Im-Politic: Enough with the Neocons Already

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American Enterprise Institute, Cato Institute, chattering class, Eric Levitz, Im-Politic, journalism, libertarians, media, neoconservatives, New York magazine, think tanks, Trump

Boy, am I glad I read Eric Levitz’ recent piece in New York magazine all the way through! Not that the author sprung any pleasant surprises on me. Based on the headline, I was expecting just another example of arrogant, intolerant liberalism, and Levitz’ certainly didn’t disappoint in this respect. His main argument: that major liberally oriented opinion publications and op-ed pages should no longer seek left-right ideological and political balance nowadays because the only American conservatism in the age of Donald Trump that has any influence is yahoo-ism in various forms. Instead, these liberal referees of the national political debate generally should keep their forums open almost exclusively to voices from more responsible and rational the left of center.

But within this laughably tendentious claim is a point that’s entirely valid, and that in fact has been bugging me for many years. It concerns the – long-time – practice of either liberal or even nominally neutral opinion forums (i.e., most of the national media) for publishing viewpoints, from whatever perspective, that obviously have no notable constituencies outside the bounds of the interlocking and increasingly hidebound ranks of America’s chattering class elites.

And in my mind, the viewpoint that sticks out more than any other in this respect is neoconservatism. This branch of conservatism began as an interesting hybrid of (a) the kind of Big Government-oriented liberalism that since the New Deal era has dominated the views of Democrats on domestic issues, and (b) the kind of aggressive anti-communism and, more recently, broader global activism that many Democrats have rejected since the Vietnam War began going bad. In addition, much neoconservatism was animated by what its pioneers considered the Democrats’ abandonment of the goal of racial integration in favor of various programs of racial preferences and forms of racial pandering.

As documented in this insightful article by Michael J. Lind of the New America Foundation, the neoconservatives steadily became more conventionally conservative on domestic issues – including a strong enthusiasm for standard free trade policies and mass immigration. But something that still hasn’t changed has been their stunning talent for attracting media attention – a record that genuinely qualifies as stunning because there’s never been a shred of evidence that neoconservatives have any significant following among the general public.

Of course there are many Americans who support the low-tax, small-government positions now taken by neoconservatives these days. There are many fewer who support their brand of foreign policy activism, but at least this position hasn’t completely disappeared from the electorate. Yet have you encountered many friends, neighbors, and relatives who believe in slashing federal spending and shrinking the national tax base on the one hand; sending American troops to the furthest, least important corners of the world to nation-build, spread democracy, fight extremism etc on the other; and opening the national doors wide open to imports from places like China and immigrants the world over? In fact, have you ever met anyone fitting this description?

Just as important (and not unrelated), can you identify many national politicians or office-seekers who embody this set of views? After Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona (the former of course afflicted with aggressive brain cancer and the latter deciding to leave office before suffering certain defeat in his state’s Republican primary), and their South Carolina GOP colleague Lindsey Graham?

Until recently, you could have added Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio to this short list, but in recent months, he’s definitely been reading the handwriting on the wall. Just look at his new stances on confronting China both militarily and economically, and complaining about important aspects of the latest tax cuts passed by Congress.

All the same, however, the neoconservative presence in the national media remains impressive. Writers from neoconservative publications like The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, and Commentary appear constantly on the nation’s talk shows, and they’re frequently joined by neoconservative colleagues from less doctrinaire publications and from think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute. Maybe most revealing, when the proudly mainstream liberal New York Times chose the latest columnist to add to its roster of regulars, it picked card-carrying neoconservative Bret Stephens – a Wall Street Journal alum.

Now it’s true that President Trump, who generally is loathed by neoconservatives, has chosen two of their leading lights as major foreign policy aides – John R. Bolton to serve as his White House national security adviser, and former Kansas Republican Congressman Mike Pompeo to serve as his Secretary of States (after a year of running the CIA). And some important Trump foreign policies look awfully neocon-y, most prominently his approach to countering the influence of ISIS-like terrorists and the Iranian government in the Middle East (combined so far with a loudly stated aversion to massive American boots on the ground). But Trump as a neoconservative-in-the-making? Talk about a wildly premature judgment at best.

