the picture. As far as they prioritize their demands and identities and do not submit entirely to the strategic necessities of leaders and their coalitions, they may render a less stifled representation of the people. Populist leaders may ally with social movements and attend to their demands, but by doing so, they might co-opt and subdue these movements entirely.

Has there been a rise in populism in the country?

Yes. In terms of rhetoric, Bolsonaro emphasizes the antagonism with the political system, especially the Workers Party. He attacked other branches of government associating them with corruption and accusing them of usurping democracy. In addition, he mobilized his followers to express their rejection of the Brazilian Supreme Court, targeting justices who censored supporters of the president.

Apart from rhetoric and mobilization, his populist leadership style is also notable for his continuous communication with his followers through social media, daily live broadcasts and press meetings, where his followers have attacked journalists.

Looking beyond Bolsonaro, his election was the result of the failure of the political establishment to present a coherent response to the multifaceted crisis that Brazilian society has been experiencing since 2013. Bolsonaro already captured much of the anger and indignation of the electorate. Lula bets on the popular desire to return to a more prosperousand orderlypast. The political landscape seems, thus, saturated, without opportunities for new actors to emerge.

Are candidates Lula and Bolsonaro considered populist leaders? Or are they just using populist strategies to capture votes?

A different way of approaching populism involves viewing it as a strategy used by actors seeking to mobilize support and consolidate power. Therefore, the focus is not on defining which leader or movement is populist but on how and when populist strategies are used. Components of this strategy could be popular mobilization, antagonism and direct communication.

Lula and Bolsonaro both communicate in very folksy and direct ways. They both have antagonistic elements in their rhetoric. But the similarities stop there. Lula transits with ease between different registers and modulates his communication according to the constituency he addresses. Bolsonaro is more consistent in antagonizing institutions and portraying his supporters as the true majority.

How different are left-wing and right-wing populism?

Left-wing populist leaders generally emphasize economic and class antagonisms, focusing on opposing big business or finance capital. In the case of Latin America, global institutions and elites will also be featured in speeches, namely the IMF and its policies, as well as the United States. Right-wing populists emphasize cultural antagonisms. In Latin America, neoliberal populists antagonize states bureaucracies as sites of inefficiency, corruption and incompetence.

Bolsonaro follows both conservative and neoliberal patterns, blaming setbacks in his presidency on infiltrated Workers Party activists and crusading against the degeneracy and corruption of values embodied by celebrities and artists that oppose him. Xenophobia and racism are also characteristics of right-wing populists.

How do you explain the growth of populist politicians in Latin America?

There are structural and contingent factors. Leaders like Bolsonaro and Hugo Chvez in Venezuela came into the spotlight during severe social and economic crises. It is the contingent factor. Bolsonaro emerged after corruption scandals demoralized the Brazilian political establishment, alongside a hard-hitting economic recession and continuous popular unrest. Structural elements also explain how these crises hit Latin American political systems harder than elsewhere.

In Brazil, I would pose additional structural factors: the general institutional weakness of political parties, which benefit more from personalistic forms of politics; the weak democratic commitments of national elites, which may be in strongman outsiders to push for unpopular policies without the setback of persuading the public on the benefits or necessity of such policies; and finally, and maybe the most import factor, the gross inequality. Inequality in Brazil means that large population sectors feel excluded from politics. Still, it also means that exclusionary and authoritarian perspectives of who counts as the righteous people may thrive and become official speech.

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Brazil's election: The rise and impact of populism - University of Michigan News

William A. Galston writes the weekly Politics & Ideas column in the Wall Street Journal. He holds the Ezra K. Zilkha Chair in the Brookings Institutions Governance Studies Program, where he serves as a senior fellow. Before joining Brookings in January 2006, he was Saul Stern Professor and Acting Dean at the School of Public Policy, University of Maryland, director of the Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, founding director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), and executive director of the National Commission on Civic Renewal. A participant in six presidential campaigns, he served from 1993 to 1995 as Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Domestic Policy.

