{"id":8674,"date":"2015-09-21T09:52:25","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T16:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=8674"},"modified":"2015-09-21T09:52:25","modified_gmt":"2015-09-21T16:52:25","slug":"the-2016-pack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-2016-pack\/","title":{"rendered":"The 2016 Pack"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Plus some thoughts on Michael Walsh\u2019s The Devil\u2019s Pleasure Palace, and the damage inflicted upon American culture by the Frankfurt School.<\/em><\/h3>\n

by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media<\/a><\/p>\n

\"gop_reagan_library_debate_9-20-15-1\"We don\u2019t know yet what issue will end up driving the autumn phase of the 2016 election. In 2008 a hectoring Obama thought it would always be Iraq \u2014 an issue that he had scrubbed from his website by mid-2008 when the surge had rendered his anti-war traction irrelevant.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Instead, the key moment was not the war, but the sudden Lehman Brothers meltdown \u2014 and the herky-jerky McCain reaction to it, coupled with Obama\u2019s monotonous \u201cBush did it\u201d blame-gaming of the crashing stock market. Before September 14, 2008, John McCain and Sarah Palin were consistently up over the supposedly transformational first African-American president by anywhere from 2 to 4 points; afterwards it was steadily downhill.<\/p>\n

No one knows what will happen to the economy in the fall of 2016, much less what North Korea, Iran, Putin or ISIS will be doing. If nothing, Democrats benefit; if something, not so much. Obama last week reminded us of the rules of media and progressive politics for 2016: he announced that critics of his presidency were de facto unpatriotic \u2014 apparently in the same manner that as a presidential candidate in 2008 he slurred a sitting president as unpatriotic. No one even noticed.<\/p>\n

2008 was the first orphaned election since 1952. When an incumbent president or vice president does not run, things are wide open, and often favor the out-party. Unless Joe Biden jumps in, 2016 could be another.<\/p>\n

We have not elected a non-politician since 1952; sixty-four years is a long time and suggests why it is a wise tradition. So far even on their best days, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, and Donald Trump are no Gen. Eisenhowers. Maybe we aren\u2019t\u00a0overdue for someone new.<\/p>\n

Unspoken are the majority\/minority dynamics. Barack Obama\u2019s community organizing has bequeathed a new election calculus. It goes like this: how much Democratic racial mongering and divisive identity politics is necessary to persuade minorities to (1) continue to turn out in record numbers, (2) vote in bloc fashion (e.g., 70% for Latinos and Asians, 95% for blacks), and (3) keep voting for a liberal old white guy or woman without Obama on the ticket, (4) without turning off the so-called Democratic share of the white vote down to levels around 35%.<\/p>\n

Whites only make up about 72% of the voting electorate; it is also equally valid that, thanks to Obama, the shrinking Democratic share of that vote is reaching 1980s Reagan-era levels. So there are two Obama legacies, not one, in the 2016 race. Democrats must pick up a few percentage points of white voters lost to their pandering in order to make up for a few minority percentage points lost without Obama on ticket. Second, Obama\u2019s legions of loyal minority voters must register, turn out, and vote in mass for Hillary or Joe Biden in the fashion that they did for Obama.<\/p>\n

It is iffy to calibrate debate performance with candidate viability. A bad night of repartee and verbal gymnastics can sink a descending candidate but not do much harm to a frontrunner. But three or four dismal performances in a row are quite a different story, given that there are 12 scheduled debates. Give Trump a flat last hour of tedious \u201ctremendous,\u201d \u201cawesome,\u201d and \u201cgreat\u201d in a 3-hour marathon debate, and who cares? Give him a flat hour month after month, and he wears on us.<\/p>\n

In general, when a party has weak candidates \u2014 cf. the Republicans in 2012 \u2014 lots of debates are lethal: Herman Cain of the last debate really was Herman Cain of the first. But when there are strong choices, as in 2016, debates rev up interest. The Democrats are wise to have just six debates; Hillary versus socialism will wear after three outings.<\/p>\n

After two debates, and not a single primary, here\u2019s an aphorism for each of the Republican candidates:<\/p>\n

Bush:<\/b> The more he professes conservatism and cites, quite accurately, a solidly conservative record, oddly the less conservative he appears.<\/p>\n

Carson: <\/b>Is rooting for him to speak more loudly and perk up a good or bad sign?<\/p>\n

Christie:<\/b> How can one so informed, energetic, bold, and glib so soon become so irksome?<\/p>\n

Cruz: <\/b>Is it good to have a candidate whom you would prefer to be a high judge?<\/p>\n

Graham:<\/b> There is a reason for his candidacy, but no one has discovered it yet.<\/p>\n

