America’s New Apocalyptic Politics

Durer, "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse"

I’ll write about the Iowa presidential caucus tomorrow after I’ve learned the results, but in the meantime I’d like to share an interesting application of German novelist Thomas Mann to what has been occurring with rightwing Republicans  According to Mark Lilla in a New York Review of Books article, Mann anticipates what Lilla sees as a now dominant apocalyptic strain in the GOP. Lilla describes the development as follows:

Apocalypticism trickled down, not up, and is now what binds Republican Party elites to their hard-core base. They all agree that the country must be “taken back” from the usurpers by any means necessary, and are willing to support any candidate, no matter how unworldly or unqualified or fanatical, who shares their picture of the crisis of our time.

Lilla traces “apocalypticism” back to the conservative backlash against the 1960’s but says that the movement has become anything but conservative. He cites as an example the “no new taxes” pledges that candidates have been signing and believes that the new approach to politics accounts for the political gridlock we have been seeing:

Seen in this context, the current deadlock in Washington does not look so surprising. During the 2010 congressional election campaign, Republican candidates (and some Democrats) were put under enormous pressure to sign the Americans for Tax Reform “Taxpayer Protection Pledge,” which obliges them to oppose any increase in the marginal personal or corporate tax rate, and any limits on deductions or tax credits that aren’t offset by other tax cuts. To date, all but six Republican representatives and seven senators have signed this collective suicide note, making the group’s president, Grover Norquist, nearly as successful as Reverend Jim Jones. That’s how the apocalyptic mind works, though. It convinces people that if they bring everything down around them, a phoenix will inevitably be born.

The same faith has been expressed in the Republican presidential candidate debates, where the contenders compete to demonstrate how many agencies they would abolish when in office (if they remember their names), how many programs they would cut or starve, and how much faith they have in the ingenuity of the American people to figure it out for themselves once they’re finished. What’s so disturbing is that they don’t feel compelled to explain how even a reduced government should meet the challenges of the new global economy, how our educational system should respond to them, what the geopolitical implications might be, or anything of the sort. They deliver their lines with the insouciant “what, me worry?” of Alfred E. Neuman.

All of which brings leads Lilla to Mann’s most famous novel:

People who know what kind of new world they want to create through revolution are trouble enough; those who only know what they want to destroy are a curse. When I read the new reactionaries or hear them speak I’m reminded of Leo Naphta, the consumptive furloughed Jesuit in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, who prowls the corridors of a Swiss sanatorium, raging against the modern Enlightenment and looking for disciples. What infuriates Naphta is that history cannot be reversed, so he dreams of revenge against it. He speaks of a coming apocalypse, a period of cruelty and cleansing, after which man’s original ignorance will return and new forms of authority will be established.

Mann’s 1924 novel appeared after two apocalyptic events: World War I and the German hyperinflationary period of 1923.  The 2008 recession, as bad as it was, can hardly be compared with these, but one wouldn’t know it by the rhetoric used on the campaign trail.  Mitt Romney describes President Obama as “poison[ing] the very spirit of America and keep[ing] us from being one nation under God” while Rick Santorum accuses him of engaging in “absolutely un-American activities” and “sid[ing] with evil because our president believes our enemies are legitimately aggrieved and thus we have no standing to intervene.” And don’t get me started on Michele “God is sending hurricanes as a message to rein in spending” Bachmann, Herman “electrified border fence to kill immigrants” Cain, Newt “repeal child labor laws” Gingrich, Ron “bring back the gold standard” Paul, and Rick “treat him [the “almost treasonous” Ben Bernanke] pretty ugly down in Texas” Perry.

At least Naphta is in a sanatorium.

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