Mr. Galston is the author of 10 books and more than 100 articles in the fields of political theory, public policy, and American politics. His most recent books are The Practice of Liberal Pluralism (Cambridge, 2004), Public Matters (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), and Anti-Pluralism: The Populist Threat to Liberal Democracy (Yale, 2018). A winner of the American Political Science Associations Hubert H. Humphrey Award, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2004.

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Opinion | Right-Wing Populism May Rise in the U.S. - The Wall Street Journal

The survey was commissioned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of its global Estonian diaspora project, and posed the question: "Please could you name one person or fact related to Estonia which characterizes Estonia for you, in a positive or a negative way."

Answers could be couched only in a short comment, with one positive and one negative aspect.

2,250 positive answers were received, compared with 1,850 negative responses, and the surveyors organized the answers into different categories.

Among the negatives, more than a third (39 percent) or respondents expressly named populist and/or right-wing politicians and politics, with two or three politicians specifically named in the responses, ERR reports.

The responses saw a smaller range in the negatives, meaning the most dominant aspects in respondents' minds such as the politics dimension noted above held a much larger share of the total than did any of the positive answers.

The authors of the study said it was: "Noteworthy that, while in the topic block of negative facts there was a large share of politics and factors relating to the political field, the share of positive factors was rather more diverse."

Additionally, 13 percent of respondents referred to "politics" more broadly, and referenced, again, specific politicians, political parties, and policies on, for instance, Covid, and education.

The remaining negative answers constituted less than a tenth of the share, though 9 percent referenced Estonian people's: "Rudeness, carelessness, self-centeredness, envy, narrow-mindedness, intolerance," and other negative character traits.

Racists attitudes and intolerant attitudes to LGBT+ persons were also referenced specifically.

Other negatives included "low salaries" and other economic factors, alcoholism, the cold climate, the proximity of Russia, and the activities or existence of other, non-political public figures.

(including significantly at least in the positive category, and above all politicians), and two to three percent of the answers reflected a negative attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community and alcoholism.

Positive aspects found a much broader range

As noted, respondents to the survey presented a much more diluted selection of answers when it came to positive perceptions of their home country.

These ranged from some political figures most notably the current head of state (appeared in 11 percent of positive asnwers) as well as his preecessors, the e-state, including facets such as e-residency, cyber security and Estonia's international reputation as a digital powerhouse, and the beautiful natural environment and its forests, islands and Baltic coast.

Composer Arvo Prt, many other figures from the world of music, literature, art, sport, science, national and folk culture and even politics, education, innovation, the startup culture and general memories of the homeland were also referenced.

Some positive character traits, such as hard work, ambition and resourcefulness were also mentioned, as well as the fact of being a sovereign, independent republic.

The study, entitled "Estonian foreign communities: Identity, attitudes and expectations towards the Estonian state"was conducted by the Institute of Baltic Studies on behalf of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Culture, while those polled were of Estonian origin and resident in: Finland, Russia, Italy, the UK, Switzerland, Turkey, the US and Australia.

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Survey: Right-wing populism ex pat Estonians' main negative image of home - ERR News

Now the story of a powerful family who won everything, and the three sons who had no choice but to screw Brazil together. Its Arrested Development.

So runs the title sequence give or take some poetic license for the purposes of this review of the new PBS documentary following the rise of the Bolsonaro family (also shown on BBC as a three-part affair). Released a month before Brazil goes to the polls in what is effectively a two-horse race for president between President Jair Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, the documentary attempts to warn the world of the consequences of a second term for the incumbent.

However, its criticisms fall rather flat. They reflect how and why the opposition has failed to rally the Brazilian masses. In counterpoising the destruction of the Amazon to Bolsonaros claims about exploiting its untold riches, it fails to tell the truth about Brazilian development and its failures. Worse, it allows bolsonarismo to stand as an avatar of material development (a key part of its mythology), when it is precisely the opposite.

With impressive access to former government ministers and Bolsonaros eldest son, Flvio, Rise of the Bolsonaros, tries and mostly succeeds at avoiding the hysterical tone of much international liberal commentary on the president. Indeed, in letting its interviewees speak, it presents the light and the shadows. Inevitably of course, given the subject matter, the portrayal ends up looking like the thinnest of waning crescents.

