2: Thucydides Trap & Evangelical Trees

Also: I make a not-so-hot prediction on the 2020 presidential election

Hello, world,

Although this newsletter, as previewed in issue one, will be about culture, music, philosophy, personal trivia, non-fiction of all genres and hopefully s t r a n g e meandering digressions, I am a political animal, thus newsletters that are mostly politics will certainly happen. This is one of those newsletters. That said, let’s get right into what made me so curious since the last newsletter.

PBS Falls for the Thucydides Trap

The final Democratic primary debate of the year was held on December 19, and there was much to like about it. However, one question stopped me, for the framing of it caught my attention. Moderator PBS host Judy Woodruff asked former vice president, and leading Democratic candidate, the following question: National security scholars have long warned about the historical precedent that when there's a ruling power and a rising power, there's likely to be a war. Is the U.S. on a collision course with China? How questions are framed is important and I didn’t particularly like this framing. Why you might ask? Well because I’ve studied this situation that Woodruff alludes to, it’s called the Thucydides Trap, and most national security scholars and historians I’ve read while in grad school think this is a particularly dangerous way of framing the question; and, it’s also a bad analogy that “fails as a heuristic device or predictive tool in the analysis of contemporary events.” Curious? Allow me to say more.

Graham Allison recently released a book called Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? In it, the Harvard scholar examines all the times in modern history (last 500 years) that there has been a ruling power who has had to directly face a rising power; he found that out of 16 cases, war occurred 12 times. When a ruling power is met with a rising power, this so-called “trap” is sometimes named the Thucydides trap, after the ancient Greek historian who penned one of the earliest works of “applied history,” History of the Peloponnesian War, originally published some 2,400 years ago. That war saw a ruling power (Sparta) preemptively attack a rising power (Athens); this case is often presented as a model for realism, or the idea that the anarchic structure of global politics engenders self-preservation by any means, often by offensive build-up or power; and, yes, war if necessary. But the reality of 5th century B.C. was far messier; Sparta and Athens (for over a century prior) were both extant powers; the Greek city-states had been at war for 50 years prior to the (second) Peloponnesian War; and, Sparta’s ally Corinth coerced Sparta to go to war. Who would be Corinth in this case, and what would be the reason?

In the paperback edition, after receiving criticism, Allison was careful to note that Thucydides never said that war was inevitable, but this still didn’t stop second-hand and third-hand accounts to bastardize the claim and make it less nuanced than even it is. Many Trump acolytes, for example, are obsessed with this pessimistic and simplified framing. Even so, many scholars have taken umbrage at Allison’s superficial analogy, in general. For example, Arthur Waldon, professor of international relations at the University of Pennsylvania, points out that two seminal, classicist historians long ago debunked the idea of a Thucydides trap; Kori Schake, professor in war studies at King’s College London laments Allison’s misreading, and calls the summer that he released his book “the Summer of misreading Thucydides.” As Donald Kagan underscores, the Peloponnesian War “was caused by men who made bad decisions in difficult circumstances. Neither the circumstances nor the decisions were inevitable.”

The problem with Woodruff’s framing is there is no mention that many national security scholars, including scholars at U.S. military academies, find the seemingly-deterministic “collision” as unhelpful. Moreover, there are myriad “power transition theories” in the field of international relations (my field). Albert Wolf, at the military academy West Point, argues that “it is highly unlikely that we are en route to a hegemonic war.” Alan Greeley Misenheimer, at the National Defense University, firmly states that “Allison’s notion of a Thucydides Trap is simply not supported by Thucydides’ text. Changing the name to the “Allison Trap” might, therefore, be preferable.” Moderator Woodruff’s modifier-free declarative “national security scholars…” is unjustified; it comes off as authoritative and leaves the audience with a false, fatalistic impression of one of the most significant developments in recent times: the rise of China coupled with the waning of Pax Americana. And the use of the phrase “collision course” is directly taken from Allison’s unpopular framing. Look at this screenshot from his op-ed on March 31, 2017, in The Washington Post:

I propose a better framing:
”Mr. Vice president, the U.S.-China relationship and its evolution will be one of the most consequential developments of this century. We know that much matters when it comes to rising-ruling dyads, including national character, individual character, thousands of decision-points, and the structure of international institutions. National security scholars understand that strong diplomacy is necessary to ensure that the world’s increasing interdependency will be constituted of peace. Most of them note that war is not a likely course. Explain how you would be the best choice for president to ensure that peaceful co-existence is guaranteed?

