a pig in lipstick
a rebuke of the democratic party's dangerous 'personality over policy' approach
For nearly four decades now, the United States has enforced neoliberal capitalism domestically and abroad, regardless of which party is in the White House. This is particularly salient when it comes to immigration.
Let’s break down this claim, shall we?
In her book This Changes Everything, Naomi Klein outlines three policy pillars of neoliberalism: the privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and the lowering of income and corporate taxes, paid for with cuts to public spending. Furthermore, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy explains that neoliberalism elevates the experience of the individual above the community and it holds that individuals should be self-reliant and resilient, and that lightly regulated and incentivized private markets will deliver the building blocks of happiness and fulfillment.
And of course, our neoliberal #queen #girlboss Margaret Thatcher famously declared that "there is no such thing as society; there are just individual men and women and there are families."
In Christian Joppke’s article entitled Neoliberal Nationalism and Immigration Policy, he explains that U.S. immigration policy is both neoliberal and nationalist, as it relies on an earned citizenship model. He states:
Earned citizenship is neoliberal because it is contingent on the demonstrated capacity of the self-responsible individual to achieve and to contribute. It asks aspiring citizens to be more knowledgeable and virtuous than the average citizen, requiring her to be a kind of ‘super-citizen’… At the same time, earned citizenship is nationalist because citizenship is conceived of as privilege not right, reserved for the select few.
To be clear, nationalism is the identification with one's own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.
Let’s talk about Harris.
Last week, The New York Times released a ‘bombshell’ piece and accompanying episode of The Daily that analyzed an interview Michael Schmidt conducted with John Kelly, Trump’s former Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Secretary. This interview drew widespread attention, for during it Kelly stated he believes Trump fits the description of a fascist.
Be that as it may, what actually caught my attention was the following remark from Kelly.
It is more important to pick someone with the right character and temperament to be the president regardless of whatever you think of their policy positions. And it is an argument that Harris has been making herself as the campaign gets closer and closer to the finish line.
I watched the bulk of the DNC this summer. Indeed, the party of joy and vibes is imploring us to look at the public-facing character and temperament of Harris regardless of what we think of her policy positions. The Harris campaign has effectively joy-washed her image so that her messaging appears distinct from Trump, despite her track record with Biden mirroring Trump’s priorities, specifically regarding the US-Mexico border.
For The Boston Review, Prabhat Patnaik states:
[Neofascism’s] inability to alleviate the crisis of neoliberalism may lead to its defeat in elections (assuming it does not rig them or bypass them entirely): arguably this is what happened in the United States with Trump’s loss to Joe Biden. But even if neofascism loses in the short term, it will remain a strong contender for returning to power so long as successor governments revert to neoliberal business as usual, as has been the pattern for some time. In order to break this cycle, it is essential that a successor government should not simply resume the old neoliberal policies that produce growing inequality, growing poverty, and growing unemployment. There has to be a decisive shift toward a robust welfare state with revived public social services, public goods, and high employment—precisely the policies that the hegemony of global finance has thwarted.
Harris is selling a brand identity, as is tradition in American electoral politics. It’s an effective approach, as American voters are conditioned to think of their politicians as their parents, celebrities, or products with flashy packaging regardless of the quality of the item. As this random schmuck from a Scottish PR Firm put it:
But like Blair’s ‘Cool Britannia’ or Obama’s ‘hope’ there’s a je ne sais quoi to certain moments that stick out in history which some politicians find themselves well-equipped for. For the time being, and maybe with just enough time to go, Harris is riding the wave of her own moment by demonstrating an expert understanding of how today’s media works and the influence of new media platforms on the message she aims to deliver.
In this short video essay on the front page of The Times today, Alexander Stockton acknowledges that “despite sounding pro-immigration in public, behind closed doors, [Biden and Harris] were fulfilling many conservative aspirations.” A federal judge described Biden’s Pathways Rule border policy as if the Biden and Trump administrations “got together, had a baby, and then dolled it up in a stylish modern outfit, complete with a phone app.”
But even if neofascism loses in the short term, it will remain a strong contender for returning to power so long as successor governments revert to neoliberal business as usual, as has been the pattern for some time.
Stockton is correctly arguing that the Biden/Harris administration, specifically Harris, has been much more strategic and therefore successful in executing anti-immigration policies than Trump was, despite his incendiary rhetoric. Stockton goes on to describe Harris’s border policy as “delicate diplomacy.” Where Trump screeched that we will build the wall and have Mexico pay for it, Harris, as border czar, has quietly and successfully built several “invisible” walls and has gotten Mexico and 19 other countries to pay for it all through the Declaration for Migration and Protection that was revealed at the 2022 Summit of the Americas.
It is more important to pick someone with the right character and temperament to be the president regardless of whatever you think of their policy positions.
I do not care if you vote for Harris and I think telling people not to vote is corny, however I am imploring any liberals or leftist-curious liberals in my orbit to critically think through the implications of the personality over policy approach that keeps the Democratic Party in your good graces. Are you not insulted by the implications? The condescension underlying this assertion that we must focus on vibes over policy? Does this not strike you as incredibly dangerous?
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