In all such documentaries, there is a major editorial choice to be made in how to find that contrast, and on which shadows to focus. Bolsonaros vulgar bigotry and anti-environmental stance are the primary ones here, with threats against democracy and encouragement of violence shortly behind.

The first of the hour-long episodes patiently and sensitively reconstructs who Jair Bolsonaro is, from his humble roots in the interior of So Paulo, through his time in the Rio de Janeiro army barracks, to his seven terms as a member of the so-called lower clergy (bottom-feeding uninfluential politicians) in Congress.

Too irrelevant to be at the nexus of big money corruption, Bolsonaro emerges in episode two as the key politician to exploit anti-corruption sentiment and surf the moralistic, right-wing wave that gripped Brazil from 2015 to 2018 all the way to the Planalto. Former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon is given ample screen time to exhibit his enthusiasm for Bolsonaro, who, he insists, inspired Trump as much as the other way around.

Here we might note a missed opportunity. Despite access to a range of domestic and international pundits, the documentary never really goes beyond the tired and erroneous Trump of the Tropics narrative. In that sense, it fails to tell us something about Brazil, and about how the Bolsonaros are particularly Brazilian, as much as they might also be part of a global rightist wave. There are nods to this in the portrayal of the new Brazil of the interiorzo, of cities hundreds of miles from the coast, of cattle, soy, and guns. But that is hardly the whole story, and misses out how one of the fastest-growing economies in the world through a good part of the twentieth century has stagnated despite the commodities-driven boom at the start of the twenty-first.

Focused on his term in power, episode three similarly tells us little about the authoritarian continuity represented by the militarys elevated role in society and politics under Bolsonaro. Jair, we are repeatedly told, is nostalgic for the 19641985 dictatorship, but this appears as a personal defect, a purely ideological inclination, and not a force within Brazilian society that has gained confidence as Brazil finds itself unable to find an exit from perma-crisis.

This deficiency is most clear on two axes. First, there is the Bolsonaros bigotry. Most by now know the litany of outrages, but to repeat them is no sin in and of itself; their words present a window into the bolsonarista worldview. But there is little given materially to back it up. A clip of congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, the presidents third son, giving the banana (basically an up yours gesture) to opposition congresswomen is leaned on so heavily across the three episodes that it almost leaves one wondering if thats the extent of the incriminating evidence. (As they say, theres always money in the banana gesture.)

The reality that moralistic explosions emerge at moments of social crisis is missed.

The issue of rising political violence is broached principally through the bloody 2018 assassination of black, bisexual socialist Rio city councilor Marielle Franco. This is hugely important. But the use of this episode as an example of the consequences of Bolsonaros sexism and homophobia is to get things upside down.

Franco was assassinated because she was a fierce opponent of brutal policing, mafia politics, and the military intervention in Rio, conflicts and struggles that are obscured in PBSs telling. That she was a non-white woman probably made her more of a homo sacer someone who can be murdered with impunity but it was not the root of the matter. She was murdered because she presented a threat to the authoritarian mafias born out of Brazils police and military that control Rio de Janeiro.

More broadly, throughout the documentary, the sheer everyday violence of Brazilian society is rather glossed over. It would be churlish to take a three-hour-long documentary to task for not including more it does plenty, and does so attractively and engagingly for a non-Brazilian audience. But given the centrality of violence to Bolsonaros appeal, a few more minutes on this would not have gone amiss. The daily insecurity in Brazils urban peripheries and beyond, created and sustained by a range of parties large gangs, low-level criminals, vigilante groups and militias, the military police creates a desire for reprisal. As Matthew Richmond has noted, many do not like Bolsonaro, but think at least hell give the bandidos a beating.

Instead, we learn about Bolsonaros loosening of gun laws; an important development but one only likely to only accelerate an existing dynamic. It doesnt really explain Bolsonarism or why it might prove a successful political recipe.