If an Evangelical website posts an editorial, and no Evangelical reads it,
did it happen?

Christianity Today recently published an editorial excoriating the president, calling for his removal from office. They lamented the president’s behavior as “profoundly immoral.” Better yet, they say that the man himself is a “near perfect example of a human being who is morally lost and confused.” This is significant. Or is it?

Some of the most interesting findings from polling data from the last few years have been the total reversal of Evangelical Christians and their response to questions asking if moral character matters. In 2011, nearly 70% of white Evangelicals thought that an immoral private life precluded an immoral public life. A poll in 2016 found the inverse: 72% of white Evangelicals “say an elected official can behave ethically even if they have committed transgressions in their personal life.”

Will this editorial by a Christian magazine make a difference? I doubt it. I agree with Chris Hedges take in American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (2006). The Evangelical right is worshipping a Golden Calf because they have been fed a steady stream of lies for decades, by the purveyors of the prosperity gospel and infotainment version of Christianity (think Left Behind ) This Golden Calf was deliberately created, is Hedges argument, and it only works because of the neoliberal policies of the past 40 years. Many Evangelicals openly say that they believe Trump’s victory was divinely inspired - one poll of Protestant Christians shows 20% of white Protestants who believe Trump was “anointed by God.” And for those who believe the Bible is the literal word of God, 35.6% of them answer in the affirmative to the question “was Trump appointed by God?” Wayne Allyn Root, a conservative radio host, called Trump “the second coming of God.” This is insane.

Mary Beard, in Episode 3 of Civilizations (PBS) says the question to ask regarding religious ceremony is, what are the worshippers worshipping? Is Trump an idol for Evangelicals? Certainly, Jeff Ven Drew (R-NJ) saying to the president that he has his “undying support. always,” sounds like it. Is the rightwing worshipping Trump? Is this a cult? I’m actually serious here; I’m not being facetious or funny. Steven Hassan, an expert on cults, just released a book called The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control (2019).; he certainly thinks this way of understanding the Trump phenomenon makes sense. Holy crap.

Bernie Beats Trump

Political scientists consider many factors when it comes to producing the best model for predicting who will win the presidency. Achens and Bartels (2016, 146-176) meta-analysis show that it’s mostly two variables: the current state of the economy, and how long the incumbent party has held power. But they also bluntly admit that results are “random” and by that they mean “arbitrary.” “Myopic retrospection” and how the economy is doing in the few weeks running up to an election is, for all intents and purposes, random, and arbitrary. That said, when a historic moment is underway, I truly believe that relying on a small sample of past events can often produce more noise than signal. A Jacobin piece from this past week highlighted the historical race that we would have if the two candidates are Vermont independent Senator Bernie Sanders and incumbent President Trump. Day and Karp (a professional historian) write that:

The self-seeking billionaire versus the lifelong crusader for the working class: it would be potent, resonant, and emblematic of the deep economic divide that people intuitively understand but don’t yet have the language for. It would be the kind of epic symbolic rivalry in which you can imagine people taking a side for the first time in their lives.

This dynamic truly would make this election unique on both sides of the aisle; perhaps even a slice of the 40 % of voters who stay home, mostly working-class, non-white, and young would find a reason to come out for the first time in their lives. I could go on and on about this piece. I completely agree with it. They end with this:

When people say that Sanders is a risk, they usually mean that his platform and his rhetoric are too far outside the Democratic political mainstream for comfort. But at this juncture in history, comfort itself is a risk. The Right has taken advantage of the public’s appetite for transformation in order to further enrich the masters of the universe. His opponents will have to take advantage of that same appetite to do the very opposite.

Sanders’s ambitious agenda represents a dramatic departure from the neoliberal Democratic consensus, and that’s exactly what we need to win. If we want to beat Trump and build a countervailing force capable of taking on the systems and institutions that produced him, we can’t afford not to nominate Bernie Sanders.

I think putting predictions out in public is important. I’ve written why I think this is the case before when I successfully predicted Clinton would choose Tim Kaine as her vice president. This prediction is early, and I hope I’m wrong (for giving the incumbent president such high probability), but here it is: one of two people will be the next president of the United States, Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders.

Have you heard?

I recently saw Slothrust live. They fucking blew me away. Check them out:

“Being dirty is practical; all the girls leave you alone. When you're sticking to yourself you don't want nobody else.”

Keep looking up,
Patrick M. Foran