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?
-
Show this thread
-
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 likesShow this thread -
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 likesShow this thread -
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 likesShow this thread -
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.
11 replies 35 retweets 178 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @HeerJeet
There’s no sense in which the Iraq War was a centrist project.
3 replies 1 retweet 2 likes -
Replying to @JamesSurowiecki @HeerJeet
What centrist politician opposed the war?
3 replies 0 retweets 3 likes -
John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, John McCain, Mitt Romney...
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
Lincoln Chafee, Kent Conrad, Robert Byrd, Jon Corzine, Dick Durbin, Bob Graham, Jim Jeffords, Patrick Leahy, Bob Menendez, Patty Murray, Nancy Pelosi, Tim Ryan, Jim Webb.
1 reply 0 retweets 1 like -
But anyway that’s not the point. The Iraq War happened solely at the instigation of the neocons. It wouldn’t have happened had Gore - the most centrist Dem imaginable -had been elected. It was a hard-right project legitimized by the manufacture of intelligence.
1 reply 0 retweets 7 likes
As I said, the neo-cons are the most centrist part of the GOP coalition. Faction started off as Cold War liberals, with ties to Scoop Jackson & DP Moynihan, have maintained many ties to centrist institutions like Washington Post, CFR, & are mostly Never Trump.
-
-
Replying to @HeerJeet @danpearson266
I know how neocons began. But defining Dick Cheney as a centrist distorts the term beyond all meaning.
2 replies 0 retweets 7 likes -
He said “most centrist”. That could be quite far right of the actual center.
0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.