So why is the mainstream media still so enamored with neoconservatives? Four main reasons. First, many are still strongly anti-Trump, so featuring them on the air, on-line, and in print enables Trump-hating news organizations to pretend that most opposition to the President remains bipartisan. Second, the United States was governed by a largely neoconservative administration as recently as 2008. And since former this-es and that-s are so skilled at finding post-government careers in Washington, neoconservatives make up an abundant supply of voices with governing experience on which journalists can rely for right-of-center analyses. Third, neoconservatives are still so easy to find in Washington (and secondarily in New York City) largely because although this faction has almost no grassroots, it’s generously funded. So think tank perches and related jobs (including a wide variety of non-tenure university appointments) in the two cities tend to be readily available for individual neoconservatives, and their publications tend to be at least adequately funded.

Fourth, precisely because neoconservatives have been so numerous in the nation’s two main media centers for so long, they’ve become thoroughly familiar to the media. In addition to their widespread and easy availability to newsmen and women as sources of information and analysis, neoconservatives can socialize routinely with their journalistic counterparts. Not only is there no shortage of conferences and receptions at which these segments of the chattering class can socialize (many of which are sponsored by neoconservative or neoconservative-leaning organizations). But neoconservatives (along with other think tankers and the like) and journalists tend to live in the same small group of affluent neighborhoods and send their children to the same first-rate public schools and exclusive private academies.

And as is common with people who hang out a lot together, neoconservatives (and other think tankers) and journalists often become very chummy. The more so if they’re college buddies, or went to the same school, and took the same kinds of courses from the same kinds of professors. The latter of course increases the odds of media types finding themselves in broad agreement with the neoconservatives, and thus regarding these figures as doubly appealing.

New York‘s Levitz argues that conservatives generally shouldn’t be shut out of the news media entirely – and decidedly deserve to appear if they have something new and/or especially interesting to say. I believe the same about neoconservatives. But no doubt largely because these thinkers have had such easy access to the mainstream media, and enjoyed all the associated glistening economic and status prizes, they’ve had little incentive to change their fundamental tune, and surmount this hurdle. So given their predictability and lack of influence, maybe news organizations could at least dial down the overexposure?

Incidentally, for the same reasons, I’d favor treating libertarians the same way. Their funding is impressive, indeed lavish. (Doubt me? Check out the Cato Institute‘s Washington, D.C. headquarters sometime, along with its wide-ranging agenda of conference and similar events). But where are their grassroots? In particular, which noteworthy portions of the electorate share their enthusiasm for unilaterally opening America’s markets no matter how protectionist trade rivals remain, erasing U.S. borders and requiring American workers to compete against an immense new influx of very low-wage foreign counterparts even for high-skill jobs, trusting the private sector (including Wall Street) to regulate itself, and eliminating the major entitlement programs? Even individually, these stances command precious little popular support. Taken together, they comprise a modest minority. That’s surely why Americans have elected exactly zero libertarians as President, and why even Republicans have resoundingly rejected them in presidential primaries even well before the Trump phenomenon appeared. Moreover, read libertarian writings on any of the above issues from decades ago, and you won’t see much difference in terms of their analytic framework with libertarian writings today.

Of course, simply ostracizing neoconservatives, or neoconservatives plus libertarians, from major opinion forums, or at least sharply limiting their presence, would leave the national political debate nearly as narrow, and phony, as following a Levitz-type approach. So what the media referees need to do is work much harder to find contributors who represent not only reasonably coherent emerging schools of thought (like populism’s conservative and liberal variants) but who are trying to turn American politics less rigidly formulaic and exploring various combinations of positions that have never, or not recently, been combined before, along with those who are seeking wholly new answers to pressing national questions.  Moreover, it should go without saying, important new factual findings should always be welcome, no matter how they cut politically.

The op-ed editors and talk show hosts will face a formidable challenge in achieving this goal. After all, success would require exercising judgment, rather than flipping through their familiar (electronic rolodexes). But success is urgently needed – for it would mean a national opinion universe that looks much less like the tiny, inbred communities in which they’re embedded, and much more like America.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Why Middle East Refugee Admissions Must be Hyper-Cautious

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anti-semitism, elites, ISIS, liberals, libertarians, Marco Rubio, media, Middle East, neoconservatives, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, Paris attacks, progressives, refugees, Syria, terrorism, The New York Times, World War II, xenophobia

If there are good arguments against hyper-cautious U.S. policies towards accepting Middle East refugees, I haven’t heard them yet. Instead, those urging lenient, “generous” approaches have simply supplied the latest burst of evidence that large percentages of America’s political and media elites, as well as other avowed progressives, neo-conservatives, and libertarians, have lost most of their common sense and even their instinct for self-preservation.

