Madeleine Albright and the Debacle of Western Politics

I am bored by reading people who are allies, people of roughly the same views. What is interesting is to read the enemy, because the enemy penetrates the defences.
Isaiah Berlin

Anyway, distinctions no longer mattered in a dance of death, where all the dancers spun on the edge of nothing.
Anna Kavan, Ice (1967)

The darker the reality, the brighter the speech.
Jacques Ellul

64th Secretary of State of the United States (and first woman to serve in that position). Chair of the Albright Stonebridge Group and Albright Capital Management. Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Chair of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. President of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, American highest civilian honor, in recognition of her contributions to international peace and democracy…

With such an impressive curriculum, one could assume that Madeleine Albright is fully capable of providing a satisfying, in-depth analysis of the increasing weakness afflicting liberal democracies all over the world. Brexit, the rise of Trump and the ongoing protests in Paris are just a few examples of an underlying malaise which is channeling popular rage against the traditional establishment. What is happening? The answer she provides in her latest book – Fascism: A warning (2018) – is not clear at all. And she is the first one to admit it:

In my twenty-plus years as a professor, I have learned to ask myself, when I am not getting good answers, whether it is because I haven’t been looking in the right places. I wonder now whether we, as democratic citizens, have been remiss in forming the right questions. (pp. 249-250)

If Mrs Albright were not as blind as Steven Pinker, she would probably be able to understand that she cannot form the right questions because she cannot (or does not want to) think out of the liberal democratic paradigm she has been worshiping so faithfully (and with a massive dose of hypocrisy) for some decades. Since the book is meant to be a warning against the resurgence of Fascism in the twenty-first century, many pages are dedicated to Fascist dictators and the undeniable disasters they have unleashed all over the world during the last century.
According to Mrs Albright,

[A] Fascist is someone who claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is utterly unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use violence and whatever other means are necessary to achieve the goals he or she might have. (p. 245)

Trump – it goes without saying – can surely and easily be labelled as a Fascist. But the fact that he also happens to be the forty-fifth president of the United States creates a profound cognitive dissonance in Mrs Albright’s mind:

Throughout my adult life, I have felt that America could be counted on to put obstacles in the way of any such leader, party, or movement. I never thought that, at age eighty, I would begin to have doubts. (p. 246)

By the way, there is no need to panic. A quite simple explanation can be eventually found:

Trump (…) is president because he convinced enough voters in the right states that he was a teller of blunt truths, a masterful negotiator, and an effective champion of American interests. (p. 246)

In other words, cheating is what allowed Trump to enter the White House. And now, suddenly, the Free World is menaced by a resurgence of authoritarian populism which could not have been predicted just a few years ago.
There are only three possibilities to explain why Mrs Albright has come up with such a naïve and simplistic narrative: (1) she has spent the last seventy years on another planet; (2) she is just fabricating propaganda for the establishment to which she belongs; (3) she is in good faith, but… she is ignoring things that could seriously harm her liberal democratic, politically correct and morally superior soul.

The US vs. Fascism
Let’s consider, in the first place, Mrs Albright’s ridiculous statement about the US “putting obstacles” in the way of Fascist leaders, parties or movements. In this case, I would opt for the “propaganda” interpretation, for anyone sufficiently acquainted with the history of the last seventy years does know that the US government has always done precisely the opposite. Blum (2003) reminds us that

From 1945 to the end of the century, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair. (p. 2)

It is widely known, for example, that the CIA-backed coup carried out in Chile in 1973 overthrew a democratically elected Socialist government, that of Salvador Allende, in favor of… a Fascist dictatorship led by Augusto Pinochet – a seventeen-year brutal regime during which the people killed, tortured or imprisoned for political reasons were more than 40,000. It is not by accident that Noam Chomsky, in a speech given around 1990, famously pointed out that

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. By violation of the Nuremberg laws I mean the same kind of crimes for which people were hanged in Nuremberg. And Nuremberg means Nuremberg and Tokyo. So first of all you’ve got to think back as to what people were hanged for at Nuremberg and Tokyo. And once you think back, the question doesn’t even require a moment’s waste of time.

