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THE PARANOID STYLE OF PATRIOTIC POPULISM.
Chris Hayes ' new article in The Nation about the mythical NAFTA Superhighway's populist backlash is interesting both for its exploration of the politics of paranoia and the nuanced manner in which Hayes approaches his subject:
In his essay "The Paranoid Style in American Politics," Richard Hofstadter famously sketched the contours of the American tradition of folk conspiracy--a tradition that has, at different times, seen its enemy in Masons, Jesuits, immigrants, Jews and Eastern bankers. There's certainly a strong continuity between that tradition and the populist/nationalist ire that drives the NAFTA highway myth. Hofstadter's original essay was motivated in part by the activities of the John Birch Society, which today is one of the leading purveyors of the highway myth.But there's something more. The myth of the NAFTA Superhighway persists and grows because it taps into deeply felt anxieties about the dizzying dislocations of twenty-first-century global capitalism: a nativist suspicion of Mexico's designs on US sovereignty, a longing for national identity, the fear of terrorism and porous borders, a growing distrust of the privatizing agenda of a government happy to sell off the people's assets to the highest bidder and a contempt for the postnational agenda of Davos-style neoliberalism.
These complicated anxieties are precisely what many politicians and beltway insiders can't quite understand:
For corporatists within both parties…selling port security or road concessions to a multinational is inevitable, logical, obvious. To thousands of average citizens in Texas and elsewhere, it's madness or, worse, treason. Both the actual TTC and the mythical NAFTA Superhighway represent a certain kind of future for America, one in which the crony capitalism of oil-rich Texas expands to fill every last crevice of the public sector's role, eclipsing the relevance of the national government as both the provider of public goods and the unified embodiment of a sovereign people…"We have so little control over our own government," she told me, the alienation audible in her voice, thunder punishing the air outside. "We are really the last beacon of freedom in the world--the land of the free and home of the brave--and we're letting it slip away from under our noses."
This belief in the exceptionalism of American freedom and democracy ties into the political debates over globalization and free trade in strange ways: America shouldn't get its food and clothes from other countries not only because it results in lost American jobs, but because it harms what America is. Of course, other countries are as free or freer, and free trade in itself -- whatever its pluses and minuses -- won't destroy American identity. But when highly patriotic people are alienated from political decision-making and there is such a strong disconnect between the reasonable suspicions of ordinary people and political actors in government, this NAFTA Superhighway backlash isn't so surprising -- it's just distrust of the free market taken to its isolationist, America-first extreme.
--Steven White
COMMENTS (11)
Of course, 2/3 of those paranoid schmucks in Texas are happily voting for the corporatists tools and cronies who run that state and this country. I can sympathize a teeny bit with their concerns, but honestly I'd just like to tell them to cry me an effing river. If they're that worried about unresponsive politics and the role of capital in ruining their lives, perhaps they could vote for candidates who don't want to gut unions, lay waste to the regulatory state, and pack the courts with pro-business hacks.
Posted by: Everett | August 14, 2007 5:33 PM
Reading that highlighted paragraph, I'd have to say Hayes calling these people paranoid or delusional is risible.
What this basically amounts to is "don't do that! you'll make the reactionaries mad."
Posted by: DRR | August 14, 2007 6:52 PM
I don't get it. Why has the entirety of the leftwing blogosphere risen up today to tell me that a proposal that is clearly being debated doesn't exist?
It might not destroy american Sovereignty, but theres no doubt that it will destroy some port jobs. I know that the left doesn't seem to care much about that these days, but it might go a long way with Americans if you DIDN'T make them compete with mexican slave labor.
Posted by: soullite | August 14, 2007 7:52 PM
Really, only a tapped liberal would say that this isn't a bad thing. If there's a backlash against NAFTA it was well earned. It was sold to America along with a whole lot of promises nobody spent an ounce of effort on pushing through. No new jobs, no real job-training (like anyone was going to a hire a newly trained 50 year old anyway), and an ever decreasing real income.
If the elite are pissed that the American people have stopped trusting them, they should probably STFU. They shouldn't be trusted, and a lot of us are tired of them whining when they control the god damned world.
