not only to understand others, but also to see themselves,

and this country, as others see them.

-Dean William C. Kirby, Harvard College62 The despair over the condition of elites has recently been expressed in a surprising formulation by Huntington himself. In an essay ent.i.tled "Dead Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite" Huntington in effect signaled that the American experiment of combining democracy with elitism was over-and the causes of the failure lay squarely with the elites. Mansfield had been prepared to suffer democracy because he thought it f.e.c.kless rather than dangerous, easily distractible through the manipulation of its dreams of avarice. In contrast, Huntington had early on depicted democracy as a threat to the power of the state and as posing the problem of whether an electoral democracy was governable. The ballot enabled the ma.s.ses to press for policies and social programs that diverted resources which might otherwise be used to strengthen the state.63 While the Straussians see the philosopher as their ideal, Huntington, in his earlier writings, had a more robust, less intellectual role model but one that shared the Straussians' disdain for material acquisitiveness. In The Soldier and the State (1957) he extolled the professional military officer as the embodiment of the true national ideal, the brave patriot who serves his country by a life of austere self-sacrifice. West Point, not Plato's Academy, could save the United States from its infatuation with democracy and, by implication, its elites from Wall Street.

A half century later Huntington's problem is not that the people have denied elites their rightful place or that they are ungovernable. Rather it is that a transformation of American elites has caused them to turn their backs on their native land. The American establishment, he a.s.serts, has become divorced from the American people.64 In contrast the people have remained steadfast, loyal, and devoted to the homeland and its values. For Huntington the consequence is a crisis of loyalty produced by the opposing perceptions of "national ident.i.ty" held by "the more cosmopolitan elites," on the one hand, and the general citizenry, on the other.

The public, overall, is concerned with physical security but also with . . . sustainability . . . of existing patterns of language, culture, a.s.sociation, religion and national ident.i.ty. For many elites, these concerns are secondary to partic.i.p.ating in the global economy, supporting international trade and migration, strengthening international inst.i.tutions, promoting American values abroad, and encouraging minority ident.i.ties and cultures at home.65 "Dead souls," in Huntington's formulation, "refers to not loving one's country."66 He arranges the soulless under three categories: the "universalists" who believe that the whole world has become American in its values and popular culture; the globalists ("a global supercla.s.s"), primarily the leaders of corporate multinationals, who are focused upon "breaking down national boundaries, merging national economies . . . and rapidly eroding the authority and functions of national governments"; and, finally, the "moralistic" types, primarily "intellectuals, academics, and journalists," who decry "patriotism and nationalism as evil forces" and who favor international inst.i.tutions.67 This "intelligentsia" is accused of abandoning "their commitment to their nation and their fellow citizens"-and this while "Americans as a whole are becoming more committed to their nation."68 The supreme stake in this cleavage is "national Ident.i.ty." The universalists see the world as becoming Americanized; hence the distinctiveness of America disappears. The globalists tend to favor an American imperium by which the United States shapes the world but, in the process, loses its ident.i.ty.69 The public, in contrast, is concerned about "military security, social security, the domestic economy and sovereignty."70 Huntington is in no doubt as to the crux of American national ident.i.ty: "America is different and that difference is defined in large part by its religious commitment and Anglo-Protestant culture." "At the heart" of that culture "have been Protestantism" and the "political and social inst.i.tutions and practices inherited from England, including most notably the English language."71 Elites, in contrast, tend to be "liberal" and irreligious.72 That formulation is intended not as a contribution to dispa.s.sionate a.n.a.lysis but as a polemic against the multiple ident.i.ties favored by multiculturalists and ethnic preservationists; against the demotion of English as the sole language of instruction in the public schools; against the lax enforcement of border controls; and against the ideal of inclusiveness. The really patriotic Americans tend to be native born and white.73 The fact that immigrants were, in effect, forced to adapt to "Anglo-American culture" is cause for celebration rather than apologetics: "it gave birth to the American Creed."74 Huntington's xenophobic and nativist tendencies should be understood as defensive, a circling of the wagons, stemming from his longstanding belief that the hegemonic power of "the West" and of the United States is in decline.75 An expansionist America is far from Huntington's ideal. If the United States is not the unchallengeable Superpower but a failing hegemon, what grounds does Huntington find to reverse his earlier dim view of the demos and now place his hopes in them rather than in elites? From what quarter does he draw the evidence for his view that the citizenry, long ridiculed by conservative critics, should now represent the last best hope for the survival of the nation? And, crucially, what are the virtues possessed by the demos that recommend it as political saviors?

