One salient point of difference is that the Republicans would have America retreat from a position of great strength; preventing the future requires denying the past. The contrast with the triumphalism of the Reagan years is very marked; they are re-litigating the Cold War to make Muscovy the victors, re-fighting WWII so that they may surrender to the Nazis, and they clearly harbour ambitions of losing to the Confederates as well. Perhaps they will find virtues in King George after all.
Another salient point is that it's much easier to create a social situation when most people actually support the ideology (as was going on in Ireland) than when over half the people absolutely oppose it 100% (as is going in in the US).
Well, Republicans look at the US military and economic dominance and think "what else do we need, other than throw some little country up against the wall every so often to remind them who's boss". They see it as using our "great strength" to take what we want and make others toe the line. An advance, not a retreat. The old Republican party was mindful of the limits of brute force and the concept of blowback, to a degree, though Bush II's Excellent Adventure shows they didn't always act like it. Like Frank Sinatra and red lights, the Trump party thinks that's for other countries, not them.
"Protection racket" is perhaps the limit of Trump's thinking. But the line "we're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality" comes from the Bush administration.
To me the difference between then and now seems less the denial of external reality, which remains a fixed star, and more the diminished ambition about what reality should be created.
At this point, divining what Republicans "want" is Kremlinology. All we can do is look at their actions and work backwards. I think its more dimished imagination than ambition, along with a need to focus on shoring up control at home. To me its obvious what reality they want to create at home, America circa 1910, the heart of the Guilded Age. The desires of the capitalists, theocrats, and racists align nicely in that time. Trump has wildly distorted and corrupted (for lack of a better word) the Republican party with his manias, but the vision he offers them aligns with all of them.
As for the rest of the world, its not clear to me. Some 1910 isolationism and capitalist imperialism at the same time? Bomb Iran and appease Russia? Bomb Mexico and establish tariffs on everything? A weird mix of racist fearmongering and Great Game bullying. Trump mania and global Manifest Destiny. Damned if I can make sense of it.
I'm (half) Irish-American, representing several waves of em/immigration, most recently my paternal grandmother--born in Ireland in 1900, came to the US in 1923. A lot of what I know about present-day Ireland comes from We Don't Know Ourselves, by Fintan O'Toole, which dovetails with what you're saying.
I assume that, like O'Toole, Garvin talks about how crucial emigration was to keeping Ireland rural and poor for so long. The future could be prevented because it was outsourced, to America (and England, and Australia). The Church could mandate a (theoretically) high-birth-rate society without the result being a society with a growing population. On the contrary: the population of the Republic stayed extremely stable until around 1970--much more stable than if it was just a function of +births-deaths.
Vance's and the tradcaths' vision is of a closed, medievalesque society, but it's, as you say, at least partly based on Holy Catholic Ireland, one of the leakiest societies *ever*, a society that only kept going as long as it did because it was so leaky. Somehow I doubt they recognize that.
Trump seems to me to be a fundamental problem for common good conservatives. The "Cyrus" argument that the character of the leader doesn't matter as long as the right laws gets passed, works for at least some of the evangelical right. But as the example of Eamon Casey shows, common good conservatism relies on the belief that the leaders exemplify the morals they impose on others. Trump exemplifies moral decay in every dimension, and encourages it in others.
For example, here's Josh Hawley tying himself in knots trying to denounce people like Andrew Tate, while ignoring Tate's obvious similarity to Trump
It's weird to call that a "Cyrus" argument given that what we actually know about Cyrus says he was honest-to-goodness a person of pretty decent character, certainly better than most kings of the period.
I grinned a little at your acknowledged discretion: "I bowdlerized the quote slightly (as I recall, the precise phrase was 'the bastards have lost'.” Unfortunately, that snapped tight with recollecting the anecdotal 'primal scene' when George C Wallace announced, in the wake of his failed first gubernatorial run, heightened awareness of what still drives the conservative "Southern strategy": "'I was out-******ed, and I will never be out-******ed again'." I'm distracted, dismayed by the prospect that a majority of U.S. voters will show---not contempt for a national party's race-baiting but a stalwart appetite for politics that might constellate around techno-oligarchical entrepreneurialism and institutional evangelical Christianity but explicitly appeals to racist and misogynist shout-outs to all who identify themselves as the true "owners" of America. The thought of being back, working in Dublin, is very appealing. I feel like I'm one of the general crowd gathering at the junction where, reports have it, a terrible derailment will occur.
One salient point of difference is that the Republicans would have America retreat from a position of great strength; preventing the future requires denying the past. The contrast with the triumphalism of the Reagan years is very marked; they are re-litigating the Cold War to make Muscovy the victors, re-fighting WWII so that they may surrender to the Nazis, and they clearly harbour ambitions of losing to the Confederates as well. Perhaps they will find virtues in King George after all.