It’s also important to note that too many advocates of tighter restrictions for those fleeing the wars in Syria and Iraq and the Middle East’s general turmoil have taken butt-headed positions, too. (The main example – admitting only Christians.) But on balance, the restrictionists have been much more realistic than their opponents – whose ranks of course include President Obama.

I’d quote from his remarks on the subject earlier this week in Turkey but they were so narrow and shallow (focusing solely on that religious discrimination issue) that they’re easily dismissed. No better was the New York Times’ main editorial on refugees. Its writers – rightly seen as leading voices of what passes for American liberalism these days – endorsed Mr. Obama’s claim that the restrictionists were “betraying” American values. But they also accused the restrictionists (without naming them) of “confusing refugees with terrorists” and of “absurdly” portraying Muslims as “inherently dangerous,” thereby running the risk of validating terrorist propaganda about the Western world’s implacable hostility.

Most revealingly, it handled the crucial issue of vetting refugees streaming in large numbers from lands completely convulsed by chaos simply by scoffing at Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio’s concern that “you can have 1,000 people come in and 999 of them are just poor people fleeing oppression and violence, but one of them is an ISIS fighter.” Surely, The Times contended, “America can offer a smarter and more generous response.” But it seems that presenting specific recommendations would have meant exceeding space limits, since none were mentioned.

My perusal of the Mainstream and social media has turned up several prominent arguments for leniency that at least make a nod toward history and logic – but only in the most superficial and tendentious ways.

For example, one supposed “Aha!” point made by the lenience backers consists of citing polls from the 1930s indicating strong U.S. public opposition to admitting (often Jewish) refugees fleeing the Nazi-fication of Germany and outbreaks of similar persecution elsewhere in central and eastern Europe. Those past restrictionists unmistakably were motivated by anti-semitism and broader xenophobia. Therefore, imply the modern refugees’ avowed champions, so are today’s restrictionists.

But was the world of the 1930s threatened by anti-American Jewish- or other European-dominated terrorist groups? That’s news to me. One Facebook friend noted that (at least two) German spies had made it to the United Kingdom in December, 1940 disguised as refugees, suggesting that this kind of danger did exist.

But at that time, the U.K. had been at war and fully mobilized for more than a year. Normal peacetime transport between the continent and the British Isles was non-existent, the government was closely guarding the coast against spies and saboteurs, and whatever refugees who managed to leave (perhaps more heavily guarded) Germany, its allies, or occupied Europe, were few in number and easily identified. Indeed, the aforementioned spies came in a rowboat that was escorted to British shores by British forces. Such episodes are supposed to hold lessons for Americans today?

Others advocating for today’s refugees have noted that terrorists can also enter the United States as travelers using valid foreign or forged passports, and that threats can also come from domestic “lone wolves” and cells. All true. But are those observations supposed to demonstrate that there’s no point in vetting Middle East refugees today with the greatest care? That no vetting at all should take place? That today’s procedures should be loosened? If so, that’s tantamount to saying that since many crimes will never be prevented or solved, all law enforcement is pointless.

In fact, this kind of reasoning most plausibly buttresses the restrictionist argument. That is, it’s possible that some refugees or others in the Middle East and elsewhere who are politically inactive may be so enraged by restrictive U.S. and other Western policies that they wind up signing up with ISIS or similar groups. But the strength of these organizations makes clear that many other individuals in many countries have responded to many other terrorist recruiting pitches over many years. So why not use the greatest possible vetting prudence to at least boost the odds that dangerous extremists won’t cross American borders?

Of course, many supporters of lenience do agree that vetting is essential. Logically, this implies a confidence that the current system is satisfactory. But it’s difficult to see why this confidence is justified. It’s true that the current screening process is rigorous and protracted. It’s equally true, however, that significant numbers of Middle East refugees haven’t been admitted into the United States in the Age of ISIS. And although the United States has indeed safely admitted many such individuals previously, not until the latest round of Middle East conflicts had refugee numbers themselves reached flood-tide proportions.

Moreover, precisely because of these conflicts, today’s refugees present unusually difficult vetting challenges. As made clear even by Obama administration officials, the data needed to corroborate identity, criminal records, and other crucial details simply don’t exist or aren’t available.

Ironically, on the one hand, the detailed scrutiny refugees already receive makes clear that, under current U.S. procedures, there’s no chance of the country being flooded with large numbers any time soon. So unless these procedures are considerably eased, and/or American leaders decide to expand greatly the refugee numbers the nation has promised to take (currently “at least 10,000”), neither the threats feared by the restrictionists, nor the humanitarian relief desired by their opponents, will significantly increase any time soon.