The peculiarity of Huntington's eulogy of the people is that he supports it by relying exclusively on polling data. "The patriotic public" emerges in response to questions such as "How proud are you to be an American?" Huntington's "public" is thus a construction of the pollsters. He takes pains to point out that the polls also reveal that "significantly fewer blacks than whites think of themselves as patriotic."76 Hispanics fare only slightly better as patriotic material. Huntington makes no reference to partic.i.p.atory actions or political involvements as characteristics or concerns of his citizenry. The people appear more as a ma.s.s with patriotic sentiments, as the stuff of a governable populace, as more ready-made for inverted totalitarianism than for the project of self-government. And while Huntington deplores the tendencies current among the elites, he never disavows the principle of elitism, nor does he encourage rule by the ma.s.ses. Instead his account of a patriot-nation furnishes a basis for rethinking the ways in which elites can govern, and in this he has shown what he had previously doubted: the ma.s.ses are governable and democracy manageable.77 And given his hostility toward corporate and world-conquering elites and his reservations concerning certain foreigners and African Americans, the resulting tendency resembles the elite-ma.s.s formula of n.a.z.i Germany, with American Muslims, African Americans, and Hispanics potential pariah groups.

X.

A democratic citizenry, finding itself being ruled by awesome powers exercised in its name, might legitimately demand or expect that a ruling elite would at least give lip service to certain virtues, such as self-restraint, disinterestedness, perhaps a touch of humility-qualities arguably urgent in an age of megapower. When power is dependent as never before upon scientists and technologists, one might hope that a ruling elite would strive to emulate some of the scientific virtues by acting rationally, using power prudently, and carefully weighing unwelcome facts that don't fit their cherished a.s.sumptions. Instead the governing elite has chosen the path of radical reaction, even primitivism: clinging stubbornly to the claim that Saddam was involved in 9/11, and that he had weapons of ma.s.s destruction; displaying a cavalier disregard of legal standards of guilt; admitting no responsibility for the shameless treatment of prisoners of war, even denying that Americans practiced techniques of torture while demanding that the CIA be excused from observing prohibitions; and dismantling or weakening environmental safeguards despite the near unanimous findings of scientists concerning global warming.

What is striking about these actions is that they undermine the princ.i.p.al justification for elitism. Unlike the irrational populace, elites are supposed to be rational actors, not opportunists who constantly "push the envelope" in order to test the limits of power while publicizing the role of faith in their decisions. One would hope that those entrusted with awesome power, especially those whose electoral legitimacy was originally shadowed by doubts, would weigh counterevidence carefully, employ power judiciously, and, above all, consider the consequences of a course of action, especially if it involves grave risks or harm. One might even a.s.sume that those who constantly proclaim "the sanct.i.ty of human life" and of embryos would extend an equal solicitude to the innocent victims of collateral damage.

Elites are supposed to withstand the gales of popular pa.s.sions, stand firm for what is right against what the Founding Father Madison described as "the confusion and intemperance of a mult.i.tude."78 And yet the most disastrous wars in American history have been instigated, not by rabid majorities but by elites: the "Southern aristocracy" provoked the Civil War; "the best and the brightest" led the country into the quagmire of Vietnam; and Bush's advisory "Vulcans" and the neocon products of elite universities have made of Iraq a national and international nightmare.

The irrationalism of Superpower is the result of a fearful asymmetry. From one perspective Superpower is inconceivable without the extraordinary intelligence at work in modern science and technology. Among the qualities of that intelligence are exactness, discrimination, sensitivity to counterevidence, skepticism toward faith-based claims, and mindfulness of consequences. From another perspective, however, a willful naivete is at work. Scientists invent instruments of unprecedented power for those who are motivated, not by intellectual curiosity or the common good, but by power or profit or some combination of the two. Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki were triumphs of scientific knowledge and technological ingenuity, but also of a political irrationality that began with the rationale of "saving" an unknown number of American soldiers' lives and ended by employing against j.a.panese cities weaponry whose destructive effects were untested, hence uncertain-at least the first time round. A process that began with rationality organized on a human scale-a lab, a university-ended in irrationality, a huge Manhattan Project, devastated cities, the fatally contaminated survivors, the ashes of countless dead, a counterholocaust. The odyssey of Superpower might be described in these terms: from Einstein's abstract equations scrawled on a blackboard to the bunker busters, "shock and awe," unleashed in Iraq against an entire society-notwithstanding President Bush's previous description of an unconventional enemy that had to be hunted down "one terrorist at a time." At this writing, according to one estimate, there have been 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties since the American invasion.79

CHAPTER TEN.

Domestic Politics in the Era of

Superpower and Empire I.

I think the best part of this job is to set in motion big

changes of history-it's unbelievably exciting to

be in a position to do that.

-President George W. Bush1 Before attaining power and even afterwards, totalitarian parties all characterized politics as an epical "struggle" or a "war" in which the very fate of society was declared to be at stake. A party was conceived as a "fighting organization" designed for gaining a total monopoly over politics and eventually establishing a one-party state in which opposition parties and contested politics were declared illegal and suppressed. Within the party and its auxiliaries (youth and women's organizations, veterans' groups, business and farm organizations) power was ordered by hierarchical principles of command-and subordination: leadership, loyalty, discipline, and rigid observance of "the party line." Once a totalitarian movement gained control of government, its first objective was to eliminate politics as the expression of divisiveness, hence of weakness, and a barrier to fashioning a "ma.s.s." Politics was replaced by h.o.m.ogeneity-with one major exception. Totalitarian regimes were committed to promoting and enforcing select superiorities (e.g., race, party, cla.s.s, nation) and elevating elitism to a universal principle.

