Suicide of the West

I'm currently very much enjoying Jonah Goldberg's excellent new release Suicide of the West: How the Rebirth of Tribalism, Populism, Nationalism, and Identity Politics Is Destroying American Democracy. It's certainly one of the best written, most incisive and well-researched analyses of the causes of the current condition of our politics that I've come across.

There are a couple of things I'd want to quibble with if pressed, but these are so minor as to not be worth dwelling upon. Instead, I'd like to give you a sample of Goldberg's argument:

Here are some excerpts from his chapter titled Tribalism Today. In describing how progressivism is corroding the institutions of our culture he writes:

The failure of ubiquitous and total equality to materialize overnight was seen as proof that classically liberal, color-blind policies were not enough, particularly among a whole class of activists who made a career of exaggerating the nature of the problems so as to justify their own status and power....Progressivism now lacks a limiting principle for governmental and social action. There's always more work to be done, more injustice to be identified - or imagined - and then rectified.

This is certainly true. Once a progressive is satisfied that he has eliminated every smidgeon of injustice in the world he will no longer be a progressive but will have morphed into a conservative, which for any progressive would be an insufferable state of affairs. Thus, progressives are impelled by the logic of their ideology to always and forever push the envelope of social change.

Goldberg compares the institutions of our culture, things like family, churches, schools, scouts, little league, myriad voluntary associations, etc., to strong, old oaks and argues that these have provided people with shelter for generations, or even millennia, but that progressives are busily sawing them all down. This, Goldberg, who is himself a Never-Trumper, says is a major reason why so many people voted for Donald Trump in 2016.

[W]hen you destroy existing cultural habitats, you do not instantly convert the people who live in them to your worldview. You radicalize them. This is the point many on the left understand very well when it comes to American foreign policy...but when it comes to domestic [policy], many of the same people have a blind spot.

They see nothing wrong with forcing Catholic institutions to embrace gay marriage or abortion. They think the state should force small business owners to celebrate views they do not hold. They brand any parent or institution that resists allowing men to use our women's bathrooms as bigots. They constantly change the rules of our language to root out disbelievers so they can hold them up to mockery.

In June of 2017, Senator Bernie Sanders voted against the confirmation of Russell Vought, President Trump's nominee for Deputy Director of OMB. Vought had written that Muslims were not "saved" because they do not accept Jesus Christ. This is not a radical interpretation of Christianity. It is Christianity. "I would simply say, Mr. Chairman, that this nominee is really not someone who is what this country is supposed to be about," Sanders said. "I will vote no." In other words, a faithful Christian cannot serve in government, according to Sanders. He has no such policy for Muslims who hold a very similar view toward Christians."

Sanders' office attempted to clarify the senator's bigotry with this:

"...racism and bigotry - condemning an entire group of people because of their faith - cannot be part of any public policy."

Goldberg goes on to show the hypocrisy of this "clarification" and shines a light on why so many voters were so estranged from the progressives of the Democratic Party - progressives like Hillary Clinton - that they elected Donald Trump:

This is correct on its face. No public policy can discriminate against someone on the basis of faith. But there was no evidence whatsoever that Vought would discriminate against Muslims at the OMB. Meanwhile, Sanders own policy is that no one who actually believes in Christian doctrine has a right to make policy.

As Goldberg goes on to note, Sanders' foolishness would've excluded every president we've ever had from office, to the extent that they were being truthful when they acknowledged their faith.

Almost every one of the 350 pages in this book features Goldberg's penetrating analysis. If you'd really like to know why we are where we are in our politics today, why we're so divided, why a man with as much baggage as Donald Trump was carrying could nevertheless attract so many voters to his side, Suicide of the West offers as penetrating an explanation as you'll find.

You can order a copy from my favorite bookstore, Hearts and Minds or from any other seller of good books.