But the ability of fewer than ten terrorists to turn Paris into a war zone for hours last week demonstrates that even overwhelming screening success may not prevent unacceptable danger. And the administration’s stated determination to bring all 10,000 Syrian refugees next year troublingly indicates a desire to expedite vetting, not reenforce it.

So anyone listening with intelligence and genuinely wanting maximum possible protection for the American people should recognize that most restrictionists are saying, “Better safe than sorry,” not urging completely closed doors. It’s also obvious that their critics don’t have a message remotely this responsible, or even coherent.

Our So-Called Foreign Policy: Where a Neocon Gets it Right – and Why Progressives Should Listen

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Congress, conservatives, defense budget, foreign policy, internationalism, libertarians, national security, neconservatives, Obama, Our So-Called Foreign Policy, progressives, Republicans, Robert Kagan, sequester

I’ve never had much use for foreign policy analyst Robert Kagan, though I have admired his talent for framing run-of-the-mill neoconservative foreign policy views in ways that others, especially liberals, for some reason feel compelled to take seriously. But a new column by the Brookings Institution fellow and Washington Post columnist provides a great opportunity both to praise him for injecting some needed intellectual honesty in the nation’s defense and foreign debate, and to clarify some of my own views on the subject.

Kagan, like his fellow neconservatives, has long urged the United States to seek and maintain an unabashed global leadership role. They believe that nothing less than countering aggression everywhere and actively seeking to expand the ranks of pro-Western countries is needed to achieve adequate levels of American security.

Encouragingly, moreover, for the neocons, most Republicans and other conservatives seem to agree – thanks no doubt to Vladimir Putin’s moves to enlarge Russia’s influence in its backyard, to stunning terrorist advances in the Middle East, and to Iran’s growing influence in the region and nuclear ambitions.

Yet Kagan has rightly upbraided this critical mass of the American Right – especially in Congress – for not putting its wallet where its mouth is. His March 19 column observes that, for all their hawkish talk lately – including sharp criticisms of President Obama – most Republican Senators and Congressmen still favor the so-called sequester that leaves U.S. defense spending woefully short of the resources that their apparent agenda requires. As a result, Kagan writes:

“one is left to wonder whether the new tone is based on genuine conviction about the nature of the threats facing the world and America’s essential role in meeting them, or whether many Republican politicians just figure that hawkishness is a great way to run against the Democratic nominee in 2016.”

At least as important, he warns that pushing the nation into a tougher foreign policy posture without adequate funding would leave America in the worst of all possible positions, courting greater risks and dangers without the ability to handle them.

Where Kagan errs – profoundly, in my opinion – is in continuing to insist that Americans have no choice but to play this hyper-active global role, and that Republicans, conservatives, and other U.S. leaders must rally their somnolent countrymen to the cause with Churchillian displays of leadership.

As I see it, Kagan makes the same fundamental mistake made for decades by the internationalists of both the Left and Right who have completely dominated U.S. foreign policymaking.  He completely misses the geopolitical and related economic advantages that make greatly reducing global engagement (along with measures to strengthen homeland defenses and maximize economic self-sufficiency) the only sensible course for the nation’s diplomacy. But I completely agree with his calls for higher defense spending for this crucial reason: As implied above, they are absolutely essential for giving not only “hawkish” conservative foreign policy strategies any chance of success, but for giving President Obama’s strategy and others on the Left any chance of success.

For just as the Right has propagated the dangerous myth that American foreign policies would be more successful and the world made a much safer place if only the president would show some actual and rhetorical muscle, Mr. Obama and the rest of the Left have propagated an equally dangerous myth: that America (and the world) would realize the same (vital) benefits simply by shifting more existing resources from the military to foreign aid, human rights promotion, environmental protection, international institutions, and other programs and actors that can achieve the same aims in benign rather than bellicose ways.  (Libertarian conservatives of course have peddled their own variation of these claims.)

And these progressives pay no attention to homeland security and economic independence, either. In fact, their enthusiasm for Open Borders-style immigration policies can only weaken the former.

It’s true that, as Kagan notes, Mr. Obama supports military spending levels higher than those provided for in the Republican-backed sequester. But it’s also true that, as Kagan also notes, such spending levels cannot possibly advance and protect the interests the United States continues to declare.