In a one-party state politics is, in effect, "privatized," dissociated from the practices of citizenship and confined within the party, where it takes the form of intramural rivalries for the privileges of power and status. It is a politics that never goes public except to orchestrate unanimity.

Inverted totalitarianism follows a different route. Instead of pursuing unanimity, it encourages divisiveness; instead of rule by a single master race, it promotes predomination-that is, rule by diverse powers which have found it in their interests to combine while retaining their separate ident.i.ties. The key components are corporate capital, the very rich, small business a.s.sociations, large media organizations, evangelical Protestant leaders, and the Catholic hierarchy. Models of organization tend to be corporate as well as military. The aim is to control politics by settling the terms of compet.i.tion in the spirit of Archer Daniels Midland's watchword, "the compet.i.tor is our friend, and the customer is our enemy": subst.i.tute "the other party" for "compet.i.tor" and "active citizen" for "customer" to get the inverted version of totalitarian politics. Opposition is not abolished but neutralized, its politics constrained within limits, allowed a minor concession now and then that keeps its supporters hopeful, and pressed to emulate the victors' strategies. Where totalitarian parties practiced a warlike politics of "struggle," in the inversion politics is at first viewed as a market where a compet.i.tion rages among rival firms, each striving to develop strategies for beating the others and winning over as large a number of consumers as possible. But then one party perceives that it can significantly ratchet up a mere politics of market compet.i.tion by attracting adherents as well as consumers. Other than fervor, the key characteristic of the adherent is a combination of acceptance of and superiority to marketplace practices and incentives. The adherent is committed to transcendent values, to Christianity, the sanct.i.ty of life, the "traditional family," and premarital abstinence. But he or she is not a critic of capitalism.

II.

Conventionally defined, politics is the struggle waged to gain control of, or influence over, governmental inst.i.tutions; unconventionally, we might call this "the exploitative view of politics." The aim of its pract.i.tioners is to defend or advance the material or ideological interests of those who contribute money and energy, and to claim at the same time that these efforts also serve the interests of the whole society. To gain control of the power of government a party must define its ident.i.ty, then become an organization, a generator of power/capital capable of formulating a program, mobilizing and directing supporters, and competing against rivals for political power.

A variation shared by both traditional liberals and conservatives might emphasize that, as in the ideal free market, a party system should operate in accordance with "the rules of the game." These stand for elementary principles of fair compet.i.tion. Parties should be free to organize and compete for power, and the party out of power should be free to compete, to criticize the policies and personnel of the party in power, insist on accountability, propose alternative policies, or draw attention to problems left unaddressed or mishandled.

A democrat might challenge these versions of politics and claim that they have avoided the fundamental question: what kind of citizen or political being would those versions of politics encourage? Would they, for example, connive to stigmatize politics so as to suggest that those who became "involved" would first have to hold their noses, that democratic politics, like all politics, was inherently degrading? or that one should actively partic.i.p.ate only for a "higher" cause uncontaminated by material concerns? A related question would be this: if the preceding conceptions of politics were true, in whose interest would it be for such views to be widespread, even encouraged?

If, in contrast, one starts from the notion that democratic politics should contribute to individual development and, at the same time, promote a greater measure of egalitarianism, then a different conception of politics would follow. It would expand the liberal conception by a.s.signing first priority to the role of citizens as partic.i.p.ants, demoting their role as voters to a secondary priority. The party's structure and processes would be shaped to encourage the citizen-partic.i.p.ant to be involved in the party's decision-making practices and to become acquainted with the ways of power. Party policies and programs would become matters for common discussion and suggestion, not pep rallies for persuading the voter to endorse programs previously decided by the party elite. A democratic party would view politics as the arena of a continuous struggle to alleviate the inequalities of a system whose social, cultural, and economic inst.i.tutions continuously reproduce them. The extent to which a politics could be said to be democratic would depend upon how committed parties were to encouraging the citizenry to become an active demos rather than a sometime voter. Yet a democratic politics has suspicions about corporate-inspired party organizations; hence it would allow, even encourage, a large element of the ad hoc, the improvised, the spontaneous. It would not concede to a permanent party organization a monopoly over politics.

The contemporary Republican Party is both antidemocratic and illiberal. It is notable for its contempt for the weaknesses it attributes to its rivals: moral flabbiness, antipreemption, antimilitarism (= "hate America"), welfare laws, poverty programs, respect for treaty obligations, environmental protections (= tree huggers), and French fries. An antidemocratic party tries to prevent the formation of an active, partic.i.p.atory demos-it distrusts popular demonstrations-and is deeply antiegalitarian. An illiberal party, it considers "rules" less as restraints than as annoyances to be circ.u.mvented. It exploits the vulnerabilities of a two-party system with the aim of reshaping it into a more or less permanent undemocratic and illiberal system.

