The Radical Left, The Intercept, and Perceptions of the American Empire

There is some debate as to whether or not America has an empire. Intellectuals, commentators, politicians, and journalists on the left and the right both claim that an American Empire exists, but have diametrically opposed views on whether or not it is a good thing.

Neoconservatives proudly proclaim that there is an American Empire and that it maintains free trade, keeps order, and promotes democracy and good governance across the globe. The political center (or at least the foreign policy center) acknowledges that the United States is the most powerful country on Earth and that America stands for “Western” principles and democracy, but shuns the Imperial language and the idea that the United States controls the world. The left, and especially the far left, also embraces the phrase, “American Empire,” but believes it stands for oppression, state-sanctioned violence, and secrecy.

The differing perceptions of American power are remarkably similar to domestic British opinion of the British Empire. That entity was brimming with contradictions. It was certainly and Empire, in the literal sense with colonies directly under the control of the British government, or surrogates of the British government, and it was built on the use and threat of ruthless and brutal violence. The Empire relied on subjugation and economic exploitation. But in many places the British, in essence, created local governments and nations where there had been none before. Britain advanced globalization, free trade, and efficient bureaucracy based on the rule of law wherever they went. In many ways the British Empire sowed the seeds of their own destruction by creating nations that would eventually seek their independence. A revisionist historian, moving away from the vibrant pains and horrors of colonialism, with the perspective of time, may see the British Empire as an overall positive influence on the world, much in the same way that the Mongols are now seen to have spread trade and rejuvenation in the wake of their apocalyptic destruction of Asia and Eastern Europe.

When we look at the American Empire from this perspective it is possible to see how both the left and the right are correct. If America has an Empire, it has certainly placed its clients under a mild yoke. There is no direct control or oppression of citizens of foreign nations, just heavy influence. Our allies (who are also the primary victims of our bullying and cajoling) enjoy the protection of the United States military and can be sure that their economic interests will be pursued as long as they align with the American vision of free trade and the standardization of law. Our allies have often not had to get their hands dirty as the United States generally leads military and diplomatic endeavors that have benefits for the states under our influence. In all this the United States generally spreads an ideology and vision for the world which is, on the whole, better for the citizens of nations in terms of their personal and economic liberty than most of the United States’ rivals.

None of these positive things should erase the negative aspects of American Empire. The biggest problem here is the one of perception. Americans in general and the far right and center tend to have a blind spot where the negative actions of our nation in the world are concerned. This is where a publication like The Intercept comes into play. I believe a news outlet like The Intercept best exemplifies the radical left’s view of the American Empire. It is obsessed with the secrecy of the government, with the hypocrisy of the difference between our nation’s professed ideals and our status as the world’s foremost arms dealer. It exposes the tendency to discount or ignore the pain and suffering that our military actions cause. I believe that while this perspective is sometimes skewed and slightly paranoid, especially in the sense that they think any action taken by the government is sinister or driven by selfish, exploitative elites, it is a necessary counterbalance to the comfortable view of the status quo.

America’s influence will certainly endure on a global stage for generations, but public perception of the American Empire will determine, to a degree which seems surprising, the path that the United States takes on global affairs. The lesson of the British Empire is that it collapsed from without and from within by shifts in British opinion of their Empire. That’s why publications which espouse the negative and contrary view of the American Empire have an outsized inportance. If the negative view becomes the dominant one, the United States could very well retreat much sooner from the world stage than would otherwise be the case.

Thoughts on "Caesar: Life of a Colussus" by Adrian Goldsworthy

Some things that stand out immediately are the difference between the societies of Ancient Rome and the states of the modern world. So much of the life of Ancient Rome evolved around ritual, religion, and precedent. The fall of the Roman Republic and the ultimate collapse of the Roman Empire are often seen as warnings from the past about the arrogance of great powers. But society and life was so different that I find this hard to swallow. The Roman Republic and its political and legal system do not much resemble any functioning (or dysfunctional) democracy that exists today. Individuals, families, and tribes, plus a rigid class system, defined the political workings of the Roman Republic. There were no political parties and every individual who was a member of the Senate was in it solely for themselves, therefore there was no party ideology to keep everybody in line, just individual stances. Law was administered by those who had the right of imperiumgranted to them by the Senate.

Some additional thoughts from reading the history:

The man granted imperiumwas followed by servants called lictorswho carried with them the fasces the axe inside a bundle of sticks representing Roman law and cohesiveness. There are fasces on the wall of the Senate chamber in the United States and, of course, the world fascism is derived from the fasces.

Warfare, as practiced by the Ancient Romans, was horrific in its brutality. ISIS has nothing on a Roman army. They would enslave entire populations, kill everyone they found in a resisting city, starve a population by destroying their crops or cutting off their access to water.

A funny thing that occurred to me while reading the book is that the character of Gary in the HBO show “Veep” is the modern equivalent of a nomenclator. A nomenclator was a Roman slave that walked behind a candidate for office in the Roman Republic and whispered the names of the individuals the candidate met so that he could personally greet each one of them.