Which brings us to my own views on the president’s record overseas. I have indeed strongly criticized Mr. Obama’s policies in the Middle East, toward Russia, and in East Asia (where he believes a combination of new military deployments and new trade deals can contain Chinese influence) for reasons that have struck many as at least neconservative-friendly. But I’ve tried to specify that I’m not endorsing anything like neoconservative goals. I’m simply trying to point out that the president’s blueprints and actions can’t possibly achieve its own objectives, and are all too likely to leave the nation needlessly exposed to danger.

Kagan’s critique of mainstream conservatives and Republicans is similar, and he deserves credit for making it. Now we need folks on the Left (and on the libertarian Right) to point out their own fellows’ delusions. And above all, politicians across the board need to pay attention. Until they do, America will be saddled with a leadership class divided not by rival viable foreign policy blueprints, but by rival foreign policy fairy tales. If you’re wondering why the world looks like a more dangerous place, that’s where the answer starts.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Against Government and Off the Deep End

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basic research, drug discovery, FBN, Fox Business Network, government, Heritage Foundation, libertarians, National Institutes of Health, NIH, pharmaceuticals, Stephen Moore, Stuart Varney, {What's Left of) Our Economy

I really hate the growing tendency across the political spectrum to label ideological opponents as “stupid,” or something similar, but all too often, the shoe really does fit – as the Fox Business Network helpfully reminded us yesterday.

Fox Business anchor Stuart Varney decided to get worked up over a statement by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren arguing that “Drug companies make great contributions but so do taxpayers….In other words, we built those medical innovations together.” His objection? Warren’s position shows that she’s “a collectivist. She’s saying there’s no such thing as individual liberty and the pursuit of ideas on an individual basis. No, we’re collectivists.” And ostensibly for confirmation, he interviewed Heritage Foundation Chief Economist Stephen Moore. You decide who came off worse.

Was it Varney, who seemed totally incapable of processing Warren’s acknowledgment that “Drug companies make great contributions” to medical innovation? I’m not sure how else to explain his accusation that her position revealed that “Senator Warren is a collectivist. She’s saying there’s no such thing as individual liberty and the pursuit of ideas on an individual basis. No, we’re collectivists.”

Or did Moore give his mindless libertarianism more than a good run for its money? He responded that “It tells you a lot about the modern day Democratic Party that a nutcase like Elizabeth Warren is in first or second place in the early polling for these Democratic primaries. I mean, Elizabeth Warren is a member of the Sandinista wing of the Democratic party, right? She doesn’t believe in the free enterprise system.”

But since Varney is simply a journalist and, according to recent decades’ standards, doesn’t need to know what he’s talking about, I give the ignorance award here to Moore. The Heritage maven actually acknowledged that “the NIH [National Institute of Health] does participate in” the drug discovery process. But, he explained, “they do the basic research. The real blockbusters are developed by private pharmaceutical companies and bio-engineering companies that do incredible work.”

Moore’s clear implication: The basic research performed by NIH is not “incredible work.” Or at least not nearly so incredible. Apparently he has managed to climb the conservative think tank career ladder – and the Wall Street Journal editorial page ladder before – without learning that without enough basic research, the blockbuster flow, and those similar breakthroughs in other fields, dries up.

At one point, though, Moore suggested a less laughable argument. As he put it, “It costs sometimes a half a billion dollars in investment capital – private investment capital, Stewart – to develop these drugs. And for then Elizabeth Warren to come along and say oh, by the way, you know, if you hit a winner, we’re going to take the profits away from you – I think that’s not just bad economics. This is even more important, Stewart. It’s terrible for our our health, because if you delay or disrupt the development of these new drugs, you’re basically, you know, a death sentence for people who have Alzheimers or cancer or heart disease or others.”

Moore continued: “…If you tax something, you get less of it. It’s a very simple economic message. And by the way, the research that goes into these drugs – when I mention it costs half a billion dollars to bring a new drug to market, you know only one out of ten of these even succeeds. So the amount of risk capital that goes into these is gigantic. If you don’t give those investors a return, we’re not going to get any more medical progress in this country.”

In other words, Moore’s great fear is that the Warren (and presumably many other) Democrats so hate the private sector and so idolize government that they want to tax the vitality out of the American pharmaceutical industry to finance the (marginally important) NIH. Stripped of unconscionable exaggeration, it seems as if Moore is at least advancing a reasonable proposition here – that the U.S. political system hasn’t yet found the right tax policy balance between adequately fostering private sector medical innovation and adequately funding the kind of basic medical-related research that’s almost never undertaken by free enterprise.

If that’s the case, though, why didn’t Moore say so openly? Because he’s totally desperate to get TV time from a government-hating know-nothing like Stuart Varney?