Reddit reviews The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction

This book gives a good explanation

Basically, Breitbart tells its readers what they want to hear. You look deep into the ideology it promotes and it is essentially a giant rant against modernism. It wants to force things at gunpoint backwards in time. The world today is chaotic and previously stable elements of it are undermined constantly by changing technology and culture. A lot of people hence start looking backwards towards some past of wholeness and security that in actuality never even existed.

Breitbart exploits that. It presents people with clear enemies and even clearer solutions.

"Mexicans are your problem. Vote for trump and he'll deport/kill all the mexicans. Then you'll be safe".

More broadly this is an attitude that is deeply rooted in American nationalism and conservative ideology in general. Both have always been racist and violently hostile to any notion of change.

So it is that Breitbart strikes a chord with millions of people. It confirms their fears and then promises them that violence can ease them.

The democrats are soft and they refuse to acknowledge the kind of people they are opposed to. The whole "they go low, we go high!" thing was the most naive shit I ever heard in my life. And the Clinton campaign kept using it in response to Trump's demagoguery.

What they failed to understand is that your average American is an emotionally driven, subservient, sheeplike, cretin. They go by the balls, not the brains. If you don't believe me just watch Fox or listen to talk radio for five minutes. They don't deal in "facts", they deal in emotional catharsis, anger, horror. That's why it's effective. More than that the GOP strategy revolves around loading liberal rhetoric with emotional/racist detritus that works on a subconscious level more than a rational one. If you want a great explanation of all this then this and this are both great books. I'd highly recommend this also.

Whenever I hear a democrat say "I'll reach across the aisle!" I cringe. Tell me, who does that inspire? Why vote for you just so you can bend over backwards for people you hate? Bernie Sanders did as good as he did not because of policy specifics but because he knew how to capitalize on people's legitimate anger. Trump capitalized on racism. Bernie Sanders capitalized on the very obvious inequality and institutional crony capitalism that defines our government. One appealed to the worst in people, the other reminded people of how much they're getting screwed.

And that's the problem with democrats: they're stuck thinking in terms of political compromise, of moderation, of political correctness.

The most intelligent thing to come out of a democratic politician's mouth recently was when Perez said in public that republicans "don't give a shit about people". That's both true and sensationalist enough to make an impact.

You don't need to tell lies. You need to tell the truth so bluntly, brutally, and without any sort of veneer of compromise or civility. You need to be willing to look the entire GOP in the face and describe it as a corrupt octopus that is a threat to fucking civilization. You need to weigh down their language with subliminal associations with nazis marching down the street and mass slaughter of minorities.

Democrats need to stop treating republicans like people with good intentions and treat them as a fucking threat to our democracy. Then their base will get out and vote, then the spotlight will be shone brightly in the faces of the fucking dickheads. They need to attack, constantly. Instead they sit around defending.

The republicans offer nothing of substance. They do not treat political campaigns as debates but as a kind of mental warzone. The democrats try to appeal to people's better nature. People don't have a better nature, people are cynical shitheads. Roger Stone gets that.

This is a great book

Steve Bannon is part of a long line of reactionary nitwits

I enjoy critiques of intellectuals and learning relations between them. You should also check out The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism by him. Mark Lilla is very similar, The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals and Politics and The Shipwrecked Mind: On Political Reaction Of course philosophers and politics would be very lacking without Isaiah Berlin Also Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: The Thinkers of The New Left is very good. Lastly The Opium of Intellectuals of Raymon Aron is a must-read classic.

(interesting overview of the book from amazon.com:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1590179021/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_x_e.cNyb8A290F8)

We don’t understand the reactionary mind. As a result, argues Mark Lilla in this timely book, the ideas and passions that shape today’s political dramas are unintelligible to us.

The reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe. And like the revolutionary his political engagements are motivated by highly developed ideas.

Lilla begins with three twentieth-century philosophers—Franz Rosenzweig, Eric Voegelin, and Leo Strauss—who attributed the problems of modern society to a break in the history of ideas and promoted a return to earlier modes of thought. He then examines the enduring power of grand historical narratives of betrayal to shape political outlooks since the French Revolution, and shows how these narratives are employed in the writings of Europe’s right-wing cultural pessimists and Maoist neocommunists, American theoconservatives fantasizing about the harmony of medieval Catholic society and radical Islamists seeking to restore a vanished Muslim caliphate.

The revolutionary spirit that inspired political movements across the world for two centuries may have died out. But the spirit of reaction that rose to meet it has survived and is proving just as formidable a historical force. We live in an age when the tragicomic nostalgia of Don Quixote for a lost golden age has been transformed into a potent and sometimes deadly weapon. Mark Lilla helps us to understand why.

Obama was a highly dignified man, there is no doubt about that. He had many social graces which created a standard in your mind. Lets revisit some previous presidents.

President Jefferson described President Adams as a
> "hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman."

Very presidential eh?

Presidential George W. Bush wore cowboy boots with the Royal seal of the House of Windsor on the sole when he met the Queen of England. He constantly embarrassed the United States with his harebrained verbal oopsies.

President Clinton received and gave oral sex to an intern while in office.




Trump is intentionally baiting you, and baiting everyone else. He is intentionally saying things that will offend sensitive individuals, it has purpose and intention. That purpose and intention is to reverse the course we are on towards political correctness. If you have an interest, you should read The Shipwrecked Mind, it really lays out the idealism of both the liberal and conservative crowds.

This intentional baiting, or trolling is a whole movement in the media/politics/social issues.

Edit: I wanted to add this tidbit because it means a lot to me. We have a lot of very graceful, dignified people in our country who are well educated and well spoken. We often forget the roots we came from though, we are the fruit of the lower classes from all over the world. Robert Downy Jr. hit this right on the nose during an interview in France.