Huckabee:<\/b> Would that his noble creed be inductively inferred rather than deductively applied.<\/p>\n

Fiorina:<\/b> Witty, sharp, informed, and bold in debate \u2014 so what\u2019s next?<\/p>\n

Jindal:<\/b> Never can one learn in such a short time so many things from just one man \u2014 and regret the valuable experience so much.<\/p>\n

Kasich:<\/b> One can be impressed with his sobriety and judiciousness if only he is permitted to read rather than hear it.<\/p>\n

Pataki:<\/b> Is he running for secretary of Commerce?<\/p>\n

Paul:<\/b> Quirky smart, and a quirkier speaker \u2014 and always just a quirk away from scary.<\/p>\n

Rubio:<\/b> The best argument for the lack of political experience not mattering.<\/p>\n

Santorum:<\/b> If only we really could go back to the wonderful 1950s!<\/p>\n

Trump:<\/b> A transient and guilty pleasure like a double martini that may kill you if continued.<\/p>\n

Walker:<\/b> A noble reminder of why we liked the sheriff in Fargo<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The Democratic field is far less impressive than even the Republicans\u2019 circus of 2012. The viability of Hillary Clinton, however, hinges on the degree to which Valerie Jarrett & Co. wish to turn off or on Justice Department and intelligence community leaks about Clinton\u2019s felonious behavior. Bernie Sanders, the rich man\u2019s Eugene Debs of our age, is another Howard Dean campus flash-in-the-pan. The rest of the field \u2014 announced and rumored \u2014 \u00a0are other old white guys of the sort Democrats used to clamor were the doomed future of the Republican Party: Joe Biden, Jim Webb, Martin O\u2019Malley, and John Kerry, Al Gore, and Jerry Brown in waiting if Hillary implodes and Biden balks. Here they are:<\/p>\n

Biden:<\/b> Somehow he did manage to make plagiarism quaint, being habitually wrong habitually predictable, and his crude ethnic insults were dismissed as little more than Joe just being \u201cOld Joe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown: <\/b>As if out from cryogenics, he will soon pledge to \u201cprotect the earth, serve the people and explore the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chafee:<\/b> Who?<\/p>\n

Clinton:<\/b> We thought Bill was Dorian Gray, but look! \u2014 it was Hillary all along.<\/p>\n

Gore:<\/b> I don\u2019t think even he would try it.<\/p>\n

Kerry:<\/b> Soon to come: He was for the Iran deal before he was against it.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Malley:<\/b> See Pataki.<\/p>\n

Sanders:<\/b> A tired socialist insider masquerading as a fresh populist outsider.<\/p>\n

Warren:<\/b> A perennial scold and contemporary of Hillary, who looks twenty years younger but sounds thirty years older.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

End of the Summer Reading<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve read now twice Michael Walsh\u2019s The Devil\u2019s Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West<\/a> [1]<\/sup><\/i>. As Walsh shows, one of the most depressing things about the 21st<\/sup> century has been the habitual whining of elites, and the vast abyss between their own privileges and their constant haranguing against the culture, politics, economics, and social life of America.<\/p>\n

Walsh senses our anger with that disconnect, and he demonstrates that while in the past we always suffered through such nihilistic fits \u2014 self-critique is the lubricant of Western culture \u2014 the prewar and postwar importation of ideas from charlatans of the Frankfurt School in Germany was something new, and far more malignant.<\/p>\n

Note that Republicans have taken back both houses of Congress, often win in the Supreme Court, have majorities in the state legislatures and governorships, and may win the presidency in 2016. And yet if one examines the schools and universities, Hollywood, the art world, what shows up on televisions and the news, whom the foundations are funding, what the clerks in government do \u2014 everything really from our monuments to poetry \u2014 it is hard not to confess that \u201cwe lost.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a word, relativism seems to have won. There are few standards left. Everything is negotiable, from the now fossilized idea of a traitor like Bergdahl to a neo-Confederate sanctuary city. A play, a movie, a building, a novel \u2014 anything really \u2014 cannot be assessed by absolute criteria, given that such \u201cstandards\u201d are always set by oppressors of some sort, usually the children of capitalism and bourgeoisie consumerism who wish to enshrine their \u201cprivilege.\u201d Take a sentence, chop it up into lines, and presto \u2014 a poem. By what standards is Chopin any more a genius than a Snoop Dogg? I thought of Walsh\u2019s book yesterday when watching the various newscast reactions to the migration crisis in Europe and the deer-in-the-headlines faces of the European Eloi: Who are we to say that our culture is better than theirs? What is a border anyway? What even is a migrant? Whose values construct someone into the \u201cOther\u201d? Why do hosts enjoy privilege and guests do not?<\/p>\n