In seeking roots, particularly with regard to the aforementioned homophobia and sexism, we are told on several occasions that Brazil is a very traditional society. But it isnt. And to the extent that the presidents bigotry is a major connection point for the president with his hard-core base, it is not tradition as such that is at work. The right-wing shift in Brazil was the product of political mobilizations rather than some immutable curse ingrained in Brazilian society.

Brazilian culture has traditionally had a certain moral laxity at its core, which manifested as hypocrisy once it was put into contrast with moralizing claims. This bred a particular corrosive tolerance, a spirit of accommodation with the imperfect world. There is always a deal to be found, a cordial resolution. To preach something like the eradication of homosexuals or to see the devil behind every door, as some evangelical pastors do, is a puritanical sort of ethos that is relatively new to the country at least in its current form. Previous episodes of puritanical outbursts have actually been momentary political interruptions at moments of social crisis, rather than the norm.

For many working class and poor Brazilians, salvation is often the one hope that is held on to, mediated by a rapidly growing Pentecostalism that promises health and wealth, immediately. If an election were held only among self-described evangelicals (around 30 percent of the population), Bolsonaro would win the first round in a landslide.

Capitalist society is a war of all against all, but in Brazil, the war is almost literal (sixty thousand homicides a year). Moreover, masses of people are deprived of traditional anchors such as formal employment (the informality rate is up to 40 percent) after also having been wrenched from the agrarian society of old. In this context, trying to preserve what little you have takes on an existential connotation. Hence the emphasis on family, and why Bolsonaro has had success in presenting himself as the only true defender of it.

The second axis on which Bolsonaros deficiencies are portrayed is the environment effectively the presidents cardinal sin. At the limit, the documentary comes close to suggesting that this is the one reason you should care. The Amazon is the issue that would define [Bolsonaros] reign, we are told, while the title sequence calls the Bolsonaros a family with the fate of the world in their hands.

Bolsonaros term has seen a reprehensible degree of omission and impunity in the Amazon as protection agencies have been defanged and defunded, with deforestation, increased conflict, and invasion of indigenous lands ensuing, as well as the killings of indigenous leaders and environmentalists. This, we learn, is justified in bolsonarismo by its view of the land as an El Dorado (with freelance miners thus given free reign). This would consequently be Brazils path to enrichment. In this, Bolsonaro is portrayed as picking up where the military dictatorship left off.

But viewers are being served the falsest of dichotomies: jobs, wealth, and development against saving the planet. Anyone would be excused for choosing the former, especially struggling workers, if this were indeed the choice. But it isnt, and it is precisely the dichotomy that fervent Bolsonaro supporters seek to present to the public.

The incursion into the deepest reaches of Brazils interior in pursuit of expanding primary production agriculture and extractive industries is an acceleration of Brazilian de-development. Brazil is a poster boy for premature deindustrialization for its diminution of manufacturing as a share of output and employment at a still relatively low income level (well below where advanced economies were at during the same time in the 1980s, for instance).

No political force is seriously seeking to reverse this tendency, one that intensified over the Workers Partys period in power and that a new government will have to face up to if Lula is victorious. This was one of the reasons that partys political base shrank, and it cannot be explained away by citing the constraints after taking power or blaming the right-wing counteroffensive, given the implications for the Brazilian working class and the countrys future as a whole.

The reality is that the destruction of the Amazon is not a sad consequence of development but a reflection of its failure. The Workers Party may have done a decent job of slowing deforestation, while Bolsonaro has encouraged it, but both are working within the same set of limited choices. The disaster of Bolsonaro is that he represents an acceleration of Brazils worst developmental tendencies.

These are, sadly, issues hardly unique to Brazil. The entry ramp to development looks closed off for most, while the consequences, such as deepening inequality, sclerotic politics, and spectacular populism, are quasi-universal today.

The weakness of the opposition to Bolsonaro is evident in that it has not managed to present a truly alternative vision. Dont be a bigot, dont destroy the state, dont make society more violent, dont burn up the Amazon is preferable to its opposite, but it serves only as a containment of the Brazilian crisis, not its resolution. It is no wonder then that the opposition seemed ineffective and lost until Lula returned to the political scene in March 2021 and one wonders how much road there is left in lulismo anyway.

