The Coalitions That Make Authoritarianism Inevitable

These days I vacillate between a deep fear that an ever more likely second Trump presidency will usher in a catastrophic change in American society and a more optimistic belief that our institutions are strong enough to withstand the assault that Trump’s authoritarianism will no doubt bring.

For the last eight years I have struggled to comprehend how people can fail to see how flawed and dangerous Trump is.  But he is polling higher than ever in Republican primary polls (60%) and it is important to understand who supports him and why.  What is the coalition that makes Trump’s path to the presidency not only possible, but close to inevitable?

 

The first group is the social conservatives, led by Christian evangelicals and Catholic and Mormon conservatives.  These people are horrified by what they feel is the rapid decline of morality in American society and they attribute this to lower church attendance, liberal educational institutions and cultural degradation in films, TV, music and literature.  They represent about one third of the Republicans likely to vote for Trump.  They believe that Trump is the only candidate, and many would say divinely ordained, who can stem this tide of cultural and religious degradation.

 

The second group is the group that interprets the years since the pandemic as an economic failure caused by democratic policies.  This is the classic ‘vote your pocketbook’ group, but one that has been indoctrinated in the conservative mantras of lower taxes, fewer entitlements, less government and less regulation.  They blame the Biden administration for the post-pandemic inflation and the current economic malaise, even though the USA is clearly less impacted than any other developed nation.  This group has an increasingly troubling percentage of blue-collar workers who no longer see the democratic party as their champion.

 

The third group is the ‘never vote democratic’ group, a traditional republican group that may not be enthusiastic about Trump, but will nevertheless vote for him, knowing that he will protect their economic status and power, and mistakenly believing that he can be controlled.

 

A fourth group is a group defined by their disenchantment, a group that has seen no improvement in their quality of life in the past 3 or 4 years and is willing to vote for Trump out of desperation.  This group may bring in Hispanic and African-American voters that would normally have voted democratic.

 

The final group is a group that is panicked about world affairs – the China threat, the Russian threat, immigration and other somewhat abstract yet foreboding dangers on the horizon.  In uncertain times, a ‘strongman’ can appear to be an asset to those with a weak comprehension of history.

 

The current moment in human history has many parallels to the 1930’s – economic malaise, political turmoil, cultural change and uncertainty.  Democracy and consensual government can appear to be incapable of meeting the challenges of a troubled period.  Paralysis of democratic institutions may appear to beckon a stronger hand at the wheel.  But the consequences of moving toward authoritarian rule and a black-and-white interpretation of problems are inevitably much more pernicious than the illness they set out to cure.

Name-Calling and the Pitfalls of Revenge

People love to label things, and they also love to generalize.  When passions run high, there is a rash of heated name-calling and sloganeering.  The current war scenario in the Middle East is creating just this type of environment.

In my view there is no credible way to justify glorifying what Hamas did.  Indiscriminate violence targeting civilians and children is morally bankrupt no matter what the cause or conditions.  While it is true that terrorist events have been utilized by subjugated and oppressed people throughout the ages, these horrible acts must never be glorified.  

 

The world was deeply moved and rightfully horrified by the Hamas massacres.  The initial responses were almost universally sympathetic to the grief and anguish that Israel experienced.  Tragically, there were no good options for an Israeli response that would satisfy an understandably enraged constituency without killing large numbers of Palestinian civilians.  So Israel did what every nation seems destined to do in such a time – overreact and end up disproportionately killing those ‘on the side’ of the enemy.

 

The Jewish history weighs heavily here.  Even the slightest appearance of weakness or lack of resolve is anathema to the Jewish state.  And in the past, most of the Western world has been supportive of this hyper-vigilance and aggressive action.

 

But as the situation in Gaza has deteriorated to a cataclysmic state and the civilian deaths have grown to five times the casualties in Israel, the support has begun to waver in some areas.  Few deny Israel’s right to punish Hamas, but many find it hard to condone a punishment that is visited on a helpless and desperate population.

