[PREVIEW] Episode 575: A Grin Without A Cat

Liz (0:00)

But I think that there's this funny attempt by elites. You saw this with Elon and Trump too, where they think maybe we can, if we all just organize, which they all kind of did in this hyperpolitical way, right? That is the kind of the story of 2024 Yeah. Is that from 2022 on, you had these guys, these JD Vance and, you know, Marc Andreessen and, you know, whoever it was, like kind of in all their little group chats, just like everybody else, organizing in their way and responding to all of these things online. And then actually like winning levers of power, in my opinion, in a way that they, I feel like they thought the left almost sort of laid out in 2020, you know, it was them kind of like learning those lessons. And then because they actually had access to massive amounts of capital and power and so on and so on, and were truly elites, but they were in the trenches with everybody else, you know, that they were actually able to kind of win power. And there was this idea that we could take the state, we could kind of reorient the organs of the American state in a way that could deliver us a way to kind of really compete with China on the same level without understanding that, you know, not to like, that there was a revolution and then there was some party form and actually your class was abolished and all of these sorts of things, right? That led us to this moment and then the opening up and all these other things.

But, again, it's this kind of like they want to like Pinocchio it or Trojan Horse, a kind of like to get these achievements out of a state that cannot produce it because of the structure of the American state and also their position within it.

Anton Jäger (2:02)

Yeah. So I think there's an attempt to speed run, but also just to cheat yourself into collective agency and capacity, which I think is like a very tempting element also in contemporary political culture, precisely because the Internet and or the new public sphere incentivizes this quick fix shortcut mentality, which I think has also been stimulated by the rise of finance, which is not the most patient form of economic activity in many ways. And as you said, there is a big difference between Trump 1 and Trump 2 I mean, there was no Heritage Foundation, no Project 2025

There wasn't a blueprint for what a deconstruction of the administrative state and this profound reordering of American foreign policy looked like. So there, I do think there is a strong discontinuity. And there's a distinction between like Trump minimalism and Trump maximalism as to how deep you judge its effects on American politics, American political culture. I do think few people disagree that there was a difference between 2016, when they themselves were surprised they won 2024, when they actually moved into the halls of power, which much more of a preconceived plan. But as you say, at the same time, the conquest of power, which was more swift and which was more prepared, and then the institutional transformation are two very, very different things. And precisely, I think, because they lag these instruments of discipline also within their own class, to just get people to do something and follow a determined line, makes them fall back on a kind of simulacrum or the spectacle, because so much of it is spectacle. So, of course, ICE is increasing its deportation numbers, but there's just a very strong sense that would really matter to them in ICE getting the videos out and getting the AI-generated propaganda out and pleasing the boss and making sure that the boss has had his airtime.

And this is obviously not, I'd say, a durable plan for consolidating American hegemony in the new century, but also not a way of whatever, like re-industrializing the US or building a new social contract. Because I don't think, I mean, Vance himself, I think, has also given up on many of these pretenses now.

Liz (4:32)

Right.

Anton Jäger (4:33)

And it is in many ways just spin now, or the spin doctors have taken over. I'm not sure we're going to see that many more surprises before 2028