Ultimately, though Rise of the Bolsonaros is hardly a poor documentary, it reflects this stance. The producers should maybe not be held entirely responsible; if you seek only to document, you cannot invent an ideological pole of opposition where there isnt one, you can only reflect back whats there.

In the end, we are left with a documentary that presents itself as crazy goings-on in goofy old Brazil but that also concludes the world is going to end if Bolsonaro is reelected. Deep historical criticism remains wanting; its more Arrested Development than it is the crucial tale of arrested development.

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Jair Bolsonaro's Hard-Right Populism Is Horrifying. But He Didn't Come From Nowhere. - Jacobin magazine

(Photograph by Janos Kummer/Getty Images.)

Weve all grown to expect the unexpected in American politics since the vortex opened in 2015 and we crossed over into the Darkest Timeline. But there are moments that still bring one up short, demanding a moment of wonder and reflection.

Behold the state of the law and order party, embodied here in the person of its most-watched television host.

Carlson didnt just attend. He addressed the crowd of bikers and reportedly became emotional. He paraphrased a letter Sonny Barger had sent to his wife and friends: 'Stand tall, stay loyal, remain free, and always value honor. ... And I thought to myself, if there is a phrase that sums up more perfectly what I want to be, what I aspire to be, and the kind of man I respect, I can't think of a phrase that sums it up more perfectly than that.

The kind of man he respects did multiple stints in prison, once for plotting to bomb the headquarters of a rival biker gang, and was charged with numerous other crimes, including murder. Some members of the gang he led wear a patch that reads 1%er as a sly reference to the observation that 99 percent of bikers are law-abiding. Theyre outlaws and theyre not ashamed of it. To the contrary.

This is not the cohort with which one would expect a former host of CNNs Crossfirea man who spends much of his time on-air indicting Democrats for lawlessness and whose personal style is most closely associated with the bowtieto be commiserating. One can imagine how hed react to Rachel Maddow getting choked up at the funeral of a mafia don, say.

But I suspect there was a point to his attendance beyond the visceral thrill a member of the privileged class inevitably receives from fraternizing with roughnecks and radicals. (Tom Wolfe fans will have already thought of Radical Chic, with Tucker in the Leonard Bernstein role.) The point, I take it, was to associate himself with the spirit of rebellion against social norms that the Angels symbolize in the popular consciousness.

Im reminded again of what J.D. Vance, a Carlson favorite, told an interviewer earlier this year, a line I quoted in another piece for The Dispatch last week. We are in a late republican period, he said. If were going to push back against it, were going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.

To prevail in the culture war and take America back, Republicans are going to have to behave like, well, outlaws. Political 1%ers, if you will.

One wonders how long itll be before the Angels are hired to provide security at CPAC.

The cardinal virtue of modern conservative populism is spite. Whatever gambit a populist is pursuing, whatever agenda he or she might be advancing, the more it offends the enemy the more likely it is to be received by the right adoringly. Ron DeSantis Marthas Vineyard stunt is an efficient example. It accomplished nothing meaningful yet observers on both sides agree that he helped his 2024 chances by pulling it off. He made the right people mad. Thats more important than thoughtful policy solutions.

Spite is there, too, in Carlsons photo op with the Angels. Establishmentarians of either party wouldnt be caught dead at a rally of outlaw bikers. Suckers like me were destined to scold him for his appearance once the photos appeared online, and he knew it. Theres an element of pater la bourgeoisie, unmistakably, to him showing up there. If youre offended by him eulogizing the head of the Hells Angels, good. Then youre exactly the type of weak-kneed chump he was hoping to offend by doing it, by definition.

Why spite has become so important to the right-wing populist ethic is hard to say, as its not symmetrical between the parties. The most prominent left-wing populist in Congress is probably Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a politician who, despite her many faults, doesnt want for policy ideas. Ask AOC what her top priority as a legislator is and she might say the Green New Deal or Medicare For All. The most prominent right-wing populist in Congress is likely Marjorie Taylor Greene. Ask Greene what she wants to do with her power as a legislator and shes apt to say, Impeach Joe Biden.

