It is good, I guess, to let writers from all sides give their views, and I assume this is where Unherd breaks from its right leaning center, to let the left gets its arguments in. But way too many issues with this article to address individually.
Race Neo-Marxist orthodoxy prevails throughout, “To remedy the long history of racially-based exclusion in America, Kendi advocates staffing U.S. institutions using reverse discrimination.” needs a bit of both sides admitting issues. As he points our the Chinese (Asians he uses) have to be reverse discriminated against as they are too successful. Maybe he should read on the ‘Geary Act’ and ‘The Chinese Exclusion Act’ of the 1880s, and how these people took off so very quickly in spite of big structured racially based exclusion., and the Vietnamese (whom I know) who got here in the 1970s, poor and uneducated and are doing very well indeed. Maybe if he wishes to use historical race as the cornerstone in an article on USA / China it is an odd situation to fully reconcile.
The ‘Never Trump’ runs throughout the article like a lightning bolt – but then the magazine the writer is part of is exceedingly anti Trump.
“What Kendi and Trump have in common is a desire to see power allocated in society on some basis other than ability.”
This crazy analogy is so OTT when we are in the control of the Far Left, sclerotic, senile, Bernie/Biden/ Pelosi Oligarchy who totally appoint to fill Quotas, irrespective of ability. (Kamala anyone?). Keeping Hunter out of the Press has been goal their agenda – but attacking Trumps family at the top.
As far as Turkey and Erdogan appointing his stooge to Finance Minister to keep interest zero (Erdogann even references riba in justifying it…) – well Turkey is exactly doing what Biden. via Powell, is. Both are caught between a rock and hard place. Raise interest, Crush the stock market and economy (as the debt is Huge), or let interest stay low and inflation runs wild. (17%). See how this is the same as Biden? Trump lowered the interest too – BUT there was no inflation then, BIG difference. Erdogan and Biden are keeping interest low to protect the welthy, but nail the workers..
Then when he gets to China – well he forgets to mention China has, built or being built, over one Million Excess Apartments solely built as ‘Investment’ that are of absolutely no use at all. China has urbanized, and has shrinking demographics – AND Building is 27% of the Chinese Economy! Evergrand, Defaulted yesterday – Fantasia and other mega builders are on the ropes. If property crashes 35% in china as it did in USA 2008 – that will be 2 years of China’s GDP gone in one swoop. China is sailing in rocky waters now too.
And more and more things I find wrong or questionable not worth listing. But I guess good to get writers from all sides of the issues…..
An odd article, chasing too many wild geese at once, needs to settle down and pick one.
Well said. In sum, whilst subtly pointing out the damage the Marxists are doing to America, the author has to apologise for this by not pointing out the sheer racism involved in so-called “critical race theory”; by pretending to an equivalence between the “theorists” and Trump – at worst, a relatively harmless lunatic – and by leaping as quickly as possible from America’s domestic turmoil into fruitless analogies with Turkey. One of the reasons the “woke” are driving all before them is that too many of their opponents are myopic and half hearted, in just this style.
This articles seems to me to be a straightforward case for promoting people based on their competence to do the job rather than any other criteria.
Its 2 decades since Clinton and Blair abandoned the Western working classes in favour of globalisation. The fruits of that, and the fatuous identity struggle they endorsed to mask their abandonment, are now all too visible in the demand for equity.
In a majority white western country, with a fully franchised electorate, a competent politician could not lose an election on a platform of repatriating jobs, controlling immigration, exiting foreign wars and pushing back on woke excess … but Trump did. And he really did. To think that 63 court cases, across multiple jurisdictions, were politically influenced posits a corruption of the American legal system that is just not credible.
If anyone is going to take on the deep state, the first requirement would be a solid team of truly committed and intelligent lieutenants. Instead we had the embarrassing spectacle of the relentlessly revolving White House door and, as the author points out, a central team qualified only by family relationship or sycophancy.
To expect to upend the cultural control of the woke, decades in the making, by a few decrees was just naive (and was almost entirely reversed on day 1). There are so many fault lines through that movement that igniting their own civil war should be entirely possible to anybody with some political nous. Instead he managed to put together an almost impossible coalition of interests united only in their abhorrence of him.