 

Now, two weeks after the massacres, a significant part of the world has begun to express support for the Palestinian people.  That does not always mean that people condone what Hamas did, but many believe that Israel at least partly brought this onto itself by the many years of neglect of further peace efforts and the continual extension of West Bank settlements and stranglehold on Gaza.

 

Is this response anti-Israel or antisemitic?  The fact that Israel is a Jewish state makes the distinction hard to discern.  When people are angry and vengeful, they use whatever nasty descriptions of an enemy that they can find.  Every war American has fought has seen our propaganda and public expression go into high gear slandering every aspect of the enemy – race, cultural stereotypes, physical attributes.

 

Jewish leaders who speak of the massacre in terms of antisemitism, modern day pogroms and holocaust comparisons are at risk of crying wolf too often.  Israel is undeniably the most powerful and sophisticated state in the Middle East, and the only one with a nuclear capability.  The world will cry for the innocents killed, but they will not buy the idea of a victimized, vulnerable Israel. 

 

Even with its current extreme right government, Israel is by far the most democratic and stable country in the region.  America is right to unconditionally support its existence and its right to defend itself.  However, we have also turned a blind eye to the underlying problems that years of political neglect have created in the region.  As Israel’s strongest ally, we had the opportunity to influence a course correction in Israeli policy and we failed.  We put our money (literally) on the economically-motivated détente with more friendly regional regimes and failed to see the potential for the socio-political landmines along that path.

 

Israel has only to look at the post 9/11 debacle that the USA raced into to get a sense of what awaits them if they forge ahead now without careful consideration of the likely consequences.  There are no easy alternatives, but the road they are on now is not likely to lead to a good place.

The Danger of Stifling Debate

The merciless carnage unleashed by Hamas has put Israel onto a wartime footing and also initiated a rush to stifle any debate in the USA on the topic.  Groups who have voiced support for the Palestinian cause, regardless of whether they condemn the Hamas massacres, have faced censure, ostracism and even more punitive consequences (job loss?) for merely voicing their opinions.

Any time there is a dramatic and tragic act of violence there is a bloodlust that takes hold and seeks to force all opinions and voices into a single chorus of revenge.  This is understandable. It is, quite frankly, the same thing that drives the other side in their celebration of the murder of innocents.  Once the dogs of war are let loose, there is no humanity, no rationality, no mercy, no kindness.

 

In WW2, we dropped napalm on Tokyo and gleefully cheered the mass murder of over 100,000 people, mostly civilians.  War has no conscience.

 

Palestinians, and for that matter much of the Arab world, have simmered with rage over the disproportionate killing of their people in comparison to the deaths of Israelis over the last 50 years – about a 10 to 1 ratio by most accounts.  Their hatred and bloodlust are kept fresh by Hamas and other groups by calculated means such as the most recent massacres.  To those people, Israel and Palestine have always been at war and no one is innocent.  And now, Israel will slaughter tens of thousands of Palestinians who they deem to be unfortunate collateral damage in their bloodlust to eliminate Hamas, the relatives and friends of whom will harbor lifelong desires for revenge. And so it goes.

 

Is there ever any way to end this cycle of hate and violence?  It will certainly not end if there is no debate allowed on the key issues.  One may argue that debate can come later, once Hamas is eliminated, but that is a tragic fallacy.  We made that mistake after 9/11 and paid for it over the last 20 years in endless, futile wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 

Sober thinking and open discussion about long term solutions is critical at the outset.  It is noteworthy that Haaretz, the respected left-leaning news organization in Israel, has been more outspokenly analytic and critical in its appraisal of the situation than most American politicians and media.  We do ourselves an injustice and we jeopardize the future by limiting debate and labeling other opinions traitorous or unacceptable.