The New American Politics of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have harnessed something greater than demagoguery or populism and are truly our first millennial, tech-savvy presidential candidates. Obama’s campaign was renowned for its ground-game and use of data, but that allowed for targeted messaging to voters, and Bush’s team was known for using wedge-issues and ruthless branding to get out the vote and swing public opinion. Trump and Sanders have done something different, they have harnessed the splintered-media and the social virality of the internet.

Trump has dominated the attention of the media and has used the ubiquity of his presence to generate support and interest, not unlike, say, the Kardashians.

Sanders on the other hand has gotten millions of young people to act as his surrogates, by re-tweeting and posting about him on Facebook and other social media platforms. Sanders has made himself into a kind of social fad. If you are a millennial and you don’t support Sanders, than there is a good chance the wrath of social exclusion will fall on you.

This is a truly modern election cycle where the forces shaping our popular culture have come together to finally effect politics.

Slavery and Congressional Gridlock

There is a direct link between slavery and congressional gridlock. Looking back at the arc of American history, its original sin has shaped its curve. Embedded in the constitution and eventually splitting the country apart in a bloody war, slavery gave way to institutionalized and social and cultural racism. And racism became more exclusive to one party.

Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society and Voting Rights initiatives moved conservatives out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican Party. Before this, as noted in the Economist article, conservatives and liberals has existed in both parties and had allowed members to find common ground more easily, reducing gridlock. This partisanship has been a major factor in increasing polarization and gridlock in Congress.

Race is still a great dividing factor in America and talking about race is difficult, especially for white people, who can become defensive very quickly when discussing white privilege or institutional racism. So how can we heal this divide, and therefore remove a host of divisive social issues from party politics?

Without certain social divisions people could once again move among parties to find common ground on individual policy issues. Support Black Lives Matter and reducing the corporate tax rate? Vote for Republicans. Want to end affirmative action but support a single-payer option for health care? Vote for Democrats. If this were the case so many regular problems tied to the actual smooth running of the nation, which is the chief victim of polarized gridlock, could and would be addressed.

The salient fact in engaging in this sort of thought experiment is to note how many divisive issues surround race and America’s attempts to reconcile with its (more) racist past. Affirmative action, our view of police and policing, welfare and tax redistribution, the war on drugs. Race has gotten in the way of making policy decisions solely on the facts, and on Utilitarian principles of governing for the greatest good for the greatest number. The practice of dividing people on a granular level, especially with the rise of big data and analysis, has the effect of dividing people even further into a Republican/Conservative camp and a Democratic/Liberal camp where policy and social and cultural views are all linked, where they do not necessarily need to be. It is a dangerous path that risks dividing people from one another where even if they share some similar, broad principles, they are utterly separated.

Obama vs. Eisenhower

President Truman had many difficult tasks that faced him at the end of World War II, and he handled them ably, for the most part. The most intractable problem he dealt with in foreign policy was the worsening relations and oppositional stance that he faced in the Soviet Union. In order to stop Communist expansion he was willing to go to war. In Korea the United States engaged in a tremendous blood bath.

When Eisenhower became president he was concerned about the death of American soldiers in a war that they could not win without massive escalation. He ended the Korean War and throughout his two terms he refused to get the United States entangled and military conflicts. Eisenhower had a dilemma: he had to confront and actively oppose Communism and he desperately wanted to avoid direct armed conflict. So he turned to technology and covert activity. The CIA was given free reign during his tenure and the value of having a distinct technological advantage was realized. An unintended effect of the prolonged arms race was to institutionalize the military programs that were put in place during the Korean War.

Now to Obama, if there are circumstances that could be said to provide a direct analogy from one presidency to another, Eisenhower’s could not be more fitting. The Bush Doctrine necessitated military intervention with combat troops invading countries and overthrowing regimes. This costly and largely failed approach informed much of the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

If there is one thing that truly separates their views on foreign policy it is that Obama has wielded the fear of terrorism less effectively than Eisenhower wielded the fear of Communism. Eisenhower used that fear as a bludgeon to bolster his domestic agenda. It may be dishonest but it was effective in building infrastructure for the American economy, advancing education, and balancing the budget. Obama has not used the fear of terrorism in an effective manner on the domestic front. It is possible that he could have better used American’s fears to advance infrastructure projects or other worthy domestic projects.

The salient features of Obama’s policy toward confronting terrorism are a heavy reliance on drone strikes, which are shrouded in a veil of national security secrecy, and the institutionalization of legal justifications for attacking terrorists and the maintanace of NSA dragnets, covert military operations, and domestic security measures. These are the largely negative consequences of Obama’s policy of confrontation without war. A permanent Cold War-style apparatus has been called into existence to oppose an intractable political, economic, and religious problem. In the new world of crumbling borders and technology it remains to be seen whether or not this will be an effective strategy for defeating terrorism, but it certainly is an oppressive weight on the American government and military and it diminishes the dominance of the law in restraining the impulse to tamp down rights and use force.