# 2 in Reflections on US Election
The Consolation of Philosophy:
A good friend called me needing consolation about the way things were going in America and possibly the whole world. I was unable to give him what he needed because I was feeling his same depression.
The election of the MAGA Party gives me terror. It contradicts almost everything I believe in. Project 205 lays the strategy for Making America Great Again by returning to an autocratic executive, a feeble republic through a subservient Assembly of the People to a strong man leader, a return to the Gilded Age of unregulated corporate capitalism, a return to a liberalism of individual rights except for women and refugees from dictatorships and poverty, a return to a freedom of that makes a few more equal than all the others, and builds walls of isolation around fortress America through massive investments in defense.
A triumphant MAGA Party attempts to turn the clock back on Liberalism, Democratization, and Modernity by returning to that old time religion, to production of wealth measured in aggregate profit, privatization of production and of redistribution of wealth through for the sake of eternal reward, individual freedom and transactional politics. The MAGA Movement behind the Party has a very cogent platform written by wealthy heads of corporations, Christian apologists, moral and religious defenders of traditional morality and religion, assimilationists against pluralism especially from those coming as refugees of failing nations. That is captured largely by the Heritage Foundation funded and staffed Project 25. It was also demonstrated in the Party Convention “New Right” contradictory tensions in 1) neoliberalism: free market solutions to social problems, individual self-regulation, state support of traditional morality, with some safety net for those who are incapable of self-maintenance and 2) neo conservativism: American superior force in the world, government in line with American corporations, continued expansion of the American economy largely through corporate technology.
A Liberal Democratic Party is floundering despite and because of its policies of wealth distribution and its policies in health, education, housing, full employment, racial equality to promote then general welfare by regulating without reconstructing the international economy. Its Social Democracy platform is one of extended post World War 2 New Deal Progressivism championed to save the free society of The American and now World Economy. It is seen as focusing on special groups rather than persons of merit judged by their work ethic, ethnic superiority, the products they make, and accomplishments measured by their individual wealth from which comes the national wealth in competition with other nations. It is also seen as promoting a failed socialism, Marxism, or even Communism that threatens the rights of individuals and their corporations.
What this means to me is that we are in a tremendous disruption not only between but also within the forces and parties of our national and international political economy arising out of the American Century. I have been questioning whether this Disruption in US politics the birth or death pangs of a Fourth Foundation. I refer to past disruptions and refoundings of America in the world starting with 1) the18th century adoption of Declaration of Independence, subsequent War against English monarchy and tyranny, and a Constitution of Liberal Republicanism to 2) what Eric Foner characterized as the Second Foundation connected to the Civil War, abolition of slavery, Reconstruction and industrialization in the 19th century, and 3) what I argue was the 20th century third disruption of Gilded Age, Progressivism, Depression, World Wars, and the reconstruction of Europe and Asia and of democratic republicanism in market and state capitalism. With all its contradictions.
Since the MAGA movement started (again?), I have been reading papers and books on the history of ideas, political thinking, foreign affairs, and social science including a couple of wonderful new works. I have been remembering and reflecting on lessons learned in my own experience in social justice organization and life. I have been revisiting my mentors and heroes in intellectual life and practical action and revising my own philosophy in what I am calling the Great Disruption and Fourth Founding.
A resolution or synthesis of the current struggle of theses and antitheses within and between the political parties has been sought in a post-modernism, a post-liberalism, a post-capitalism, a post-dogmatism, a post-nationalism. Have we yet learned that it cannot be found in violence? Hannah Arendt following Hegel taught that violence is the way of the realm of necessity or survival which we want to reduce to achieve ourselves in the realm of freedom.
Economist Thomas Palley presents a thorough critique of neoliberalism and neoconservatism towards a post-Keynsianism political economy. Political theorist Sheldon Wolin has demonstrated that Marx’s critique of a market economy that keeps workers in the realm of necessity has never been met by his followers or detractors. Francis Fukuyama has presented an empirical historical study of political order and decay to help us through the chaos. Philosopher Martin Häaglund has constructed a path towards our Fourth Renewed Foundation that sums up the many political theorists and practitioners that have mentored me.
The Consolation of Philosophy for me is in the exciting thought that our present world is changing long term — perhaps as long as humanity exists. Certainly, well past my time. Well beyond the next election no matter how it turns out. Probably past anyone now living. Yet I continue to hope based on faith in our future. That’s how you and I am made or evolved. I have faith in our ability to think and express with one another which arises from our ability to imagine. I live and work with so many good people who are striving to emancipate themselves from force and violence by developing who they are and want to be not just as individuals but in association with others by building a world that is conducive to life for all of us here and now.