Tuesday, October 3, 2017

The Philosophical Assault on Trumpism - Note for a discussion, "E Pluribus Unum? What Keeps the United States United."


David Brooks, New York Times

Image from article, with caption: "Homesteaders heading west across the open plains

Excerpt:
The Trump story is that good honest Americans are being screwed by aliens. Regular
Americans are being oppressed by a snobbish elite that rigs the game in its favor.
White Americans are being invaded by immigrants who take their wealth and divide
their culture. Normal Americans are threatened by an Islamic radicalism that
murders their children.

This is a tribal story. The tribe needs a strong warrior in a hostile world. We
need to build walls to keep out illegals, erect barriers to hold off foreign threats, wage
endless war on the globalist elites.

Somebody is going to have to arise to point out that this is a deeply wrong and
un-American story. The whole point of America is that we are not a tribe. We are a
universal nation, founded on universal principles, attracting talented people from
across the globe, active across the world on behalf of all people who seek democracy
and dignity.

The core American idea is not the fortress, it’s the frontier. First, we thrived by
exploring a physical frontier during the migration west, and now we explore
technological, scientific, social and human frontiers. The core American attitude has
been looking hopefully to the future, not looking resentfully toward some receding
greatness.

The hardship of the frontier calls forth energy, youthfulness and labor, and
these have always been the nation’s defining traits. The frontier demands a certain
sort of individual, a venturesome, hard-working, disciplined individual who goes off
in search of personal transformation. From Jonathan Edwards to Benjamin
Franklin, Abraham Lincoln to Frederick Douglass, Americans have always admired
those who made themselves anew. They have generally welcomed immigrants who
live this script and fortify this dynamism. ...

Today, the main enemy is not aliens; it’s division — between rich and poor,
white and black, educated and less educated, right and left. Where there is division
there are fences. Mobility is retarded and the frontier is destroyed. Trumpist
populists want to widen the divisions and rearrange the fences.[JB emphasis] They want to turn us into an old, settled and fearful nation. ...

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