Impeach Joe Biden for what? you might ask, as if that matters. When moderate-ish Republican Nancy Mace was asked on Sunday whether a new House Republican majority might impeach the president, she allowed that its within the realm of possibility-without so much as gesturing toward what the grounds might be.

Spite doesnt need a reason.

Left and right face the same structural pressures toward spitefulness. Most modern House members have more to fear from their primaries than from the general election thanks to remorseless gerrymandering and continued geographic self-sorting by voters. Theyre compelled by social media to perform at all times, and they have unimaginably easy access to the wealth of grassroots activists thanks to Internet donation brokers like ActBlue and WinRed. All told, the incentives on both sides now point toward constant theatrical political combat, producing the dispiriting culture of lib- or con-owning dunks with which youre familiar if you use Twitter. Online retail politics has become little more than a 24-hour stream of spite because political actors on both sides benefit from it being that way.

Where left and right differ is that the leadership of the populist left has a policy agenda whereas the leadership of the populist right does not, apart perhaps from seal the border. Trump didnt run for president because there was a suite of legislation he was keen to pass, he ran because he didnt want to end up as just another rich guy whom nobody remembers. Its amazing yet true that the most significant policy achievement of his populist presidency was passing a traditional Republican tax cut written by Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. He ran against foreign intervention, then bombed Syria within three months of being sworn in. He can be so incoherent and ill-informed on policy that, at one point in his term, he briefly came out for gun control.

As Trumpism has somewhat but not entirely dislodged the conservatism of Reagan, the right has been left with an identity crisis. Populists want one thing, traditional conservatives may want another, and the leader of the party often doesnt know what he wants. The Republican National Committee dealt with that problem in 2020 by simply declining to adopt a new platform, punting on the subject by resolving to support the presidents America-first agenda without further specificity.

A party that cant decide what it wants on policy can at least converge on the belief that the libs are bad and that whatever irritates them must have value. So spite has become the glue that holds together an uneasy coalition of classical liberals, nationalists, country clubbers, hawks, and social cons. And its no wonder that Trump has become its indispensable figure, as he relishes combat with his political enemies for its own sake and rose to fame with policies aimed at excluding undesirables (build the wall, the Muslim ban). Shortly before the 2020 election, Rich Lowry described him as the only middle finger available to the right in repudiating the cultural left. Its hard to do better than that in capturing the spite that animates Trump-era populism.

Although I do often think of a quote from a woman interviewed by the New York Times halfway through Trumps term in 2019. She had supported Trump over Hillary Clinton but was dismayed to see him presiding over a partial government shutdown. I voted for him, and hes the one whos doing this, she said. I thought he was going to do good things. Hes not hurting the people he needs to be hurting.

As a summary of the politics of spite, hurt the people you need to be hurting isnt half-bad either.

Different political actors are drawn to spite for different reasons. For Trump, I think its temperamental. Hes a vindictive personality; of course he enjoys spiting his antagonists. For others, like DeSantis, spite is designed to demonstrate ruthlessness. It communicates that hes a fighter, resolute in pursuing the rights culture-war goals by making the Democrats howl about it. That makes him presidential material. For still others, like Republican strategists, spite performs the function of glue that I described above. At a moment when some members of the Republican coalition might be wavering over, say, abortion policy, a big show of spite in which migrants are airdropped into Marthas Vineyard for the limousine liberals there to sort out might cheer them and bring them back on the team.

For someone like Carlson, I suspect theres a strategy to spitefulness. When Tucker shows up to backslap the Hells Angels, hes not just trying to get a rise out of Democrats and normie conservatives. I think its part of his effort to condition right-wingers to a new type of politics by encouraging them to question their traditional assumptions of right and wrong. Sure, the establishment says crime syndicates are bad even if they happen to ride Harleys and mumble platitudes about freedom. But since when do you let the establishment do your thinking for you?

