In response to the recent renascence of antisemitism, a number of analysts have made the point that the United States is not simply a Christian nation but a Judeo-Christian one, founded on a Protestantism that, in contrast with Catholicism, emphasizes the covenantal aspect of the nation’s founding. Which is to say that American Protestantism is more conscious than European of the Old Testament’s focus on the creation of a nation that, unlike the other nations of the world, was founded as the home of a new people, one not defined by blood ties but, on the analogy of the newness of Hebrew monotheism, by adherence to the values affirmed in the Declaration of Independence, as the Hebrew nation was consecrated to the Ten Commandments.
It is surely a sad irony that the inspiration for the quasi-pogroms that have dotted our own landscape, although far less violent than those we have seen in Europe and of course in the Middle East, is an importation from this original Hebrew homeland, whose Palestinian inhabitants have infused a sense of purpose into anti-Zionist demonstrations, as well, by extension, from a Europe that so far has done little to belie the Islamist vision of “Eurabia” (Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye’Or: UNKNO, 2005), or indeed that of Houellebecq’s 2015 Soumission, which ends with France under the control of Islam. Yet for the moment, this threat remains virtual rather than real, putting to the test the residual energy of the Westphalian national system, which shows itself increasingly challenged in Europe (not to speak of Africa, Latin America…) in the face not only of Islamist jihad but of the empire-building tendencies of Chinese communism on the one hand and Russian neo-imperialism on the other.
This raises the question of the place of the American mode of statehood and its continuing potential to serve as a model for the other nations of the world. Trump’s victory at a time when many had feared the worst has demonstrated once more the resilience of the American polity. Indeed, the very names of our two major parties, a configuration not far from two centuries old, reflect not merely the tension between democracy and republicanism, but also their ability to interact and indeed work together without either absorbing the other. This is an ability largely lacking in the European parties, whatever their names, whose division between “left” and “right,” as figured by the 1789 Assemblée Nationale, lacks the organic connection that our two parties, however mutually hostile they may at times become, will always share. Just as the failure of French President Macron’s first attempt at a center coalition opposed to both Left and Right extremes was just demonstrated by the latter’s joint decision to join forces, however much they detest each other, to bring down his attempted center-right government.
In this perspective, Trump’s victory should not be seen as simply a triumph over the Democrats, but as providing them with a lesson to rethink their policies in the spirit of American democracy, which cannot continue to descend into the demagogy that the recent excesses of Wokism have so clearly manifested. Indeed, the Democrats’ decision to replace Biden, even if they had no choice other than his embarrassingly untalented vice-president, reflects their tacit recognition that Biden himself was chosen for no personal talents other than being a familiar figure who was not-Trump, and that in descending from a party of popular democracy to a party of racial demagogy, the Democrats were in effect declaring their bankruptcy. The failure of this decision provides a tacit avowal of their need to sever their ties with the radical Left and become once more the party of Roosevelt and Truman—which may take a little while!
It is far too early to start cheering, but Trump, for all his “unprofessional” style, is a true political leader whose instincts have served both him and the country well. I was encouraged to note in reading the December (post-election) issue of Commentary that the supercilious tone remarked on in Chronicle 810 is scarcely apparent. Indeed, Trump’s faith in what we can only call his genius has been borne out.
Some geniuses “fit in,” but the hallmark of the genre is their ability to have faith in themselves when (almost) everyone else thinks of them as figures of fun, or simply as “playing out of their league.” This often implies committing a certain number of tactical errors that others interpret as displays of arrogance, as though retaining faith in one’s gut intuitions—in what is, for any individual, his sense of the sacred—were a blasphemy against authority and thus ultimately against the One God. But on the contrary, such “arrogance” is the sign of faith unsupported by external corroboration—the only real sense of “faith”—without which no greatness is possible.
Our attribution of this sense of self-confidence to God is not in fact a gesture of self-abnegating humility, but one of accepting that what I find in myself is not my own creation, but that of the human in general and my particular formation within it in particular. To be thus “chosen” to embody a new insight into human reality is a privilege that the individual must consider not as placing him above his fellows but rather in their service, obliged to make the best gift possible of this insight to his people and ultimately to humanity—which, as we should remember, was born with the first différance, the first renunciation of an act for oneself that became a sign for others to share.
