New Pro-Trump Intellectual Journal?

At the beginning of the year, several versions of the same story appeared in various media outlets. They all covered the same topic: the creation of a new academic policy journal (the type DC think tank wonks take to fight over ideas and dictate future policy) that would intellectualize Trumpism. Its called American Affairs.

The first volume is already out, and its loaded with ideas on future policy. Its notable because one of the contributors is Michael Anton aka "Publius Decius Mus" aka one of Trump's new senior security staffers. He's been called "the most interesting man in the White House" and has been compared to Carl Schmitt, the political theorist whose ideas had a huge effect on the development of the Nazi party. In other words, one of the ideological godfathers to Trumpism.

The journal's editorial statement says the following (this is just the first half):

The conventional party platforms no longer address or even comprehend the most pressing challenges facing American institutions. Economic mobility is down and inequality is up, while growth, productivity, and wages are nearly stagnant. Trust in government is at historic lows. Crime and drug abuse are increasing, while families and communities are disintegrating. Social discord, frequently inflamed by proliferating versions of identity politics, is becoming more prevalent. The foreign policies of the last two decades have resulted, too often, in failure and strategic incoherence.

Yet many of our so-called elites ignore these problems. Instead, they bemoan the rise of a populism—from both the Right and the Left—that is said to endanger the very foundations of our political system, of our national mores, and even of democracy itself. This conventional narrative is as false as it is self-serving, revealing only the insularity of our politicians and the status anxieties of our intellectuals.

On the contrary, what if public discontent is a reasonable response to a misguided and complacent elite consensus? What if the people are not too populist, but rather our elite is not truly elite? What if “the real problem with our republic,” as Walter Russell Mead put it, “is that what should be our leadership elite is soul-sick: vain, restless, easily miffed, intellectually confused, jealous”?

This intellectual confusion is most apparent in our reliance on decades-old ideological categories. The leadership of both political parties has tried and failed to fit burgeoning popular discontent into the old definitions of conservatism and progressivism. Far from clarifying the most critical issues, however, these categories only obscure them.

The distance between constituency and ideology has grown on both sides, feeding an ideological polarization out of step with the interests of voters. American political theatre stages ever shriller battles over increasingly trivial matters. Yet the circus atmosphere only distracts attention from the paucity of substantive debate on essential questions. Beneath Washington’s hollow sloganeering, both parties have subscribed to the same woefully inadequate policy consensus on major issues of foreign and domestic policy.

At home, we have heard endless calls for new New Deals and another Reagan Revolution. Yet, today, Americans spend more on education, and our students perform worse. We spend more on health care and receive less. We spend more per unit of infrastructure and build less. We spend more on defense and get the F-35 debacle. We have lower taxes but slower economic growth. We have more finance but less investment.

Concerning foreign affairs, speeches about our obligations to “promote democracy” and our “responsibility to protect” trade places with predictable regularity. Yet what have we accomplished except the promotion of chaos and the irresponsible squandering of hard-won strategic advantages?

Among the commentators tasked with appraising our situation, it has become fashionable to criticize the “nostalgia” of voters seeking better government and better livelihoods. These desires, we are told, are nothing but impossible and counterproductive illusions. Like all clichés, this one contains some truth. But our intellectuals as well as our politicians are subservient to an even more debilitating nostalgia, which views the ideologies of the last few decades as the only alternatives and their policies as the only solutions. They are nostalgic for a present they think they inhabit, but which has already slipped away.

These ossified intellectual orthodoxies have rewarded partisan loyalty over genuine insight. The resulting political culture has promoted a peculiar hybrid of extremism and careerism at the expense of good governance.

American Affairs rejects this degradation of our political discourse. We seek to provide a forum for the discussion of new policies that are outside of the conventional dogmas, and a platform for new voices distinguished by originality, experience, and achievement rather than the compromised credentials of careerist institutions. We believe that recognizing failures and encouraging new ideas are not betrayals of American “optimism” but are instead healthier expressions of it.

Its probably best to keep an eye on this journal and see what people propose.

Pro-Trump and intellectual are mutually exclusive

a reply to: damwel
Yea... I was going to suggest that is an oxymoron. With extra moron.

a reply to: Geheimnis

Thanks for the link Geheimnis , sadly it's only free for the first month and although subscription is only $20 per year I doubt it's a subscription I'll be taking.

What if “the real problem with our republic,” as Walter Russell Mead put it, “is that what should be our leadership elite is soul-sick: vain, restless, easily miffed, intellectually confused, jealous”?

Reminds me of someone but I can't quite put a name to him.

The two posts above are exactly what is wrong with the current political climate.

No contribution to the discussion, no insight or original ideas just immediate partisan sniping. Which seems to be precisely what the group in the OP is attempting to remedy.