Ive always believed conditioning the right was the barely hidden goal of Carlsons Russia apologetics. In March, the economist Noah Smith astutely diagnosed the reason the socialist left and the authoritarian right each seemed so invested in seeing Putin prevail in Ukraine:

Both the liberal center-Left and the conservative center-Right are basically committed to upholding the global liberal order. Putin, by invading and attempting to conquer a sovereign state, challenges that order. If Putin succeeds, even modestly, it represents a failure for the U.S. establishment figures who tried to stop him. And establishment failures equal insurgent opportunities. Both the rightists and the leftists here are fighting against the Fukuyaman end-of-history idea that gives their own movements little space to move up.

If Putin defeats the Ukrainians, the conservatives that are standing against Putin will look ineffectual and weak. The Trumpists will then be able to solidify their control over the GOP. And it also means a victory for raw power and will (perhaps implying that efforts like the January 6th putsch are the preferred method for attaining power). But if Putin loses, then Trump and his allies who for years praised and defended Putins regime will be discredited. Success has a thousand fathers; failure is an orphan. Even more damningly, if Putin loses, itll be a success for the globalist order sanctions and aid to Ukraine will represent a triumph of international cooperation. Exactly the kind of world order the Trumpists want so badly to smash.

Carlson understands that convincing the right to ditch traditional conservatism for illiberalism requires uninstalling a lot of civic and cultural software. Republicans who grew up during the Cold War have fear and loathing of Russia in their political DNA. Republicans have traditionally trended toward interventionism, seeing strength in military power and weakness in Democrats hesitancy to use it. Republicans instinctively sympathize with Ukraine as an underdog and a fledgling democracy fighting to oust a colonial power.

Nationalists will never build the sort of post-liberal authoritarian system they want as long as those beliefs persist, so Carlson has made a mission of challenging them: Why are we rooting for Vladimir Putin to lose, exactly? What has he ever done to us? Why spend tens of billions of dollars to arm a country most of us cant find on a map? Are we sure Russia is more corrupt than Ukraine? Why should we prefer a European-style democracy to an Orbanist strongman?

If Russia prevails in Ukraine over the West, itll create the sort of political space for insurgents that Smith describesbut only if the right is willing to claim that space. Thats what Carlsons conditioning program is about, I think. Hes trying to cultivate in his audience an instinct to questionor spiteliberal pieties wherever they arise, from grand-scale geopolitics like Russia is bad to more pedestrian but no less correct beliefs like Biker gangs are bad. If nationalists intend to see their rebellion against liberalism succeed, they cant let the enemy dictate to them what their morals should be. One small but vivid way to signal that is to show up as the guest speaker at Sonny Bargers funeral.

If it bothers you, well, it figures that it would, lib.

Nothing better illustrates how important spite is to the Trump-era GOP than the conventional wisdom that quickly formed after the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. Any other politician who had their home searched for stolen classified material by federal agents would, at a minimum, be damaged by the process. Hillary Clinton wasnt damaged enough by her email scandal in 2016 to lose a primary to Bernie Sanders, but she was damaged enough to lose a general election to Donald Trump. No one on either side thought the FBI investigation of Clintons servers was an asset to her campaign instead of a liability.

But when Mar-a-Lago was searched, some Trump cronies sounded positively giddy at the development. I think this basically makes it impossible for a DeSantis [run] now, said one Trump adviser to Puck. Another happily proclaimed that The DeSantasy is over! Many political commentators agreed. The populist impulse to spite the Biden Justice Department by nominating Trump a third time would extinguish DeSantis chances, they believed. That the governor is plainly more electable than a twice-impeached disgraced former president facing multiple criminal investigations was neither here nor there.

Im not convinced yet that DeSantis is licked. But if Trump is indicted, all bets are off. The essence of spite, after all, is being willing to damage yourself for the sake of antagonizing your enemy. And since a criminal indictment would bring maximum antagonism between the parties, one might safely assume it will also evoke maximum spite. Trump facing criminal charges really might lock up the nomination for him (before hes locked up himself). Hows that for a law and order party for you?

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The Wild Ones - by Nick Catoggio - The Dispatch