Posted by: soullite | August 14, 2007 7:55 PM
Just because they aren't calling it the "NAFTA super highway" doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The Trans Texas Corridor and I-69 are real proposals. They aren't made up. Stop lying to us and start being honest.
Do you really think we're stupid enough not to realize that the corporate elite and their crony politicians would split these proposals up to hide what they're doing. We're not idiots. Stop treating us like we are.
Posted by: Soullite | August 14, 2007 8:02 PM
"Of course, 2/3 of those paranoid schmucks in Texas are happily voting for the corporatists tools and cronies who run that state and this country. I can sympathize a teeny bit with their concerns, but honestly I'd just like to tell them to cry me an effing river."
Well, then you are dumb fuck for cutting off your nose to spite your face.
"If they're that worried about unresponsive politics and the role of capital in ruining their lives, perhaps they could vote for candidates who don't want to gut unions, lay waste to the regulatory state, and pack the courts with pro-business hacks."
And that would be...?
Posted by: Anonymous | August 14, 2007 9:22 PM
Anonymous, I'm torn between being annoyed at you for lying to me when you imply that you can't tell the difference between George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton, and believing that you are, in fact, obtuse enough to be unable to tell the difference between George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton.
Posted by: NBarnes | August 14, 2007 9:51 PM
soullite (who might indeed be insane) says: Why has the entirety of the leftwing blogosphere risen up today to tell me that a proposal that is clearly being debated doesn't exist?
Because it doesn't exist. Likewise, there isn't a mailing list where those leftwing bloggers get their talking points. That doesn't exist either.
Likewise, the site spp.gov does not exist.
This article does not exist either:
A powerful think tank chaired by former Sen. Sam Nunn and guided by trustees including Richard Armitage, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Harold Brown, William Cohen and Henry Kissinger, is in the final stages of preparing a report to the White House and U.S. Congress on the benefits of integrating the U.S., Mexico and Canada into one political, economic and security bloc.
Remember: TAPPED is your friend. TAPPED is love.
Posted by: TLB | August 14, 2007 10:39 PM
We're not idiots. Stop treating us like we are.
Then stop acting like one.
Oh, and please develop a new schtick. If you're going to play the proler than thou card and deride "tapped liberals", it kind of dampens the effect when you spend your whole time visiting such haunts. Wouldn't want the effete, cosmopolitan disorders of the bougois left to taint your working class heart would ya? At the very least, if you can't develop a sticky parlor populist catchphrase or two, I would recommend just hanging out and bemoaning the mexican invasion with the other reactionaries over at VDARE.
Posted by: DRR | August 15, 2007 1:04 AM
"Anonymous, I'm torn between being annoyed at you for lying to me when you imply that you can't tell the difference between George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton, and believing that you are, in fact, obtuse enough to be unable to tell the difference between George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton."
Sure, I know the difference. HRC will be very correct in procedure and rhetoric so as to put lipstick on the global finance capitalist pig.
Maybe a little boob as well. Keep the "feminists" happy.
Posted by: Anonymous | August 15, 2007 9:27 AM
Given my predictive skills, edging up to twenty years of over the horizon thinking, tends to make one non-sensical. However, when it comes to transnational highways, there will be, in all probability, twenty of these critters, and commencing in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Why?
Once the feds at the Transportation Department and Mexico agree on a schema for transportation safety, and agreed to by the affected states, these highways will come into fruition, and big time.
Moreover, for the more informed, investors in Mexico see a "safe harbor" in the USA, an thus, invest their funds into home mortgages. In constrast, investors in the USA invest in Mexico as a "safe harbor" as well. Thus, investment in Mexico's transportation system via tractors and trailers, as well as Mexico's agricultural economy. Take, for example, think of an American-owned tomato transiting our southern border, sold to an American consumer with the profit going to an American investor. Consequently, the consumer gets a relatively inexpensive product.
In the meantime, as an Indigenous person, I get no "royalty" payment, either from the American investor or at the locally franchised Taco Bell.
Just a Thought for a Wednesday Morning.
Jaango
Posted by: Jaango | August 15, 2007 11:07 AM