 

I don’t know what the answer is for the present conflict.  There must certainly be significant consequences for Hamas.  But if anyone thinks that invading Gaza with the attendant massacre of ten times the number of innocents killed in Israel will do anything but create more violence in the future, they are most likely delusional.

My Family Dinner in East Berlin, 1975

I studied at the University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitaet) for 2/3 of my junior year.  It was a great experience in so many ways.  My girlfriend Elke’s grandparents and aunt lived in Bonn and I became very close to them, eating Sunday Mittagessen (midday meal) with them almost every week.  I was also able to visit several of Elke’s family friends who lived in cities nearby.

Elke’s parents had left Germany just before her birth in 1954.  Her father had been a Luftwaffe pilot during the war and was fortunate to have survived.  He then completed a doctorate in physics and was recruited by Lockheed to come to the US.  They retained most of their German customs. Visiting them had made a big impact on me, inspiring me to energetically pursue mastery of the German language.  

 

They also had friends who had remained in East Germany.  In January of 1975 the foreign exchange student group (primarily American and French students) at Bonn had a week-long field trip to Berlin.  I took that opportunity to contact one of those friends who lived in East Berlin and they invited me to visit them and share dinner one evening.

 

I had already crossed over into East Berlin a couple times with the other students.  The Ostzone (east zone) held a fascination for us.  It was dramatically different – drab and colorless, with an impressive number of humorless police roaming the streets.  But it was also somehow intriguing in its austerity.

 

I traveled on the S-Bahn past the border control and out beyond the East Berlin city limits into the suburbs where the family lived.  I found the house, situated in a fairly nice neighborhood with well-tended landscaping and window flower pots, and rang the bell.  From within I heard a child cry out “Es ist der Ami” (it’s the American!).  It struck me that the children had probably never met an American.

 

The family had a boy and a girl, ages 11 and 8.  They greeted me happily at the door along with the mother.  After introductions we all sat together and talked about our worlds.  The kids were especially curious and very friendly.  They were very charming and cute.

 

As the time approached for the father to arrive home, the mother moved to the kitchen to prepare the meal.  The kids showed me their toys and we watched West German cartoons – apparently the East German ones were boring (probably too pedantic and moralizing).  

 

The little boy ran off to do some things and the little girl showed me her stamp collection.  She had divided the collection into capitalist countries and socialist countries.  Interestingly, Yugoslavia was placed in the capitalist group.  As we finished looking through the book, she moved closer to me and said conspiratorially, “Weiss Du, Ich bin nicht so sehr Kommunist” (you know, I’m not all that communist).  That knocked me out!  I understood that she was trying to endear herself to this very intriguing stranger from another world and I was totally charmed.

 

The father arrived and he was also very welcoming and outgoing.  We all sat down again to talk and we had some before-dinner drinks and appetizers that all came from the Eastern bloc.  I was fascinated!

 

Both of the parents were chemists, perhaps even with doctorates, and worked in some sort of a chemical plant.  They were happy with their work.  As the alcohol took effect, we began to explore some of the differences between my world and theirs, and this continued through the dinner and late into the evening.

 

The meal was excellent, as almost all family meals were in my time in Germany.  The parents spoke some English but preferred speaking in German, and this also allowed the kids to participate until they had to go to bed.  I hugged them and felt very sad, knowing that I would probably never see them again.

 

Once the kids were gone, we began speaking even more candidly.  They were proud of the accomplishments of their nation, especially in providing more equal opportunities and reducing inequality.  No one was homeless, there was little crime.  But they confessed to being very frustrated with the lack of freedom to express their thoughts and to travel.  They were not overly impressed with the consumer society of the west, but they were eager for the DDR to continue to improve living standards.

 

The evening I spent with them profoundly moved me.  We shared our thoughts honestly and with as little prejudice as possible in people of two completely different societies.  I found them incredibly warm and compelling and was very sad when the time came for my departure.