The Republican Party is not, as advertised, conservative but radically oligarchical. Programmatically it exists to advance corporate economic and political interests, and to protect and promote inequalities of opportunity and wealth. Pragmatically its elites form alliances with the "elect," evangelicals who, seeing themselves as distinguished by their intimate relation to their savior and privileged by their knowing what their G.o.d has in store for mankind, supply an "ideal" element to an otherwise decidedly worldly party. To promote a permanent hegemony, the party adopts the strategies of a movement. It systematically trains future cadres of loyal followers and leaders, enlisting them when they are young (Republican Jugend), and carefully tutoring them as it shepherds them through the educational systems from which eventually dependable apparatchiks emerge.2 The combination of party and movement harbors intimations of inverted totalitarianism, not least because it is driven by forms of extremism, of intolerance, of aggrandizement both materialistic and spiritual.

In keeping with the unpremeditated, even innocent, beginnings of inverted totalitarianism, consider an early effort to reform the organization of American political parties. In 1950 the professional organization of political scientists, the American Political Science a.s.sociation (APSA), published Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System. The report was issued at a time when American and Soviet antagonisms had hardened into the Cold War and the anticommunism crusade had begun to color domestic politics. The APSA doc.u.ment reflected a widespread concern that with the end of the war and the emergence of the United States as a, if not the, leading world power, the party system needed to adapt to a new era of expanded governmental power abroad, while perpetuating the activist state with its New Deal social programs and regulatory agencies. In response the report offered proposals intended to rationalize party politics, render it more manageable and predictable: qualities that were supposed to make it more responsible.

The operative a.s.sumption of APSA's manifesto was that American political parties were dysfunctional because disorganized, undisciplined, and lacking ideological consistency. As a result voters were denied a clear choice. A major cause of this condition was said to be the strong pull of local loyalties and interests. The report argued that if the two parties were to become responsible, they would have to create stronger party organizations that would enable them to formulate clearer positions. It reasoned that if the parties were to distinguish themselves more sharply, they could more easily be held accountable. Currently the political parties were "too loose" with "very little national machinery," with the result that sharp and often inconsistent policy differences existed between state and local parties, at one end of the spectrum, and the national party, at the other. To promote "party discipline" and "cohesion," the report recommended that within each party power be centralized in a Party Council. The tasks of the council would be to coordinate policies, clarify issues, vet candidates, and deal with "rebellious and disloyal state organizations" (read: Southern Dixiecrats). The authors also proposed to simplify and centralize party "leadership" in the two houses of Congress.3 A major a.s.sumption of the report was that "politics" is identical with, or exhausted by, the activities of political parties. And by implication politics was properly the monopoly of the parties and a two-party system was the natural or obvious form. The role of the citizen was pretty much reduced to "choice" between competing candidates.

Without intending to do so, the APSA report foreshadowed the difference between cla.s.sical and inverted totalitarianism: one sought to eliminate politics, the other to contain politics by introducing structures designed to facilitate managerial control. Unlike the democratic citizen, who, through the experiences of partic.i.p.ation, grows into a political being, the voter is akin to a response system engineered by public opinion surveys, pollster strategies, and media advertising that first stimulates voters to vote and afterwards encourages them to relapse into their accustomed apathy. The voter is the flip side to the imperial subject. The model voter-subject and model political milieu were described recently in the New York Times. It reported a programmed remark addressed to the president by one of the preselected party faithful at a prearranged and screened event: I am 60 years old and I've voted Republican from the very first time I could vote. And I also want to say this is the very first time that I have felt that G.o.d was in the White House.4 III.

What is democracy doing bearing the stigma of empire? Recall that the United States was born in a revolution against imperial power. Recall as well, however, that the Founders favored a republic over a democracy because the latter could not be accommodated to an "enlarged sphere," to a huge geographical expanse. And recall that the American citizenry has a long history of being complicit in the country's imperial ventures. The imperial impulse is not a tic afflicting only the few. The difference may be that, unlike, say, the Roman and British empires, the American empire is repressed in the national ideology.

Virtually from the beginnings of the nation the making of the American citizen was influenced, even shaped by, the making of an American imperium. The nineteenth-century expansion of the country to the west and southwest was achieved by military victories over various Indian nations and Mexico. It brought new opportunities for enterprise, exploitation, and ownership. It made conquest and violence familiar, part of everyday experience. Foreign observers, such as Tocqueville, were struck by the appearance of a new kind of citizen: mobile, adventurous, highly compet.i.tive, and often brutal. At the end of the nineteenth century and in the early decades of the twentieth, Americans wrested Cuba and the Philippines from the Spanish empire: American power was being distanced from the citizen, becoming abstract. During the interwar years of the twentieth century, U.S. Marines were frequently dispatched to put down "rebels" in Latin and Central America-and President Wilson ordered the army to invade Mexico in 1914-yet during the 1920s the country's foreign policy was inhibited by isolationist sentiments. That changed after World War II. While the American invasions of the Dominican Republic, Grenada, and Panama might be seen as continuations of the Marine expeditions of the twenties, and the Cold War as fought to "contain" Soviet power rather than promote an empire, Vietnam marked a crucial turning point. A fitful, stupid imperial war remarkable not only for the American defeat but for the fact that, unlike earlier imperial ventures, it was vigorously and successfully opposed at home. The rea.s.sertion of const.i.tutional limits on executive power and the successful mobilization of a demotic protest movement meant that military defeat was actually a democratic victory-over its own imperial power.