In her bestseller, Mrs Albright curiously forgets to analyse the not-so-irrelevant case of Israel, which – together with another great democracy like Saudi Arabia – is one of the US’ closest allies. If Mrs Albright were intellectually honest enough to apply her own definition of Fascism to Israel, she would quickly realize that this country – at least in relation to the Palestinian tragedy – is very likely to suit, more or less, all requirements. The Oscar-nominated documentary The Gatekeepers (2012), featuring a set of interviews with all surviving former heads of the Israeli security agency Shin Bet, shows that Israel – especially over the last two decades – has clearly crossed the line while the US and Mrs Albright were looking elsewhere.

The canary in the coal mine
Second, the explanation provided by Mrs Albright to justify the unexpected victory of Trump is incredibly narrow and superficial. In this case, I would use the “intellectual blindness” interpretation to understand what is (not) going on in her mind. Defending or justifying Donald Trump is the last thing I want to do. But Trump is not the main problem: more than anything else, he is the canary in the coal mine. This has been recognized even by a cultivated liberal democrat like Financial Times journalist Edward Luce (2017):

Donald Trump, and his counterparts in Europe, did not cause the crisis of democratic liberalism. They are a symptom. (p. 11)

A symptom of what, exactly? A symptom of the Western political debacle we have been witnessing for some decades, especially after the fall of the Berlin Wall. With the help of prestigious (liberal democratic) scholars such as Francis Fukuyama, Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck, Western politicians celebrated the “end of history” and the rise of the “Third Way”: it was the triumph of a “post-political” vision founded explicitly on freedom, equality, individuality, rationality, dialogue, political correctness, centrality of techno-economic and ethical issues, consumerism, “free markets” and GDP-centred growth; implicitly, on staggering wealth inequality, strong monopolistic tendencies and a sneaky, pervasive social control achieved through mass surveillance and hyper-stimulation.

The result, as political theorist Chantal Mouffe (2005) put it, is that strong collective identities, as well as any kind of strong antagonism, have been put aside; and that the boundaries between left and right have become increasingly blurred. If one may think of the War on Terror launched by the Bush administration in 2001 as an exception in this picture, it would be opportune to consider that even that war was framed in ethical terms as a clash between Good and Evil, and not as an antagonism between two legitimate adversaries (Mouffe, 2005). “In one way or another”, wrote Luce (2017), “the technocratic mindset has gripped political elites across the Western world” (p. 88), and the World Economic Forum of Davos “has become the emblem of a global elite that has lost its ability to listen” (p. 71) – the emblem of a technocratic mindset that can produce discourses like the ones below (quoted in Luce, 2017):

To some extent, the cultural challenges associated with immigration could be tackled by getting better to communicate change: data show that voters will change their views on cultural changes in society if politicians highlight the assimilation already taking place.
(p. 70)

One potential solution [to the crisis of democracy] could be to make better use of technology in the process of government – not only to deliver services in a faster, more transparent, inclusive and consumer-oriented way, but also to establish a ‘digital public square’ with more direct communication between leaders and people. (p. 70)

In both discourses, it is quite evident the way in which the core issues have been shifted from a potentially adversarial dimension to a discursive one, in which any problem can (must) be solved just by improving communication and discussion. After all, these discourses are much more indebted to science, technology and marketing than to politics. The “political”, defined by Mouffe (2005) as the dimension of an antagonism that is constitutive of human societies, has been completely removed. And whenever this happens, antagonism is destined to come back through channels different from those allowed by mainstream politics:

When democratic politics has lost its capacity to mobilize people around distinct political projects and when it limits itself to securing the necessary conditions for the smooth working of the market, the conditions are ripe for political demagogues to articulate popular frustration. (p. 70)

Brexit and Trump fit quite well into this picture, don’t they? The nationalism to which they give expression – self-harming as it can be – could be also considered as the flip side of the identity politics that is becoming almost an obsession for the liberal democrats on both sides of the Atlantic.

Hegemonic tendencies
Carl Schmitt (1976) argued that there is no inclusion without exclusion, no norm without an exception – and he criticized liberalism’s pretence of achieving a complete inclusiveness and of speaking in the name of humanity as a whole. This pretence, after all, suggests a hegemonic tendency which is particularly evident in the rational, universal, discursive-theoretical approach to liberal democracy developed by Jürgen Habermas (Mouffe, 2005):

Clearly, if liberal constitutional democracy is such a remarkable rational achievement – the reconciliation of the rule of law and human rights with democratic participation – on what grounds could one “rationally” object to its implementation? (p. 84)

