This is Rutger Bregman's audacious claim in a recent podcast interview with The Economist. He says that what makes him great (no pun intended) is not only his ability to conceive of grand disruptions in the socioeconomic status quo - aggressive deportations, Islamophobia, and sexism - but more importantly, his ability to transform them into reality. This identity war is not new, but he has single-handedly been able to manipulate small pockets of opportunity (read: the disenfranchised Rust Belt working class) in order to materialize his dream.
I would immediately argue that the world Trump believes in and unfortunately, we now live in, is not utopian, but rather quite the opposite. But the troubling thing about any world that has more than one person is that utopias are, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. Needless to say, the "utopias" that Hitler and Stalin have conceived of in recent history are anything but. However, ideas are only as good as their execution, so in that sense, they were contemporary masters of shaping their own utopias. The problem, therefore, partly lies with the progressives' tendency to ignore any utopian reality that may not align with their own.
"But why has the right have better fortune than the left in shaping their utopias?" Anne McElvoy then asks Bregman. He argues that the left has had its turn in shaping its utopia in the 1950s during the neoliberalism era. However, the world became disillusioned with these policies, because they only caused stagflation and oil crises, and the pendulum swung back into populist favor. I don't fully agree with Bregman's analysis. For one, neoliberalism and its discontents were caused by Reagan, a Republican president, while the oil crisis was caused by Nixon's Operation Nickel Grass. Admittedly, I am not an expert on 20th century Latin American or Middle Eastern politics, and the economic ramifications of the events of the time are certainly more complicated than the left-right dichotomy to which we have become accustomed. But my point still stands that, at least in living memory, the right has wielded more influence than its counterparts, with the exception of President Obama. But where has that led us now?
I think the issues stem from both the right's strategic advantage with activating popular support - which appeals to emotion rather than logic - and the left's lack of clear communication. The criticism I often hear about the left is that the message is unfocused; the Woman's March was dismissed by many for the perception that it was a pity party for a large group of marginalized groups with no unifying rallying call. With the right, the message is easy to digest: our problems are caused by other people, often foreign people, and we need to keep them out in order to achieve our own potential. I think any policy based on excluding others is dead on arrival, but my emotional investment in this issue is besides the point.
Call me an idealist and so be it, but the way we craft our utopias have become too compartmentalized. We aren't dreaming big enough, and perhaps simple enough. When policymaking becomes too complicated, it may help to take a step back and reevaluate what values you have, what your community has, what your country has. If the U.S. truly espouses equality above all, then the utopia we should imagine, should be quite simple. (P.S. It's not Donald Trump's.)
I would immediately argue that the world Trump believes in and unfortunately, we now live in, is not utopian, but rather quite the opposite. But the troubling thing about any world that has more than one person is that utopias are, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder. Needless to say, the "utopias" that Hitler and Stalin have conceived of in recent history are anything but. However, ideas are only as good as their execution, so in that sense, they were contemporary masters of shaping their own utopias. The problem, therefore, partly lies with the progressives' tendency to ignore any utopian reality that may not align with their own.
"But why has the right have better fortune than the left in shaping their utopias?" Anne McElvoy then asks Bregman. He argues that the left has had its turn in shaping its utopia in the 1950s during the neoliberalism era. However, the world became disillusioned with these policies, because they only caused stagflation and oil crises, and the pendulum swung back into populist favor. I don't fully agree with Bregman's analysis. For one, neoliberalism and its discontents were caused by Reagan, a Republican president, while the oil crisis was caused by Nixon's Operation Nickel Grass. Admittedly, I am not an expert on 20th century Latin American or Middle Eastern politics, and the economic ramifications of the events of the time are certainly more complicated than the left-right dichotomy to which we have become accustomed. But my point still stands that, at least in living memory, the right has wielded more influence than its counterparts, with the exception of President Obama. But where has that led us now?
I think the issues stem from both the right's strategic advantage with activating popular support - which appeals to emotion rather than logic - and the left's lack of clear communication. The criticism I often hear about the left is that the message is unfocused; the Woman's March was dismissed by many for the perception that it was a pity party for a large group of marginalized groups with no unifying rallying call. With the right, the message is easy to digest: our problems are caused by other people, often foreign people, and we need to keep them out in order to achieve our own potential. I think any policy based on excluding others is dead on arrival, but my emotional investment in this issue is besides the point.
Call me an idealist and so be it, but the way we craft our utopias have become too compartmentalized. We aren't dreaming big enough, and perhaps simple enough. When policymaking becomes too complicated, it may help to take a step back and reevaluate what values you have, what your community has, what your country has. If the U.S. truly espouses equality above all, then the utopia we should imagine, should be quite simple. (P.S. It's not Donald Trump's.)
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