The victory was short-lived. Two decades later the first President Bush declared triumphantly that the importance of the (first) Gulf War was its achievement as a double victory, over Saddam and over "the Viet Nam syndrome." The claim that imperial ambitions had been checked only temporarily by the protests of the sixties was a put-down not only of demotic action but of the efforts of Congress to reclaim its war powers. In the run-up to the first Gulf War the administration encountered virtually no public protests and only small opposition in Congress. In the aftermath of 9/11 the second Bush administration cast aside any inhibitions and began to advance a more expansive notion of American power and to pursue grandiose schemes for the reconstruction of the world. The administration seized on 9/11 to declare "a war on terrorism." The declaration not only transformed that event and the public support it generated into a warrant of legitimation that dispelled the clouded 2000 election, but, casting terrorism in global terms, it also justified the mobilization of imperial power and elicited the support/docility of a fearful citizenry.

Empires are said to be distinguished by whether they occupy foreign lands; whether they rule directly or work through local elites; how much local autonomy is permitted; how the subject populations are treated; and whether imperial rule is meant to be more or less permanent or, instead, a form of tutelage that gradually permits imperial subjects to become mostly or wholly independent. There are differences of opinion about whether the United States actually is an imperial power. Some scholars p.r.o.nounce it an empire that is bashful about identifying itself as such.5 Others celebrate the existence of a U.S. empire. "The fact is," opined one commentator, "no country has been as dominant culturally, economically, technologically, and militarily in the history of the world since the late Roman empire."6 Still others deny that the United States is a genuine empire, primarily because it does not occupy or directly rule foreign territories.7 Almost without exception these recent discussions avoid evaluating the impact of empire upon domestic politics, much less of its effects upon American democracy.

While all empires aim at the exploitation of the peoples and territories they control, the United States is an empire of a novel kind. Unlike other empires it rarely rules directly or occupies foreign territory for long, although it may retain bases or "lily pads." Its power is "projected" at irregular intervals over other societies rather than inst.i.tutionalized in them. Its rule tends to be indirect, to take the form of "influence," bribes, or "pressure." Its princ.i.p.al concerns are military and economic (i.e., access to bases, markets, and oil). When policy-makers deem it necessary or expedient, domestic needs are subordinated to the requirements of global strategies and to the economic needs of Superpower's corporate partners.

The U.S. empire is the Superpower, unrivaled. The European nations that seized empires during the late nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth were rival "great powers," but there was no one dominant Superpower. Revealingly, when Vice President Cheney described the current enemy as aspiring "to establish a radical Islamic empire that encompa.s.ses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way to Indonesia," he was identifying not just an enemy but an imperial rival-though not a superpower.8

IV.

[T]he US empire [is] the most magnanimous imperial

power ever. . . . If this be the workings of empire,

let us have more of it.

-Dinesh D'Souza9 To describe the United States as an imperial Superpower is to say that elements of domination are inescapably present in the power relations between the United States and the rest of the world, and that empire's superior-inferior relationship necessarily means a politics among unequals. The obvious question is this: can imperial power observe a distinction between domestic citizens and imperial subjects? Can it seek to dominate abroad without materially changing power relations at home or without importantly changing the status of the citizenry? Consider the Patriot Act and its inroads on civil liberties; or the continuing campaign of the administration to restrict the power of the courts in matters affecting military "justice"; or the attempts to contain the investigative practices of the media; or the falsehoods arrogantly defended; or the unchecked growth of corporate influence over public policy-all of these suggest that imperial politics represents the conquest of domestic politics and the latter's conversion into a crucial element of inverted totalitarianism. It makes no sense to ask how the democratic citizen could "partic.i.p.ate" substantively in imperial politics; hence it is not surprising that the subject of empire is taboo in electoral debates. No major politician or party has so much as publicly remarked on the existence of an American empire. Imperial power is not about restraint, and the consequences of empire are evident in domestic politics: in military expenditures, subsidies to globalizing corporations, mounting deficits, and the decimation of social programs and environmental safeguards.

Whatever else they may be, empires are not about justice. It is thus not surprising that even in matters of procedural justice (e.g., fair trial) the Bush administration should fight strenuously to deny access to American courts for foreign nationals, illegal aliens, and American citizens captured in the empire's war against terrorism; or that the administration sanctions the widespread use of torture, secret tribunals, and unconscionable detention periods before trial. Concurrently, justice has pretty much disappeared from the political vocabulary of domestic politics.10 The effects of imperial power are not solely registered abroad, externalized. Under empire the significant actors are not citizens but corporations with the rewards of empire adjusted accordingly. Rewards are reaped more or less according to how strategically placed globalizing players are in the domestic power structure. Halliburton's power begins in Texas, extends to Washington, and then connects with projects (often without compet.i.tive bidding) in Afghanistan and Iraq; it returns to the "homeland" enriched and eager to invest its profits in politicians. Politicians, in turn, become responsive to the new sources of pressure, contributions, and lavish favors. The district or const.i.tuent back "home" shrinks in significance. The politician's postponed gratifications: the higher rewards of lobbyist or corporate executive.