The very idea of a “public sphere”, as conceived by Habermas (1989), is meant precisely to combine the rule of law and human rights with democratic participation by acknowledging the existence of a legitimate sphere of public debate working as a “sounding board” for the political system. When coming from a sincere commitment to democracy, this may be noble and meaningful. But there’s a key aspect that should not be overlooked. As argued by some scholars (Calhoun, 2010; Fraser, 1992), the importance given to dialogue at the expense of action (the latter being typically associated to more radical positions, mass protests and violence) could actually originate from the necessity to consolidate and preserve the power of the rulers. In simpler words, action could be rejected in favor of dialogue not for the sake of peace and democracy, but only to make sure that the existing system of power is never radically challenged by any rising force. This is why, according to Calhoun (2010), the initial structural transformation of the public sphere at the end of the eighteenth century may have been triggered not by its increasing openness, but – on the very contrary – by the expulsion of dissident voices (like that of American activist Thomas Paine) rejected for their political radicalism and/or class position. But today it is very different, isn’t it? You may ask this anonymous teacher:

For me, university is not a place where I can speak my mind. It is a place where I teach facts, present evidence and introduce a diverse range of other people’s attitudes. I seldom, if ever, make my personal opinions known, fearing accusations of bias and – ironically – of stifling free speech.

You may also think of American academic and activist Marc Lamont Hill, who was fired by CNN after speaking in favor of Palestinians. Or consider the case of former professor (and now school bus driver) Steven J. Salaita, whose tweets against Israel eventually ended his academic career. To sum up: “communication” and “cooperation” are constantly proposed as a solution to any kind of issue, but any radical idea challenging a certain status quo is very likely to be excluded by the very same public debate that should allow communication and cooperation to take place.

As paradoxical as it may sound, I think there is a subtle despotic presumption in the humanistic, liberal democratic discourse promoted by people like Mrs Albright – people convinced to be, as Barack Obama would say, “on the right side of history”. Unfortunately, their ideas have contributed to create a world in which “the North Atlantic democracies are splitting into elite technocrats, who wish they could govern without consulting the masses, and angry populists, who would like to liquidate the technocrats” (Purdy, 2015, p. 256).

Time is running out
The greatest tragedy is that, while politics is running out of ideas, common sense and lucidity (just take a look at what is happening simultaneously in France, Great Britain, Italy, US and Brazil), time to prevent an environmental collapse is running out. Young, brave people like Swedish activist Greta Thunberg are giving an extraordinary example of the degree of commitment that our age would require. But if leading and motivating by example is fundamental, it should not be forgotten that, without radical changes “in the legal and economic infrastructure that guide human energies and activities”, even a significant shift in public awareness “will mean no more than shuffling furniture between the first-class and second-class cabins of the Titanic” (Purdy, 2015, p. 261). How do we get there? Will people be able to push politicians to do what is necessary? And will citizens be ready (psychologically, materially, culturally) to make all necessary sacrifices? There is not, obviously, a single, straight answer to these questions.

What really matters is that without strong, drastic political choices we will get nowhere: and until the hegemony of certain discourses does not come to an end, such choices will not be possible. As Purdy (2015) put it, “[t]he ultimate political challenge is to limit, together and legitimately, the scope of human appetites, so that we do not exhaust and undo the living world” (p. 268)”. One of the key problems is that self-constraint – the acceptance of insurmountable limits – is precisely what technology, the goddess of our times, cannot recognize. Since the very beginning it has been conceived to overcome limits, not to accept them.

It goes without saying that, if we do not find a way to constrain ourselves, Nature will do it in our place – it is already doing it. The odds are strongly against us, but I acknowledge that bleak pessimism or panic are counter-productive. And I still believe in miracles.

Want to know more?

Blum, W. (2002). Rogue state: A guide to the world’s only superpower. London; South Africa: Zed.
Calhoun, C. (2010). The public sphere in the field of power. Social Science History, 34(3), 301-335.
Fraser, N. (1992). Rethinking the public space: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. In Calhoun, C. (Ed.). Habermas and the public sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (pp. 109-142).
Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge: Polity.
Luce, E. (2017). The retreat of Western liberalism. London: Little, Brown.
Mouffe, C. (2005). On the political. New York: Routledge.
Purdy, J. (2018). After nature: A politics for the Anthropocene (First Harvard University Press paperback ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Schmitt, C. (1976). The concept of the political. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.