Joe Klein
In the days before the mayhem
surrounding Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, Jeff Zucker – the
impresario of CNN – hired the noted Trump campaign heavy Corey Lewandowski as a
“political analyst” for a rumored $500,000. He would have been expensive at
half the price. I feel bad for all the fine journalists at CNN, but Zucker is a
man of our times, lured by the sirens of simplicity and ratings. The passage of
Brexit and the presence of Donald Trump are the results of a massive lowering
of standards that has been promulgated over the past 20 years by the media and
the leadership of political parties in both countries, in the pursuit of popularity.
This is what happens when democracy grows flabby. The people, when
uninterested, must be entertained, and if they can’t be entertained, their
fears must be exploited.
So let’s make no bones about
what happened in Britain. This was not so much a vote against the bureaucratic
depredations, real and imagined, of the E.U. It was a vote – by elderly,
non-college-educated Brits – against the wild flow of immigrants, most of them
benign and excellent workers, but many of them reluctant to assimilate and more
than a few of them embracing a faddish, lethal Islamic extremism. If it was a
vote for freedom, it was a vote for freedom from them. We are experiencing a
similar swoon here. And as the British nativists were indulged by the Tory
leadership, the Tea Partisans were indulged by the Republican establishment
they’ve now overthrown.
Progress isn’t always
progressive. The need to retrench is sometimes the most logical next step. It
is entirely possible that our trade deals could have been a bit more protective,
and probable that immigration could have been handled in a more orderly way.
Certainly, the latter is true in Europe. Free trade and the free movement of
people are staples of the liberal capitalism that, over the past few centuries,
has brought the greatest alleviation of poverty in human history. But they need
to be regulated and modulated, and the regulators – the “experts,” the
“establishments” and the “politicians” – are the people charged with making
democracy hum. They are imperfect stewards, of course, and witlessly reviled
now.
We have been here before.
There was a desire to make the world go away after World War I, which resulted
in a sharp stoppage of immigration – no more of those noisy Southern and
Eastern European garlic eaters – in 1924, and the punitive Smoot-Hawley tariffs
of 1930. These, together with unregulated Wall Street speculation, gave us the
Great Depression, which gave us World War II. The gray people, bureaucrats like
George Marshall here and Jean Monnet in Europe – the Wise Men – were so alarmed
by the barbarity of that war that they created a new international order, in
which national sovereignty was curbed a bit in return for stability. A generous
welfare system in Europe greased the wheels; lower trade barriers helped the
capitalists thrive and create jobs. The great mass of people, who had suffered
more than a quarter-century of war and deprivation, were thrilled with the
peace.
We can argue about the effects
of that solution. We can argue about whether Hillary Clinton has plausible policies
to ameliorate the disruptions caused by the economy the Wise Men made. For now,
I would guess her campaign has been strengthened by the feckless retreat of the
“never mind, didn’t really mean that” Brexiteers, like Tory leader Boris
Johnson. Clinton’s problem is that the pro side of arguments to make this messy
world a little better are complicated; the con side is happily handled by con
artists. And our very best leaders have avoided the big issues. As I’ve
traveled the U.S. the past five years, I’ve found that the No. 1 foreign-policy
issue on people’s minds is China–and they have no idea what their President,
Barack Obama, thinks about it. He has yet to make a major speech about it. It’s
apparently too heavy a lift. He is not alone. Republican politicians have spent
the past quarter-century patronizing clever blowhards like Rush Limbaugh,
instead of taking them on. And now they’ve lost their party.
Jeff Zucker is just another
huckster, someone trying to make some money in disheveled times. But here is a
question for him: Do you think giving a podium to Lewandowski will improve our
discourse, make the views of Trumpists more comprehensible – or just provide
another loaf of bread, another circus to a populace stuffed on starch and
drivel?
Joe Klein, TIME, June
30,2016
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