Since empires are premised upon domination, it is not surprising that an element of imperial ruthlessness infects politics at home. It is commonly observed that today's domestic politics has changed in tactics and ferocity with the avowed aim of establishing a permanent Republican majority, the domestic equivalent of imperial hegemony, heralding a new politics and citizenry.

The emergence of Superpower and its joint imperium of state and corporation have resulted in the inst.i.tutionalization and normalization of corruption. The doctored accounts, the public misrepresentations, and illegal transactions that have become a commonplace of corporate behavior in recent years have been transmitted to party politics, whose immune system has always been less than robust. There is little to choose between public and corporate morality, to the detriment of both. In bringing democracy to Iraq the United States has also exported our practices of contractual malfeasance, from overbilling to nonperformance to shoddy work to dropped charges despite clear evidence of wrongdoing.

The symbiosis of corporation and governmental inst.i.tutions and the normalization of corruption are perfectly embodied in the inst.i.tutionalization of the lobbying industry. In matters of public policy and governmental decision making, lobbying demonstrates how little the actions of the electorate matter. The proliferation of Washington lobbyists, who now number in the thousands, is indicative of a radical change in the meaning of who and what are being represented, and indicative also of the final defeat of majority rule. It is no secret that lobbying is designed to short-circuit the power of numbers, of the ordinary citizenry. In contrast to the citizen-as-occasional-voter, the lobbyist is a full-time "citizen." As the form of politics indicative of where real power lies, lobbying is the perfect complement to empire.

V.

In theory the choices presented by parties are supposed to clarify such issues as who is likely to benefit from the policies being advocated; how the burdens will be distributed; and according to what notion of priorities the nation's resources should be a.s.signed. Those concerns do not disappear when they involve empire but become starker. Does current tax policy or social welfare spending provide clues as to who bears empire's burdens, who benefits? will an expanding empire require a military draft or, like other empires, hire mercenaries? Inverted totalitarianism provides the context for reflecting on these questions.

Politically, as well as socially and economically, inverted totalitarianism is best understood as imperialist and hence as a postdemocratic or, better, postsocial democratic phenomenon. It is marked by an expansion of the horizons and ambitions of the governing cla.s.ses and an accompanying increase in the instruments of power, private as well as public, as well as by a decline in demotic power both in its instruments of governance (political democracy) and in its socioeconomic supports (social democracy). This reflects a reversal in the relationship or, rather, the perceived relationship between government and economy. The formulation favored in business circles and among economists stigmatizes government regulation as "political interference" in the economy and emphasizes its dire economic consequences. We need, however, to reverse that account in order to take note of the political significance of deregulation, of withdrawing public power and, in effect, renouncing it as an instrument for dealing with the political, social, and human consequences of a market economy.

Deregulation changes the character of domestic politics. In effect, it declares that in a democracy the demos is to be denied the use of state power. It weakens the unaffluent const.i.tuencies that have a vital stake in preserving and expanding government social programs. The weaker const.i.tuencies are not only hurt economically but depoliticized in the process, discouraged from political partic.i.p.ation because government appears unresponsive to their needs. Corporate political power and influence can then take advantage of the capitulation of the demos to strengthen the corporation's own partnership with the state. The results of a weakened social democracy and, conversely, a concentrated political economy are writ large in the shocking character of a tax structure that heavily favors the very rich while damaging most other cla.s.ses. The favored group can then translate the windfall into political power. They become "a political donor cla.s.s" that raises millions for the Republican Party and throws a few crumbs and broad hints to the Democrats.11 To grasp the significance of these developments, we need to see them in the context of inverted totalitarianism.

Inverted totalitarianism is the result of the acceleration of two strategies. One, the politics of reversal, was launched in earnest in the Reagan counterrevolution. It aimed at eviscerating the social programs vital to political democracy, either by dismantling them or, alternatively, a.s.signing them to private entrepreneurs, thereby expanding the dependence of ordinary citizens upon unaccountable "private" powers. The politics of reversal was resumed by the "Gingrich revolution" of the 1990s and accelerated by the second Bush administration. By striking at welfare programs and unemployment benefits, blocking a national health care system, and making threatening gestures toward pension plans and social security, not only did this politics cripple social democracy, but in the process it undermined political democracy, the one political system that depends upon those who work. It might be recalled that the totalitarian regimes of Soviet Russia and Germany each inst.i.tuted a strong network of social services; inverted totalitarianism seeks to dismantle or significantly reduce them, thereby throwing individuals back on their own resources, reducing their power. How far that power is being reduced can be gauged by the response of businesses to the lack of national health care and guarantees for pension systems. They have cut pensions and health care benefits while lavishing huge bonuses upon departing executives.