I think it's a tall task when it appears that even a civil discussion unachievable.

originally posted by: damwel
Pro-Trump and intellectual are mutually exclusive

Such thinking is probably a major contributing factor to why he won the election.

a reply to: watchitburn
Oh for the love of God take a pill. Those of us not under the spell of the Supreme Donald are under constant attack by his sycophants. Pick any thread at random and my point will be self-evident. What's wrong with the 'political climate' is that a large number of people can't tell when they're being told what they want to hear. And then when evidence to the contrary starts to become abundantly clear they cling viciously to their position preferring to be 'right' rather than acknowledging that we're in trouble. And what 'contribution' did YOU make to the discussion? Are you the arbiter of all 'meaningful' discussion?

originally posted by: jtma508
a reply to: damwel
Yea... I was going to suggest that is an oxymoron. With extra moron.

Beat me to it.

a reply to: jtma508

So you pop up in threads, hurl insults to people then bitch when you are called out. Unheard of.

a reply to: jtma508

Now what he should have done was, after making his original post, then added something insightful and meaningful to the conversation. Me? I have no interest in bringing anything meaningful to the table. Trump sucks and terrifies me. Although I may be more worried about him getting impeached and Pence getting in!!! o_O!!!

originally posted by: damwel
Pro-Trump and intellectual are mutually exclusive

And what would you term the behaviour of adults that behaved like petulant children by damaging and destroying property when they didn't get the result they wanted?

a reply to: jtma508

That's my point exactly and it goes for both sides.

Thank you for demonstrating the problem in such an efficient manner.

You tell em Jtma. They don't want to accept it though. It is already glaring to a lot of us. Just like Trump condemning anti-semitism because his daughter is Jewish. We isn't he saying the same thing about Muslims?

What exactly comprises the defintion of an "intellectual journal"?

Will the articles be peer-reviewed?

Will the contributors have standing in their fields of expertise?

Etc.

It seems to me that the claim for any work that only exists to support a particular "-ism" seems doomed if the goal is reasonable informed analysis. Any political theory has holes in it.

On a side note, those of you complaining about others complaining are still complaining; you're no different from those you're condemning.

To the OP: How can you title your thread 'Pro-Trump'? The editorial snippet you provided calls-out the very things Trump is doing. My read of it says that the political sphere (the Elites) have totally lost touch with the visceral issues of our country and culture. They dismiss our concerns out-of-hand and push agendas that are self-serving. That's exactly what's going on in the billionaire boys club plus one.

It actually has some articles worth reading.

The piece on The Anxieties of Conservatism actually goes in to a bit of the Southern Strategy and touches briefly on the influence of Right Wing think tanks.

Beginning with the Reagan presidency, a new conservative intellectual and political apparatus began to trade upon the GOP’s finally successful postwar reorganization. The New Majority was receptive to conservative ideas, and conservative institutions began to propagate them widely. In addition, conservative think tanks were no longer mere participants in the marketplace of ideas but had become a new site of power themselves. Yet, at the same time, the debates internal to conservatism effectively stalled out. The fusion of the Republican business class with its reliable new Southern base had succeeded, and its success meant that the old intraconservative debates were politically neutralized, with the upper hand going to the think tanks and journals that had signed on to the fusionism then ascendant. With the Heritage Foundation at their head, the think tanks of the American Right rolled out fusionism not only as a component of understanding the (temporary) New Majority, but as the essence of conservatism itself—something few if any conservative thinkers had ever really held. More than anything else, fusionism became the term of art applied to the disparate postwar conservative intellectual movement.

americanaffairsjournal.org...

We need more "conservatives" to understand how the parties effectively did a massive switch after the Civil Rights era and how the Democrats of old comprise much of what the Republican party is today.

a reply to: Geheimnis

The author is exactly right. Good read. Thanks for sharing.

originally posted by: watchitburn
The two posts above are exactly what is wrong with the current political climate.

No contribution to the discussion, no insight or original ideas just immediate partisan sniping. Which seems to be precisely what the group in the OP is attempting to remedy.

I think it's a tall task when it appears that even a civil discussion unachievable.

And your post only disagrees with the posts in a Righteous manner, how does that help the discussion?

a reply to: Gryphon66

No idea about peer-review, but the qualifications authors give some indication of whether its an intellectual journal or not: a professor of political theory from Georgetown, a fellow and research assistant political professor from Notre Dame, a former banking executive with his own book and on the board of Asia Times Holdings, a lecturer at Harvard, a head of a think tank, etc.

A number of the articles themselves are pretty good and well written, which is a good indicator.

Plus other publications refer to it as such. The National Review's article on this literally has the headline "The Intellectual Journal of Trumpism Is Born". Thats the kind of label that just sticks.

a reply to: jtma508

Besides that the cited media stories all call the journal pro-Trump or "trying to explain" Trumpism, that one of Trump's more well known senior national security staffers wrote for it, and that a quick skim through some of the articles show a sort of "attack on the conservative status quo" mentality?

Short of Trump himself praising it, I don't know what other proof could be offered. Its self evident.

a reply to: Geheimnis

Thanks for your answer. I'm sure that "the intellectual journal of Trumpism" really thrills some folks.

Others probably find it hilarious.