In Brief: First, Economic Insecurity, Now Straw Man Arguments
Another Case of the Media, Trumpers, and the Curse of Both Siderism
Here we go.
“To understand how the populist right sees the world, it helps to go back to the last time the left was “banging on the windows of the institutions.” The period after World War II was a time of strong political consensus in America, which a “new left” rose up to challenge. There are clear parallels between today’s populist right and the new left movement that exploded in the 1960s and 1970s.”
“C. Wright Mills, a sociologist at Columbia University, was that movement’s intellectual godfather. Consider a passage from his 1956 bestseller, “The Power Elite,” a polemical attack on the structure of America’s institutions that would inspire a generation of new left activists:”
What?
It gets better.
“The power elite] are in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society. They rule the big corporations. They run the machinery of the state and claim its prerogatives. They direct the military establishment. They occupy the strategic command posts of the social structure, in which are now centered the effective means of the power and the wealth and the celebrity which they enjoy.”
By Jason Willick, Washington Post, September 5, 2022
I saw this guy on TV this morning. I was just waking up and listening half asleep. But I jerked away when he presented his thesis—-that what’s happening with the American Right is akin to what happened to the late 1950s/1960s left’s moral suasion for equality, freedom, and Justice.
Wait! What?
And the Washington Post published this specious argument? Totally ridiculous comparison.
I honestly thought it was clickbait.
The author half read C Wright Mills’ critique of American elitism. In The Power Elite, C. Wright Mills analyzed the confluence of class, capitalism, and militarism in America through a reasoned, fact-based framework. This is nothing like the self-interested, paranoid and disingenuous bunk emanating from the modern Right, who, let’s face it, are chock full of well apportioned elites who want power just for the sake of having it.
As one commenter said, “there’s a world of difference between a sociological, historically-grounded analysis of power vs. a weaponized propaganda campaign aimed at convincing Americans there's a secret cabal of communist/evil liberals who are running the US from the shadows like the Protocols of Zion (or it's dumber 2.0 version, Qanon).”
Generally, Mills argued that there are three institutional orders - the corporate, the political and the military - which together form a power elite that wields considerable control over society. This power elite is not motivated by the public good, but by private interests.
Hmmmmm…sounds familiar.
But you don’t have to know anything about Mills to understand that there’s a fundamental difference between what happened in the 60s and what’s happening now. The author’s own so-called argument points that out. The glaring consensus: the ones complaining are selective in their diatribes and it just so happens that those complaints align with the boogeymen Trump lines up in his meandering rallies.
Did the non-violent civil rights activists of the 1960s who were fighting for inclusion in basic American life advocate and work toward overthrowing the government?
Violent insurrection?
Were the 1969s anti-war activists and women’s right pioneers critiquing power by letting themselves be led by billionaires like the Koch brothers, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and even Trump himself?
Are the Trump Party —-the party of law and order—-against law enforcement overreach because they have actually BEEN abused like Black folks—-or are they temporarily against the Justice Department and the FBI because those organizations had the temerity to raid Dear Leader’s compound?
I could go on…but you get the gist. One more outrage. Getting my blood pressure up.