Instead of collectivism, inverted totalitarianism thrives on disaggregation, on a citizenry who, ideally, are self-reliant, compet.i.tive, certified by standardized testing, but equally fearful of an economy subject to sudden downturns and of terrorists who strike without warning. Cla.s.sical totalitarianism mobilized its subjects; inverted totalitarianism fragments them. Growing inequalities of power-reflected, for example, in the influence of lobbyists or the concentration of media ownership-render increasingly difficult the mustering of power for a politics that seeks to ameliorate inequalities.12 Corporate capitalism is creating an imperial workforce of dependent low-wage workers, preferably of large numbers of undoc.u.mented, fearful aliens, the new metics, for whom survival, rather than political partic.i.p.ation, is uppermost. In the background is the threat of a prison system incarcerating more than two million. Hence the high symbolism of convicted felons who, if released, are likely to be denied the right to vote, that last feeble afterglow of democracy.13 The shift, in which Superpower's ascendancy is inverse to the dismantling of social democracy and the weakening of political democracy, reflects the profound transformation of politics effected by the imperium of Superpower. Exit the citizen, enter the corporate actor. Politics comes to replicate the structure and culture of corporate capitalism: it is rationalized, capitalized, managed, elite-dominated, viciously compet.i.tive, and technologically dependent.14 Instead of an expressive politics that encourages the voicing of concerns, grievances, and proposals, we have a controlled politics that tolerates dissent but is unresponsive to protests and proposals from below. In place of the citizen-partic.i.p.ant the new politics courts the viewer-consumer. Above all, it is a politics that importantly inverts democracy by being only minimally concerned with domestic policy, preferring to subordinate it to the military and economic issues of terrorism, energy supplies, and globalization.

VI.

Despite the efforts made to extend voting rights and lower the voting age to eighteen, national elections typically attract slightly more than half of the eligible electorate while local elections average about 35 percent. While the advocates of democracy view the low turnouts as a warning sign, the technicians of Superpower politics welcome voter apathy, and some Republican operatives have even sought to discourage African American and Hispanic voters: it makes for a more cost-effective and manageable method of purchasing legitimacy.

Numerous reasons have been advanced to explain low turnout: the competing attractions of various forms of entertainment supplied by the ma.s.s media; the belief that "my vote doesn't make any difference"; the widespread perception of politics as corrupt; and the like. These explanations reflect a politics that is remote, necessarily abstract, adapted to the needs of Superpower and its distant character. The party politics being fashioned for empire and for inverted totalitarianism is a politics where the parties court voters but do not seek ma.s.s membership. Consequently most vote for a party without joining it; a few become party foot soldiers, and fewer still are courted as "contributors" of huge sums of money. A party wants a few zealous cohorts, generous donors, and a ma.s.s of occasional, TV-conditioned voters.

Thus in discouraging member partic.i.p.ation, the party leads the way from citizen democracy and toward a ma.s.s democracy, in search of "followers" who are, first and foremost, patriots who yearn to believe-in America's moral, economic, and political superiority, and in its sanct.i.ty; followers who want to feel secure rather than partic.i.p.ate, who want the burdens and demands of politics shouldered by leaders who care for "people like me."

According to the liberal theory fashionable among academics, the ideal role of the generality of citizens in a democracy is to "deliberate," that is, discuss rationally and civilly the important political questions of the day. However appealing or remote that ideal may seem, in the reality of the war between imperialism and terrorism the contemporary citizen, far from being invited to a discussion, is, as never before, being manipulated, by "managed care" and by the managers of fear. From one direction the citizen is a.s.sailed by fears of terrorism, not knowing when or how terrorists may strike; a fear that the citizen cannot "fight" against has been amplified by fears of natural disasters (tsunamis, hurricanes), of invasions by illegal immigrants and by epidemics (Asian flu, avian flu) for which, according to official spokespersons, only limited supplies of vaccines will be available. The citizen is all but paralyzed by official warnings that an attack of one kind or another may be imminent or certain to happen sometime and somewhere. The implicit message is that the citizen can do nothing except follow the instructions of "authorities." The predictable, and antic.i.p.ated, response of the citizen is to look to government for protection and to defer to official judgments. Yet the same citizen who is told to follow the instructions of authorities has had it drummed in that "big government" is the enemy who threatens to take away his money and freedom. The citizen is left with no political ally responsive to his economic fears. Unlike cla.s.sical totalitarianism, which boasted of the unanimity of its citizens, inverted totalitarianism thrives on ambivalence and the uncertainty it breeds.

The ambivalent citizen: where is the power located that can be trusted to protect him and her but not to tax them? And what kind of politics would support that kind of power? The answer: a form of antipolitics that reflects a distaste, bordering on intolerance, for frank discussion of inequalities, cla.s.s differences, the persisting problems of racism, climate change, or the consequences of imperialism. Antipolitics is expressed as patriotism, ant.i.terrorism, militarism-subjects that brook little or no disagreements, provoking fervor while stifling thought. Ambivalence is temporarily suspended before a patriotic power "above" politics, one represented by the armed forces, symbols of heroism, anti-materialism, sacrifice for others, force purified by a righteous cause. Big government may be the problem; big military is the solution.