In WWII, Roosevelt was obliged by the urgency of the Japanese conquest of the Pacific to put together a group of industrialists and scientists who would reward his faith in the American polity and secure victory in the wake of the humiliating setback at Pearl Harbor. Trump’s task is not of this degree of urgency, but it is nonetheless comparable, in that several generations without major conflict—and without the military draft—have dulled our sense of danger. The 23 years that separated 1918 from 1941 bear no comparison to the 79 years that separate us from 1945, or even the 51 from the end of the Vietnam conflict that last involved American conscript troops. Trump’s inclusion in his cabinet of Elon Musk, the Edison/Ford of our era, is a sign that he recognizes the urgency of this new era of conflict, one that does not oppose us to foes as formidable as the Axis powers, but that possesses a worldwide dimension that the Atlantic-Pacific element of WWII only hinted at.
One must say on behalf of the Islamists/jihadists that, like the Nazis (and Communists) before them, they have been willing to put their lives on the line for their cruel beliefs at a time when decadent Westerners are wasting their emotions on victimary thinking. But whether or not this is the “final conflict” predicted by the Internationale—and all of history is there to tell us that it is not—we cannot get past it by seeking compromises and blaming the nation of our elder brothers for the shamefully inappropriate crime of genocide.
With every passing year, the genius of Churchill’s WSWEATO** definition of the democratic-republican free-market system, which we might just as well call “capitalism,” becomes a bit clearer: it is surely messy, but in the end it gets things done, because it maximally realizes, far more than any top-down system that purports to do so, the Communist Manifesto’s promise of “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” with neither a gulag nor a Nomenklatura—no doubt imperfectly, but as the man said… And we must recognize that, at least so far, the USA has been the one nation that, however imperfectly, has best maintained the spirit of this system, economically as well as politically.
The sudden collapse of Assad’s Syrian regime appears to be the penultimate stroke before the disintegration of the Iranian “empire” in the Middle-East, from which just over a year ago a vicious pogrom was launched in the hope of bringing down the Jewish state. Given the lack of popular support for the mullahs’ regime on the one hand and its minority Shia base on the other, it is curious that it was Iran that led the consortium of jihadists against Israel. Yet, not long ago, voices were heard suggesting that we, and presumably the Israelis as well, should defend Assad against the regime’s enemies in an effort to improve relations with Russia, his other chief sponsor. And now that both Russia and Iran have demonstrated their weakness, and Trump has wisely declared that the US will not get involved in Syria’s internal affairs, we might wonder how the consequent bolstering of Turkey’s own imperial ambitions along with those of the Sunni jihadists will pan out. But the fact remains that the sequence of events initiated with the vicious pogrom on October 7 of last year has demonstrated, to the surprise and relief of many, Israel’s ability to decisively defeat its enemies and thereby demonstrate its standing as the “strong horse” in its corner of the world.
Can the recent surge of antisemitism survive such a demonstration of Jewish power? Not, I think, if the US, as it will presumably under Trump, stands firmly beside it. Israel has no territorial ambitions beyond the “west Bank” areas inhabited mostly by the Palestinians and a few strategic points such as the Golan Heights and now Mount Hermon. If the end of the Gaza war can be—as is far from certain—the beginning of the end for the current spate of neo-jihadism, there is no a priori reason why a gradual emancipation of these territories cannot eventually lead to the creation of a Palestinian state as not an enemy but a partner to Israel.
Indeed, if the display of Israeli power and ingenuity that 10/7 aroused can eventually convince all its neighbors that the Jewish state is there to stay, not as an enemy but as a helpful neighbor, the Middle East has the potential of evolving into a new area of growth and international cooperation that can serve as a model for our gradually emerging global society. If the Abrahamic religions can truly come to see each other as “brothers,” anything is possible.
**Worst System With the Exception of All The Others