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HeerJeet's profile
Jeet Heer
Jeet Heer
Jeet Heer
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@HeerJeet

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Jeet HeerVerified account

@HeerJeet

1. Writer, The Nation https://www.thenation.com/authors/jeet-heer/ … 2. email: jeetheer1967 at gmail dot com 3. Twitter essayist 4. Drawn by Joe Ollmann

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Joined June 2012

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    1. Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

      2. People have asked me why I'm obsessed with the late historian Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970). The short answer is that he's emblematic of the two paths American liberalism can pick: towards social democracy or towards an alliance with moderate Republicans.

      4 replies 16 retweets 150 likes
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    2. Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

      3. During his short life, Hofstadter had two distinct phases: a radical period in 1930s & 1940s followed by a centrist (verging on conservative) period in 1950s & 1960s (with the beginnings of a third, more radical phase cut short by his death)

      3 replies 6 retweets 70 likes
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    3. Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

      4. The young Hofstadter used the idea of consensus as a way to criticize the narrowness of American politics, the constraints of property holding individualism that was increasingly unable to deal with the collective problems of industrial society.

      1 reply 6 retweets 77 likes
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    4. Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

      5. But by 1950s, fearful of McCarthyism, Hofstadter recast the American consensus as a shield rather than a straight-jacket: a way for wise bipartisan to fend off the unruliness (and potential violence) of unchecked democracy.

      2 replies 4 retweets 66 likes
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    5. Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

      6. The anti-populist politics that Hofstadter & a few of his peers (notably Daniel Bell) hammered out in 1950s remains widely influential in elite circles: it's the consensus understanding of what is happening in west: "liberal order under siege from extremists" (Trump, Sanders)

      4 replies 9 retweets 93 likes
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    6. Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

      7. Powering this anti-populism is the belief that mass movements that threaten the bipartisan consensus are irrational (motivated by anti-intellectualism, prone to paranoid style). Again, this is not an antiquarian matter: it's how many opinion makers continue to see the world.

      1 reply 8 retweets 98 likes
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    7. Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

      8. So: what's wrong with the idea of having a smart bipartisan elite that marginalizes extreme voices of the right and left? Isn't that an attractive approach to politics? Don't we want stability and continuity?

      6 replies 4 retweets 60 likes
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    8. Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

      9. One way to see the limits of Hofstadter's vision of consensus is to say that he saw the dangers of the extreme left and extreme right but not the dangers of the extreme center: the way in which a bipartisan elite, unchecked, can carry out mad policies: Viet Nam war.

      4 replies 25 retweets 201 likes
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    9. Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

      10. Hofstader's brother-in-law, the socialist novelist Harvey Swados, read his essay on "the Paranoid style" and said: yes, you got Goldwater and the Birch Society down, but isn't what LBJ is doing in Vietnam also an example of the paranoid style.

      5 replies 10 retweets 114 likes
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    10. Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

      11. Hofstadter responded to Swados saying, LBJ's policies are wrong, but not irrational. But Swados was right: LBJ thought North Vietnam was puppet of Red China & anti-war movement simply created by communists. That was pure paranoia, as unhinged as any Birch fantasy.

      7 replies 9 retweets 128 likes
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      Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

      12. In our own day, the biggest disasters have been centrist policies: the Iraq War, the 2008 meltdown followed by quick turn to austerity. Iraq was creation of neo-cons, the most "centrist" part of GOP coalition (many are now Never Trumpers) & supported by Clinton/Biden etc.

      7:56 AM - 6 Oct 2020
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      11 replies 35 retweets 178 likes
        1. Jeet Heer‏Verified account @HeerJeet 6 Oct 2020

          13. Hofstadter's widely influential anti-populism encourages an elite complacency that has repeatedly led to disaster. More thoughts here:https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/richard-hofstadter-library-america-review/ …

          11 replies 26 retweets 155 likes
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        2. Rama‏ @photos_floues 6 Oct 2020
          Replying to @HeerJeet

          Probably an effect of the differing political environments, but hearing Bush being called a centrist is very weird. And even from a US perspective, Hacker and Pierson describe him as pandering to kleptocrats, using religious extremists, and paving the road to Trump.

          1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
        3. 4 daughters  👨‍👧‍👧 👩‍👧‍👧‏ @SoTiredofTired 6 Oct 2020
          Replying to @photos_floues @HeerJeet

          He wrote about the Iraq War being centrist but I see no mention of W, or other policies. W was extreme, but post 9/11 there was bipartisan i.e. centrist support for retaliation via the US war machine. I agree, W led to Tea party, led to MAGA. The FreeDUMB party

          0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
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        2. Jamie Dissent‏ @JamesDissent 6 Oct 2020
          Replying to @HeerJeet

          Huh!!? The COVID response is the greatest disaster of our times, dwarfing anything in decades. And the response has failed due to an incompetent populist POTUS and a large % of population deluded by anti-elitist/expertise populism, refusing to take even the most basic measures.

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        3. Berlin.AlexanderPlatz‏ @WillMcJ 6 Oct 2020
          Replying to @JamesDissent @HeerJeet

          It is the greatest disaster of our times, but its massive scope can't be laid at the feet of the 'populist' Trump alone, but has been able to wreak such havoc precisely bec of decades of neglect, hollowed out public health infrastructure, the fruits of solid bipartisan austerity

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
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        1. Cute Username‏ @UserGoogol 6 Oct 2020
          Replying to @HeerJeet

          It was centrist but it was also populist. The Iraq War was fueled by mass anger after 9-11. The opposite of populism isn't centrism, it's technocracy.

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        1. Nobody‏ @Snaq_polymerase 6 Oct 2020
          Replying to @HeerJeet

          What makes these centrist policies as opposed to extreme policies supported by people who call themselves centrist or people who are centrist in certain spheres but not in others

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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        1. Reginald Glenn  ♨️‏ @Britonomist 6 Oct 2020
          Replying to @HeerJeet

          Who was to the right of the neocons in foreign policy then? This doesn’t make much sense.

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        1. Berlin.AlexanderPlatz‏ @WillMcJ 6 Oct 2020
          Replying to @HeerJeet

          Yes, Trump was in large part a creation of neocon centrists in the Republican party, but not that alone. It was also due to centrists in the Democratic party, including Obama's 2 terms, right up to the 'Pied Piper' election strategy of Hillary Clinton - another centrist debacle.

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        1. eli b.‏ @bilditup1 6 Oct 2020
          Replying to @HeerJeet

          Austerity was a function of right-wing intransigence and nihilism, at least in the US. You have a better case for it having been centrist in like, the EU.

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