Frankfurt intellectuals have done a lot of damage: from multiculturalism to postmodern art, they have destroyed the individual experience and made us cardboard cut-outs by their constant Marxist-inspired dumbing down, ending in a dreary predictable sameness. The past has become melodrama adjudicated by 30-year-old PhDs rather than muscular tragedy. When Obama decides to rename a mountain or brags that Trayvon looks like the son he never had or urges Latinos to \u201cpunish our enemies\u201d and quips \u201ctypical white person,\u201d he is more or less offering a paint-by-numbers version of the postmodernists who despise both the rich capitalist West whose bounty created their own leisure and subsidizes their nihilism, and the rest of us who lack their awareness and thus are unthinking cogs in a huge monotonous wheel. For the postmodernist, Middle America lacks the romance of the poor of the inner city that is never visited and the high culture of the Upper West Side or Georgetown that is prized.<\/p>\n

Walsh writes both authoritatively and angrily. And he is right to be furious since 21st<\/sup> century America is branded with a highbrow nihilism, sarcasm, cynicism, and falsity, from the one-second pause of Jon Stewart to a David Letterman smirk. Walsh\u2019s survey of art, music, literature, and history recalls much of Allan Bloom\u2019s The Closing of the American Mind<\/a> [2]<\/sup><\/i>. But as we creep up to the 30th<\/sup> anniversary of that book\u2019s appearance, you put the The Devil\u2019s Pleasure Palace<\/i> down with the depressing sense that we have done a lot more damage and lost a lot more of what we were since Bloom\u2019s warning of 1987.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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[1] The Devil\u2019s Pleasure Palace: The Cult of Critical Theory and the Subversion of the West: http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B00PSSEIXE\/pjmedia-20<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

[2] The Closing of the American Mind: http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/eddriscoll\/2013\/08\/31\/i-want-my-weimar-tv\/<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2015 Works and Days. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plus some thoughts on Michael Walsh\u2019s The Devil\u2019s Pleasure Palace, and the damage inflicted upon American culture by the Frankfurt School. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ PJ Media We don\u2019t know yet what issue will end up driving the autumn phase of the 2016 election. In 2008 a hectoring Obama thought it would always be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[23,31,117],"tags":[997],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2fU","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":8428,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/were-we-right-to-take-out-saddam\/","url_meta":{"origin":8674,"position":0},"title":"Were We Right to Take Out Saddam?","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Public opinion veers with every change in current conditions in Iraq. by Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0\/\/ National Review Online Probable Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush got himself into trouble by sort of, sort of not, answering the question whether he would have supported going into Iraq in 2003 \u2014 had he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Iraq"","block_context":{"text":"Iraq","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/iraq\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Marine Corps armor in Nasiriyah, March 2003. 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But the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1536,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-mcchrystal-mess\/","url_meta":{"origin":8674,"position":2},"title":"The McChrystal Mess","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Many have commented on the unfairness of it all, and made good points: a) Obama, having demagogued the Iraq war, and campaigned on a \u201clet me at \u2019em\u201d in the \u201cgood\u201d war in Afghanistan, has done his best to renege on his 2008 chest-thumping\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2010"","block_context":{"text":"June 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/june-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":742,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-face-of-things-to-come\/","url_meta":{"origin":8674,"position":3},"title":"The Face of Things to Come","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner Campaign Rhetoric The campaign contour is pretty clear: The Obama reelection team will not make the case for the advantages and popularity of Obamacare, for the Chuian advantages of $4-a-gallon gas, for the dynamism of a 1.7 percent GDP growth rate, for the stimulatory\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":714,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-way-of-the-community-organizer\/","url_meta":{"origin":8674,"position":4},"title":"The Way of the Community Organizer","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 11, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner As the campaign heats up, and the self-imposed restrictions of 2008 disappear, we will likely hear more about the once proud associations and friendships of Barack Obama that were all Trotskyized by the media ministries of truth during the unhinged summer of 2008. In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Election 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/election-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":830,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/campaigning-on-grievances\/","url_meta":{"origin":8674,"position":5},"title":"Campaigning on Grievances","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 17, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services In 2008, a mostly unknown Barack Obama ran for president on an inclusive agenda of \u201chope and change.\u201d That upbeat message was supposed to translate into millions of green jobs, fiscal sobriety, universal healthcare, a resetting of Bush foreign policy, and racial unity.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Campaign 2012"","block_context":{"text":"Campaign 2012","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/obama-administration\/campaign-2012\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8677,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8674\/revisions\/8677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}