American descent

Picked up the piece at reference 1 this (Monday) morning, by one Ben Rhodes, a journalist who moved into politics, becoming a White House staffer under Obama. Now back in journalism.

An article built around a book about the arrival on the world scene of a depressingly large number of populist leaders - the wannabee fascists - and another about the far right in the US, starting around the time of the First World War. There is also the rather earlier book by Rhodes himself.

I found it an informative piece and I almost pressed the buy button on reference 2, thinking that I could probably cope with a modest 250 pages, but was held back by a sense that the piece gave very little air time to the various failures of liberal, rules-based systems. To name but three: the skill with which some are able play those rules to amass great wealth or power; the failure to get to grips with pressing needs like building more houses that ordinary people can afford or building more prisons; and, the commissioning of far too many resource-greedy public inquiries which often achieve next to nothing, beyond playing the whole sorry business concerned into the long grass.

We shall see. The trigger finger has not quite stopped twitching.

PS 1: irritated this morning, not for the first time, by the ease with which one lands in the NYRB shop rather than in their site proper. The online version of our National Trust where all roads lead to the catering and retail outlets?

PS 2: another piece in the same number of the NYRB reminded me that the US really needs to do something about its Supreme Court and about their fixation on their Constitution as a governing text. From which I associate to the large number of people in the US who believe in the literal truth of every one of God's words, as they are to be found in the right edition of the right Bible.

References

Reference 1: American Descent: Donald Trump and right-wing strongmen like him around the world are using grievance-based nationalism to gain power. When does this sort of populism tip into fascism? - Ben Rhodes, New York Review of Book - 2024.

Reference 2: The Wannabe Fascists: A Guide to Understanding the Greatest Threat to Democracy - Federico Finchelstein - 2024.

Reference 3: America Last: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators - Jacob Heilbrunn - 2024.

Reference 4: After the Fall: Being American in the World We've Made - Ben Rhodes - 2021.