Another salient point is that it's much easier to create a social situation when most people actually support the ideology (as was going on in Ireland) than when over half the people absolutely oppose it 100% (as is going in in the US).
Well, Republicans look at the US military and economic dominance and think "what else do we need, other than throw some little country up against the wall every so often to remind them who's boss". They see it as using our "great strength" to take what we want and make others toe the line. An advance, not a retreat. The old Republican party was mindful of the limits of brute force and the concept of blowback, to a degree, though Bush II's Excellent Adventure shows they didn't always act like it. Like Frank Sinatra and red lights, the Trump party thinks that's for other countries, not them.
"Protection racket" is perhaps the limit of Trump's thinking. But the line "we're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality" comes from the Bush administration.
To me the difference between then and now seems less the denial of external reality, which remains a fixed star, and more the diminished ambition about what reality should be created.
At this point, divining what Republicans "want" is Kremlinology. All we can do is look at their actions and work backwards. I think its more dimished imagination than ambition, along with a need to focus on shoring up control at home. To me its obvious what reality they want to create at home, America circa 1910, the heart of the Guilded Age. The desires of the capitalists, theocrats, and racists align nicely in that time. Trump has wildly distorted and corrupted (for lack of a better word) the Republican party with his manias, but the vision he offers them aligns with all of them.
As for the rest of the world, its not clear to me. Some 1910 isolationism and capitalist imperialism at the same time? Bomb Iran and appease Russia? Bomb Mexico and establish tariffs on everything? A weird mix of racist fearmongering and Great Game bullying. Trump mania and global Manifest Destiny. Damned if I can make sense of it.
https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/meet-the-economist-behind-the-one-percents-stealth-takeover-of-america?s=08
I'm (half) Irish-American, representing several waves of em/immigration, most recently my paternal grandmother--born in Ireland in 1900, came to the US in 1923. A lot of what I know about present-day Ireland comes from We Don't Know Ourselves, by Fintan O'Toole, which dovetails with what you're saying.
I assume that, like O'Toole, Garvin talks about how crucial emigration was to keeping Ireland rural and poor for so long. The future could be prevented because it was outsourced, to America (and England, and Australia). The Church could mandate a (theoretically) high-birth-rate society without the result being a society with a growing population. On the contrary: the population of the Republic stayed extremely stable until around 1970--much more stable than if it was just a function of +births-deaths.
Vance's and the tradcaths' vision is of a closed, medievalesque society, but it's, as you say, at least partly based on Holy Catholic Ireland, one of the leakiest societies *ever*, a society that only kept going as long as it did because it was so leaky. Somehow I doubt they recognize that.
Sharp essay on the lessons of Ireland’s long stagnation for those who flirt with Vance’s integralism.
Trump seems to me to be a fundamental problem for common good conservatives. The "Cyrus" argument that the character of the leader doesn't matter as long as the right laws gets passed, works for at least some of the evangelical right. But as the example of Eamon Casey shows, common good conservatism relies on the belief that the leaders exemplify the morals they impose on others. Trump exemplifies moral decay in every dimension, and encourages it in others.
For example, here's Josh Hawley tying himself in knots trying to denounce people like Andrew Tate, while ignoring Tate's obvious similarity to Trump
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/09/josh-hawley-book-andrew-tate-trump-locker-room-talk
It's weird to call that a "Cyrus" argument given that what we actually know about Cyrus says he was honest-to-goodness a person of pretty decent character, certainly better than most kings of the period.
What a great post!
I grinned a little at your acknowledged discretion: "I bowdlerized the quote slightly (as I recall, the precise phrase was 'the bastards have lost'.” Unfortunately, that snapped tight with recollecting the anecdotal 'primal scene' when George C Wallace announced, in the wake of his failed first gubernatorial run, heightened awareness of what still drives the conservative "Southern strategy": "'I was out-******ed, and I will never be out-******ed again'." I'm distracted, dismayed by the prospect that a majority of U.S. voters will show---not contempt for a national party's race-baiting but a stalwart appetite for politics that might constellate around techno-oligarchical entrepreneurialism and institutional evangelical Christianity but explicitly appeals to racist and misogynist shout-outs to all who identify themselves as the true "owners" of America. The thought of being back, working in Dublin, is very appealing. I feel like I'm one of the general crowd gathering at the junction where, reports have it, a terrible derailment will occur.
Have you been back to Ireland recently? In the last thirty years?
Thank you for your kind words. I'm sorry that I don't have time to respond to all of my fan mail. But keep on truckin' !
Hawley is not and has never been a Catholic!
Thanks - fixed - I had meant to refer to his Pelagianism and it had gotten garbled.