 

It was mandatory to get back over the border before midnight.  I’m not sure what would have happened if I were late, but I did not want to find out.  The father walked me to the S-Bahn.  As we neared the station, he asked me to be careful talking about our discussions with other people.  I understood and promised to do so.  It had been a night I will never forget.

 

 

 

 

Gaza and the Bitter Fruit of Israel's Palestinian Policies

The surprise attacks on Israel by Hamas last week are heart wrenching – civilian massacres, innocents taken hostage and random missile attacks meant to harm indiscriminately.  Hamas is a hard-liner extremist organization that will only ever contribute to the cycle of violence in the region.

But in our justifiable rush to condemn the actions of Hamas, we must not neglect to tell the other side of the story – the years of brutal repression of the Palestinians, the ever-increasing illegal settlement of formerly Palestinian lands in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the inhumane air, land and sea blockade of Gaza since 2007.

 

Any efforts to create a just peace between Israel and Palestine ceased with the advent of the Netanyahu era.  The increasingly fundamentalist Jewish government that has flourished under his rule has no intention of ever ceding an acre of land or making any effort to negotiate a lasting peace. 

 

Many in the USA are aghast at how the Gaza attacks were celebrated throughout the Arab peninsula and in many other countries.  The knee-jerk reaction is to attribute this to antisemitism.  To be sure, there is still plenty of antisemitism in the world.  But the line between antisemitism and anti-Israel/Zionist policies is a difficult one to draw.  Israel has done itself no favors in the last 30 years with its policies of occupation, settlement and disproportionate responses to Palestinian violence.  A simple tally of Israeli dead vs Palestinian dead is clear evidence that Israel has expanded the biblical eye for an eye to 100 eyes for an eye.

 

One can argue that Israel has done what it had to do to survive.  But there were more visionary Israelis in the past who had a much different approach to finding a lasting peace.  The most remarkable of them was murdered by an ultra-religious Jewish assassin.

 

The attitudes in the USA reflect our typical jingoistic response to any violent act.  ‘Murder them all’!  The same people who weep as they view murdered Israeli families will punch the air when they see air strikes that murder ten times as many Palestinian civilians.  By the end of this war, there will certainly be 10 or 100 dead Palestinians for every Israeli lost.  

 

There is no ‘justification’ for what Hamas did.  But refusing to recognize the historically ironic (the formerly oppressed become the oppressors) brutality of the Netanyahu regime against the Palestinian people will just lead to more heartache and tragedy down the road.

Is Increasing Inequality Inevitable?

I believe that human societies naturally trend toward larger economic inequality because of obvious feedback mechanisms that favor higher income and wealthy families.  Only revolution or other cataclysmic events seem to reverse this trend.  And those events are a high price to pay.

Some of the feedback mechanisms that increase inequality are:

• The growth of investment value 
• The double income multiplier (the wealthy marrying the wealthy)
• Education inequality (private schools, tutoring, college/exam prep)
• Legacy college admission
• Hiring through networks, friendships
• Investment opportunities through friendships, network

The wealthier one is, the more weight these feedback mechanisms have.

 

One school of thought argues that economic inequality is a necessary component of economic progress and is at least partly attributable to the differences in human nature and behavior – ambition, talent, intelligence, work ethic, addictions, delinquency, etc.  The argument extends even to postulate that overall economic growth is accelerated (all boats rising . . .) by large income inequalities, as job and company creation, investment and innovation depend on large net-worth individuals or families. It theorizes that there is ultimately a net positive effect of large inequalities.

 

A strong counter argument to this school of thought can be seen in the poor economic development of developing countries in Latin America and Africa.  Large inequalities exist and there are many high net-worth individuals, but economic woes persist and even worsen in many cases.  These nations also often have rampant corruption and a lack of judicial and political stability, societal defects at least partially due to their history of colonial rule and exploitation.  These problems assist in entrenching inequality.