This whole article is about getting competence into positions where it matters. Trump had 4 years to demonstrate his competence at running a country and failed utterly.
He is demonstrably a catastrophically bad statesman but his oratory skills, and the ongoing hold on the Republican party that they give him, may split the votes of the right and will continue to alienate moderates and independents. As somebody who is horrified by the woke, I am appalled that he may yet give Biden, and the murky controllers behind him, another 6 years to solidify their grip.
J Bryant
2 years ago
Fantastic article that summarizes the major choices facing the US if it’s not to continue its slide down the national league table. I’d love to read a follow-on article by this author describing how the US can begin the process of making the critical choices he outlines. Currently the most influential people appear entirely caught up in the culture wars.
I’d give this article an A+ for the opening paragraph alone:
“The United States has long enjoyed the exorbitant privilege of letting its domestic cultural psychodramas determine the shape of its politics. Foreign policy has projected the fantasies of American elites onto the rest of the world, sometimes violently; at home, politics has transformed into an entertaining pageant of frivolity.“
He seems to be arguing for a high calibre technocracy to take over and supplant normal politics. That, I believe, was the basis on which the EU (or the old EEC) came into existence; and look how that’s ended up.
I didn’t read it that way. For me he’s simply saying that the route to advancement in any field should be competence. Increasingly it’s not.
Advancement in the US requires either a relative in high places, membership of an accepted victim group, or the ability to quote the right political mantras (on both right and left.)
He’s right, that’s a route to disaster. A recent article on here about South Africa, where all three of those routes to success trump competence in every sphere, sets out the future for the US if it persists with this route.
The high calibre troops are, in fact, the swamp of embedded forever unelected people who actually run the show.
Chris Mochan
2 years ago
An unsettling truth is that the American democratic system no longer functions as a reliable mechanism for elevating the most competent people to political responsibility.
I find this naivety astonishing. Do you really believe the people who have hitherto held the offices of power in America have been the most competent in the land? Is that why the revolting offspring of Joe Kennedy have stalked the corridors of power for decades?
John Barclay
2 years ago
Trumpism is a response to wokeism and failed centre left social democratic globalist policies.
“…An unsettling truth is that the American democratic system no longer functions as a reliable mechanism for elevating the most competent people to political responsibility. The legitimate, democratic election of a wildly inexperienced and unfit candidate such as Donald Trump, partisan considerations aside, raised uncomfortable questions about whether the their system for choosing leaders by popular acclaim is indeed better for society than the Chinese Communist Party’s consensus-based appointments of capable technocrats…”
Flatly, flatly disagree with this stance. This is advocating rule by elites, and there are no circumstances this can be endorsed.
Douglas Proudfoot
2 years ago
The article seems to ignore the role of the rule of law and a stable investment climate in economic growth. Trump and his supporters cut regulations and corporate taxes, facilitating economic growth. Biden canceled drilling leases on federal land, and threatened new arbitrary regulation of energy production and use. Under Trump, the US reached record levels of oil and natural gas production, which vanished quickly with Biden’s regulatory actions and threats.
It always amazes me that the role of realtively free market capitalism, which is responsible for humanity’s rise from poverty since 1600, is completely ignored in discussions about how to compete with China. It seems obvious that the more free market, and less regulation and taxes, we have, the greater our economic growth and innovation will be. Any People’s Republic will lose such a competition.
As to Trump’s incompetent son in law, Jared Kushner, he did manage to negotiate the Abraham accords between Israel and several Gulf Arab states. Is that unique outstanding accomplishment chopped liver, or just ignored because Orange Man Bad?
The success of one 4 year term as POTUS must be expunged from our collective thought. Orange Man did much of what he campaigned on and, what you say above, while being in politics for only 4 years. Not 50 years like so many others, who have nothing to show for it, other than huge increases in personal wealth.
I quite agree. Trump was enabling the miracle of capitalism to thrive. Look at the spat between Elizabeth Warren and Elon Musk and pick your side wisely.