That the patriotic citizen unswervingly supports the military and its huge budgets means that conservatives have succeeded in persuading the public that the military is distinct from government. Thus the most substantial element of state power is removed from public debate. Similarly in his/her new status as imperial citizen, the believer remains contemptuous of bureaucracy yet does not hesitate to obey the directives issued by the Department of Homeland Security, the largest and most intrusive governmental department in the history of the nation. Identification with militarism and patriotism, along with the images of American might projected by the media, serves to make the individual citizen feel stronger, thereby compensating for the feelings of weakness visited by the economy upon an overworked, exhausted, and insecure labor force. For its antipolitics inverted totalitarianism requires believers, patriots, and nonunion "guest workers."

Instead of reflecting love of the nation's democratic heritage patriotism has become xenophobic; fixated on might, preemptive war, and hatred of terrorists; suspicious of Muslims and liberals alike; and contemptuous of former allies. The new militarism, glorifying war and sacrifice, and boasting an imperial reach, is being made an integral element of the public piety so conspicuous in American politics. Not surprisingly the Republican Party is its chief curator and beneficiary. It was recently celebrated during the Republican National Convention of 2004. To the sanctifying strains of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," engagingly sung by a chorale of black youngsters, Vice President Cheney (a notorious draft dodger during the Vietnam War) and Zell Miller (a venomously reactionary Democrat) both lavished such praise upon the armed forces as to stifle any discussion of the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners, the recent official inquiries about it, and the rationale for the war itself. For the first time in American history that same convention presented the spectacle of about a dozen retired generals and admirals posing on the stage of a party's convention and serving as a claque for the party's candidate; they were followed by General Tommy Franks, former commander of operations in Iraq, who offered a lengthy testimonial to the decisive character of the nominee. Since many of the military men on the stage had also served their country in corporate office, the convention was paying homage to the cursus honorum of the revolving door: enter the military, transfer to the corporate, and graduate a conservative claqueur. The true rivalry among elites is not between Harvard Business School and Yale Law School, but between them and West Point.

Militarism is not only a distraction from social problems but confirmation that warfare is now a joint undertaking (sic) of corporation and state. Government soldiers fight side by side with enterprising corporate warriors who, fittingly, are paid thousands of dollars more than GIs.15 The United States remains the world's biggest arms dealer. It is no surprise that ever since the Reagan administration, the Republican Party, which successfully pinned the label of "big spenders" on the Democrats, should be the prime mover for making defense appropriations the largest item by far in the annual federal budget. It highlights a consistent inconsistency: big spending is anti-American when directed to social programs but patriotic if it is funneled to the beneficiaries/defenders of the corporate state.

VII.

If cla.s.s warfare is being waged in America, my cla.s.s is

clearly winning. . . . Tax breaks for corporations (and their

investors, particularly large ones) were a major part of the

[Bush] administration's 2002 and 2003 initiatives.

-Warren Buffett, billionaire investor.

The most dramatic change in party politics has been the transformation of the Republican Party: from deficit hawks to proponents of the largest deficit in governmental history; from isolationists to preemptivists; from a party renowned for its anti-intellectualism to a party that nurtures its very own intellectual luminaries and think tanks; from a midwestern party with Grant Wood's American Gothic as its icon to a southern-southwestern party boasting a cowboy capitalism with the robber baron as its appropriate icon. All this suggests that inverted totalitarianism has evolved a politics to support its imperial ambitions.

While the transformed Republican Party reveals what a "party of government" might look like under inverted totalitarianism, the Democrats reveal the fate of opposition politics under inverted totalitarianism. The Democrats' politics might be described as inauthentic opposition in the era of Superpower. Having fended off its reformist elements and disclaimed the label of liberal, it is trapped by new rules of the game which dictate that a party exists to win elections rather than to promote a vision of the good society.17 Accordingly, the party competes for an apolitical segment of the electorate, "the undecided," and puzzles how best to woo religious zealots. Should Democrats somehow be elected, corporate sponsors make it politically impossible for the new officeholders to alter significantly the direction of society. At best Democrats might repair some of the damage done to environmental safeguards or to Medicare without substantially reversing the drift rightwards. By offering palliatives, a Democratic administration contributes to plausible denial about the true nature of the system. By fostering an illusion among the powerless cla.s.ses that the party can make their interests a priority, it pacifies and thereby defines the style of an opposition party in an inverted totalitarian system. In the process it demonstrates the superior cost-effectiveness of inverted totalitarianism over the crude cla.s.sic versions.

This underscores the contribution of the "public ideology" being promoted by elected Republicans and pseudoconservative ideologues. Although ideologies profess consistency and boast of their coherent "worldview," there is typically a suppressed, or downplayed subtext in the message. The suppressed component of the prevailing ideology is the political status of corporate power. While the public ideology celebrates economics in the form of "entrepreneurship," "small start-ups," and "free enterprise," it ignores the political significance and power of the corporation. The public ideology of conservatives boasts of their commitment to reducing governmental power; hence the mantras of archaism: returning to "the original Const.i.tution," ending "social engineering," and demanding no taxation-even with representation. In that imaginary "original Const.i.tution" neither Superpower nor empire exists.