 

The fact that something occurs naturally does not imply that it is good.  The naturally occurring increase in inequality is certainly impacted by human behavioral traits of both the rich (self-interest, selfishness, opportunism, greed, vanity) and the poor (poor life choices, poor work ethic).  But I would argue that the positive feedback mechanisms listed above accelerate and magnify the ‘natural’ tendencies.  There will always be inequality based on differences in human behavior and potential, but the ever-growing, hyperbolic inequality we see today is a result of factors that have nothing to do with hard work and talent.

 

The Pew Charitable Trust conducted a survey in 2019 (pre-pandemic) to better understand the prevailing views on economic inequality.  They found that a majority (61%) of Americans felt there was ‘too much economic inequality’.  But as one might expect, there were significant differences between the left and the right – that figure of 61% was composed of 41% of the right and 78% of the left.

 

It is likely that the 39% who don’t believe there is too much inequality (and this includes 22% of those on the left!) think that a certain amount of inequality is inevitable and even desirable in an economy.  There were also predictably variable views on what causes inequality, with right-leaning respondents choosing personal factors much more than left-leaning.

 

If one looks at the history of global economic inequality it is clear that it is a very stubborn and unyielding aspect of human development.  Thomas Piketty, the French economist, has written two very well-researched (and long!) books on this topic.  What I find particularly interesting in his data is that the last hundred and fifty years or so have seen the rise and then fairly sudden moderation of inequality in the industrial world over several different time periods.

 

Unfortunately, this moderation has generally come after cataclysmic events – world wars, revolution, or the depression.  And it has at least partially been the result of major changes in the taxation of income and wealth that became necessary to pay off national debt.  Other factors such as education, labor union strength, and social benefits play a role as well.

 

All of the above-mentioned factors rely on the political will to initiate changes to reduce inequality, a political will that is naturally weakened as more power and influence accrue to the wealthy.

 

The Pew survey found that 84% of respondents felt that taxes should be raised for the wealthy, including a surprising 65% of right-leaning ones.  But only 14% felt that their taxes should be raised.

 

If these numbers are valid, then there is at least hope for some sort of future income and/or wealth tax that could impact economic inequality.  But for this to happen there must be a much stronger groundswell of concern to overcome the reluctance of conservative legislators, who are probably part of that 16% that don’t believe in raising taxes on the wealthy (i.e. themselves).

 

We face a plethora of challenges in this world – climate change, immigration and refuge, regional and global conflicts, and political instability to name a few.  Economic inequality is not generally at the top of that list for most people (the Pew survey says only 42% consider it a major priority), but to me it is a symptom of an increasingly sick society that will be less resilient in facing other crises.  We neglect it at our peril.

A Journey of Faith, Reason, Logic, Belief and Doubt

Christians often talk about a faith journey.  It has been a staple of Christian group interactions for one person to speak about how they were raised in the church and the various phases of faith and belief they went through.  These ‘witnessings’ are understandably often quite emotional and powerful for both the person testifying and the audience, as one’s core beliefs about religion and spirituality are inextricably bound to one’s self-image, self-worth and deep longing for meaning.

I have had a journey too, but I would characterize it as a combination of faith, reason and logic, with doubt as a driving force.  I went through an early childhood of Episcopal church attendance, which ended in the middle of my 6^th grade year as my family moved to California and we ceased going to church.  My interest in matters of church and spirituality was minimal throughout high school and college, though I had short involvements with Young Life, a Christian youth movement that recruited high school students, and with a soccer teammate in college who attempted to ‘bring me to Christ’.  

 

After my short Naval career ended and I went to grad school, I began to visit church again on my own in Boston and I ultimately became very intrigued by Christian theology.  When I married my wife, Karen, who had grown up as a Methodist Minister’s daughter and was totally committed to Christian social justice, my infatuation with Christianity accelerated.  We became very involved in our church and I read widely in Christian literature.  I even spent a long weekend at a Christian retreat known as Walk to Emmaus (named for the walk Jesus took post-resurrection, revealing himself to several disciples) and wrote a long essay proclaiming my beliefs.