Matt B
2 years ago
The “what” is that not all states have the same idea of what the future looks like. It matters. The “why”, is why you read Unherd still?
Last edited 2 years ago by Matt B
chris sullivan
2 years ago
Excellent essay thanks.
john zac
2 years ago
I think this was a good job–more like Lebanon is where we are headed. Antifa’s interest will soon be represented by their own party, they will part ways with the Democrats. What the author could have mentioned:
Is the American Dream dead? That’s why no one wants to work anymore–consumerism leads to unhappiness
This data driven growth monster that is orchestrating globalization needs to takeover the field of science in order to legitimize its power. This may have turned off many people, hence they have also jumped off the bandwagon
Big cities turning into war zones. What will those ecosystems look like in the near future. It seems neither the GOP or the Dems care.
David Simpson
2 years ago
“wildly inexperienced and unfit candidate such as Donald Trump” – and, err, one J Biden isn’t?!! Yes, he’s a very experienced swamp dweller, and also apparently gaga, but really, better in any respect than his (genuinely) democratically elected predecessor?
However much you dislike Trump personally, he has spent a lifetime (admittedly with certain advantages) trying to make an actual living. He also said what he thought was wrong with the country and its politics and attempted, maybe ineffectually, to do what he said he would do. And he did in fact do several things. Like not kill too many people. Create some jobs. Stop illegal immingrants undermining the labour market. And not giving a f—k about the MSM. Wish we had one. Unfortunately it’s not just about having weird hair.
You’d honestly think that the rest of the pompous world was waiting for America to pull up its socks so that the whole world can move on; waiting for America, and America alone, to … get with the programme.
America had in fact pulled itself up by its bootstraps a long time ago – the socks long pulled up. Without America having taken a good look at itself over decades, indeed over centuries, the human rights situation of the entire world would be in even a greater disorder many times over than what it is today. America went out on a limb. And for having done so, it’s easy to point out America’s shameful episodes. The rest of the decrepit, lazy, feckless modern world, so prone to scoffing at the idea of America, at least has America to thank because of its role as the stunning star of the whole show, who attracts all the gazes and stares, and in whom the cynics see only her faults magnificently magnified. The talk, as ever, of the town!
Julian Farrows
2 years ago
I’d love to read an essay written by you on matters you consider important.
It is good, I guess, to let writers from all sides give their views, and I assume this is where Unherd breaks from its right leaning center, to let the left gets its arguments in. But way too many issues with this article to address individually.
Race Neo-Marxist orthodoxy prevails throughout, “To remedy the long history of racially-based exclusion in America, Kendi advocates staffing U.S. institutions using reverse discrimination.” needs a bit of both sides admitting issues. As he points our the Chinese (Asians he uses) have to be reverse discriminated against as they are too successful. Maybe he should read on the ‘Geary Act’ and ‘The Chinese Exclusion Act’ of the 1880s, and how these people took off so very quickly in spite of big structured racially based exclusion., and the Vietnamese (whom I know) who got here in the 1970s, poor and uneducated and are doing very well indeed. Maybe if he wishes to use historical race as the cornerstone in an article on USA / China it is an odd situation to fully reconcile.
The ‘Never Trump’ runs throughout the article like a lightning bolt – but then the magazine the writer is part of is exceedingly anti Trump.
“What Kendi and Trump have in common is a desire to see power allocated in society on some basis other than ability.”
This crazy analogy is so OTT when we are in the control of the Far Left, sclerotic, senile, Bernie/Biden/ Pelosi Oligarchy who totally appoint to fill Quotas, irrespective of ability. (Kamala anyone?). Keeping Hunter out of the Press has been goal their agenda – but attacking Trumps family at the top.
As far as Turkey and Erdogan appointing his stooge to Finance Minister to keep interest zero (Erdogann even references riba in justifying it…) – well Turkey is exactly doing what Biden. via Powell, is. Both are caught between a rock and hard place. Raise interest, Crush the stock market and economy (as the debt is Huge), or let interest stay low and inflation runs wild. (17%). See how this is the same as Biden? Trump lowered the interest too – BUT there was no inflation then, BIG difference. Erdogan and Biden are keeping interest low to protect the welthy, but nail the workers..
Then when he gets to China – well he forgets to mention China has, built or being built, over one Million Excess Apartments solely built as ‘Investment’ that are of absolutely no use at all. China has urbanized, and has shrinking demographics – AND Building is 27% of the Chinese Economy! Evergrand, Defaulted yesterday – Fantasia and other mega builders are on the ropes. If property crashes 35% in china as it did in USA 2008 – that will be 2 years of China’s GDP gone in one swoop. China is sailing in rocky waters now too.
And more and more things I find wrong or questionable not worth listing. But I guess good to get writers from all sides of the issues…..
An odd article, chasing too many wild geese at once, needs to settle down and pick one.
Well said. In sum, whilst subtly pointing out the damage the Marxists are doing to America, the author has to apologise for this by not pointing out the sheer racism involved in so-called “critical race theory”; by pretending to an equivalence between the “theorists” and Trump – at worst, a relatively harmless lunatic – and by leaping as quickly as possible from America’s domestic turmoil into fruitless analogies with Turkey. One of the reasons the “woke” are driving all before them is that too many of their opponents are myopic and half hearted, in just this style.
This articles seems to me to be a straightforward case for promoting people based on their competence to do the job rather than any other criteria.
Its 2 decades since Clinton and Blair abandoned the Western working classes in favour of globalisation. The fruits of that, and the fatuous identity struggle they endorsed to mask their abandonment, are now all too visible in the demand for equity.
In a majority white western country, with a fully franchised electorate, a competent politician could not lose an election on a platform of repatriating jobs, controlling immigration, exiting foreign wars and pushing back on woke excess … but Trump did. And he really did. To think that 63 court cases, across multiple jurisdictions, were politically influenced posits a corruption of the American legal system that is just not credible.
If anyone is going to take on the deep state, the first requirement would be a solid team of truly committed and intelligent lieutenants. Instead we had the embarrassing spectacle of the relentlessly revolving White House door and, as the author points out, a central team qualified only by family relationship or sycophancy.
To expect to upend the cultural control of the woke, decades in the making, by a few decrees was just naive (and was almost entirely reversed on day 1). There are so many fault lines through that movement that igniting their own civil war should be entirely possible to anybody with some political nous. Instead he managed to put together an almost impossible coalition of interests united only in their abhorrence of him.
This whole article is about getting competence into positions where it matters. Trump had 4 years to demonstrate his competence at running a country and failed utterly.
He is demonstrably a catastrophically bad statesman but his oratory skills, and the ongoing hold on the Republican party that they give him, may split the votes of the right and will continue to alienate moderates and independents. As somebody who is horrified by the woke, I am appalled that he may yet give Biden, and the murky controllers behind him, another 6 years to solidify their grip.
Fantastic article that summarizes the major choices facing the US if it’s not to continue its slide down the national league table. I’d love to read a follow-on article by this author describing how the US can begin the process of making the critical choices he outlines. Currently the most influential people appear entirely caught up in the culture wars.
I’d give this article an A+ for the opening paragraph alone:
“The United States has long enjoyed the exorbitant privilege of letting its domestic cultural psychodramas determine the shape of its politics. Foreign policy has projected the fantasies of American elites onto the rest of the world, sometimes violently; at home, politics has transformed into an entertaining pageant of frivolity.“
I think we read different articles – I never read such overtly formed agenda, which skirts the truth every way.
He seems to be arguing for a high calibre technocracy to take over and supplant normal politics. That, I believe, was the basis on which the EU (or the old EEC) came into existence; and look how that’s ended up.
I didn’t read it that way. For me he’s simply saying that the route to advancement in any field should be competence. Increasingly it’s not.
Advancement in the US requires either a relative in high places, membership of an accepted victim group, or the ability to quote the right political mantras (on both right and left.)
He’s right, that’s a route to disaster. A recent article on here about South Africa, where all three of those routes to success trump competence in every sphere, sets out the future for the US if it persists with this route.
The high calibre troops are, in fact, the swamp of embedded forever unelected people who actually run the show.