 

This period of my life was very exciting and passionate as I explored my ‘faith’ within communities of very avid Christians.  I was almost totally convinced that this faith in Christ and the tenets of Christian theology were the ultimate truth about our existence and purpose.  Karen and I left our careers to join a Christian ministry, Habitat for Humanity, and immersed ourselves totally in this world.

 

But even in the midst of this most passionate embrace of Christianity, there were questions that I posed to myself that slowly began to undermine the fervor of my belief.  These were questions about the exclusive nature of Christianity – “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me”, and the obvious contradiction of a loving God and the eternal damnation of non-Christians.

 

I was able to reconcile my ardent faith with these apparent inconsistencies by use of the oft-employed explanation that ‘in God all things are possible’ and that how He judges the world is a mystery that we will neither solve nor understand.  We must have faith.  This seemed reasonable at the time.

 

But then, as my experience in the world and my knowledge of people, power and history expanded, other doubts began to nibble at the edges of my belief.  Closer readings of the New Testament identified multiple inconsistencies that only a blind acceptance of the text being directly God-given and inerrant could explain.  I read several scholarly analyses of biblical history that explained how Christian doctrine had been established and how the texts were copied hundreds of times over the centuries.  

 

The mere fact that the gospels and letters were written multiple decades after events occurred and were clearly written with specific audiences and goals in mind calls into question their accuracy.  The biblical rehash of themes that had already occurred in multiple other religions and mythologies (virgin birth, sacrifice, resurrection, etc.) seemed to be more in line with the long history of human desire to understand our existence and the tendency for humans to appropriate this desire to create structures for obedience and control than a revelation of divine truth.

 

But the most difficult thing for me to ignore was the long list of illogical aspects of religious belief.  The paradox of creation versus evolution; the incongruence of ‘God’s plan’ and free will (not to mention the sheer leap of faith necessary to imagine a God listening to prayers, deciding where and when to act, allowing huge injustices to occur, etc.); the idea of souls being inserted into humans who sometimes die after a few days, months or years – before they are even cognitive beings; the idea of heaven and how our eternal reward will juggle family, friends across our lives and sustain us for eternity in a blissful state; the occurrence of miraculous events over two thousand years ago in an age of ignorance and superstition versus the lack of religious miracles today.

 

These questions and doubts made it much more difficult for me to fully envelop myself in Christian faith.  I loved the sense of community and the emotional highs that spiritual liturgy and music provided, but found my own beliefs becoming ever more abstract and uncertain.  I felt like a hypocrite and a charlatan as I mouthed the doxology and articles of faith.

 

Religion recognizes doubts and questions, but it insists that one can overcome them with faith, that ‘substance of things hoped for, evidence of things unseen’.  Yet things hoped for and unseen can take almost any form.  How can one choose to have a very specific faith when so much evidence contradicts that faith and so much uncertainty and mystery enshrouds all matters outside our physical and material experience?  Even our physical world continues to defy full understanding as quantum physics and cosmology evolve.

 

It is tempting to disparage religious belief as simplistic and many intellectuals, scientists and atheists energetically ridicule religion.  Humans can be very arrogant and vicious, and there is a lot of ego and vanity at play in the battle between so-called believers and non-believers.  It is a sad testament to the inevitable potential for conflict in all human affairs.

 

My own journey continues.  I have accepted the doubt, the mystery and the uncertainty, though I cannot say I am at peace with it.  I claim neither belief nor disbelief.  I search for insights without expecting resolution. I continue to love the idea of a soul or spirit, the hope of existing beyond my physical death, the vague image of some sort of loving force in the universe, whether pantheistic or deistic.  But I will not pretend to know or even to have ‘faith’.  This is not a comfortable state of mind, but it is an honest one and I cannot imagine any other way to live.