I find this naivety astonishing. Do you really believe the people who have hitherto held the offices of power in America have been the most competent in the land? Is that why the revolting offspring of Joe Kennedy have stalked the corridors of power for decades?
Trumpism is a response to wokeism and failed centre left social democratic globalist policies.
Get rid of one, the other will fall away.
Exactly. Trump is a symptom not a cause.
“…An unsettling truth is that the American democratic system no longer functions as a reliable mechanism for elevating the most competent people to political responsibility. The legitimate, democratic election of a wildly inexperienced and unfit candidate such as Donald Trump, partisan considerations aside, raised uncomfortable questions about whether the their system for choosing leaders by popular acclaim is indeed better for society than the Chinese Communist Party’s consensus-based appointments of capable technocrats…”
Flatly, flatly disagree with this stance. This is advocating rule by elites, and there are no circumstances this can be endorsed.
The article seems to ignore the role of the rule of law and a stable investment climate in economic growth. Trump and his supporters cut regulations and corporate taxes, facilitating economic growth. Biden canceled drilling leases on federal land, and threatened new arbitrary regulation of energy production and use. Under Trump, the US reached record levels of oil and natural gas production, which vanished quickly with Biden’s regulatory actions and threats.
It always amazes me that the role of realtively free market capitalism, which is responsible for humanity’s rise from poverty since 1600, is completely ignored in discussions about how to compete with China. It seems obvious that the more free market, and less regulation and taxes, we have, the greater our economic growth and innovation will be. Any People’s Republic will lose such a competition.
As to Trump’s incompetent son in law, Jared Kushner, he did manage to negotiate the Abraham accords between Israel and several Gulf Arab states. Is that unique outstanding accomplishment chopped liver, or just ignored because Orange Man Bad?
The success of one 4 year term as POTUS must be expunged from our collective thought. Orange Man did much of what he campaigned on and, what you say above, while being in politics for only 4 years. Not 50 years like so many others, who have nothing to show for it, other than huge increases in personal wealth.
I quite agree. Trump was enabling the miracle of capitalism to thrive. Look at the spat between Elizabeth Warren and Elon Musk and pick your side wisely.
The “what” is that not all states have the same idea of what the future looks like. It matters. The “why”, is why you read Unherd still?
Excellent essay thanks.
I think this was a good job–more like Lebanon is where we are headed. Antifa’s interest will soon be represented by their own party, they will part ways with the Democrats. What the author could have mentioned:
“wildly inexperienced and unfit candidate such as Donald Trump” – and, err, one J Biden isn’t?!! Yes, he’s a very experienced swamp dweller, and also apparently gaga, but really, better in any respect than his (genuinely) democratically elected predecessor?
However much you dislike Trump personally, he has spent a lifetime (admittedly with certain advantages) trying to make an actual living. He also said what he thought was wrong with the country and its politics and attempted, maybe ineffectually, to do what he said he would do. And he did in fact do several things. Like not kill too many people. Create some jobs. Stop illegal immingrants undermining the labour market. And not giving a f—k about the MSM. Wish we had one. Unfortunately it’s not just about having weird hair.
Absolutely agree
You’d honestly think that the rest of the pompous world was waiting for America to pull up its socks so that the whole world can move on; waiting for America, and America alone, to … get with the programme.
America had in fact pulled itself up by its bootstraps a long time ago – the socks long pulled up. Without America having taken a good look at itself over decades, indeed over centuries, the human rights situation of the entire world would be in even a greater disorder many times over than what it is today. America went out on a limb. And for having done so, it’s easy to point out America’s shameful episodes. The rest of the decrepit, lazy, feckless modern world, so prone to scoffing at the idea of America, at least has America to thank because of its role as the stunning star of the whole show, who attracts all the gazes and stares, and in whom the cynics see only her faults magnificently magnified. The talk, as ever, of the town!
I’d love to read an essay written by you on matters you consider important.
That’s just about sheer numbers
As opposd to what ?
Sheer smells ?
I cannot believe anyone seriously entertains the idea that racism against white (non black) people is a suitable policy.