Beyond Labels

If we continue our conversation about the Israel-Iran war next week, here’s a link to a relevant opinion piece by Tom Friedman in the 16 June edition of The New York Times proposing what Trump should do next in the Middle East. I think Friedman describes a strategy similar to that proposed last week by all of us, collectively, but smarter.

In summary, Friedman proposes the following:

1. The US should tell Iran we will supply Israel with the weapons it needs to destroy all of Iran’s nuclear capacity unless Iran immediately agrees to allow the IAEA to dismantle all of those facilities and remove all of Iran’s missile materials. This is what a majority of us proposed last week. (Friedman also proposes that “[o]nly if Iran completely complies with these conditions should it be allowed to have a civilian nuclear program under strict IAEA controls.”
2. The US should recognize Palestinians’ right to national self-determination, provided  “… that they can fulfill the responsibilities of statehood by generating a new Palestinian Authority leadership that the United States deems credible, free of corruption and committed both to effectively serving Palestinian citizens in the West Bank and Gaza and to coexisting with Israel.” This a step in the direction of what Peter proposed last week, but without the immediate US recognition of a Palestinian state. (Friedman doesn’t expressly condition that recognition on Palestinians’ committing to form a secular state, although perhaps “coexisting with Israel” is intended to imply that. Friedman also doesn’t call for US recognition of a Palestinian state if the conditions he describes here are met. Does that imply that the US should do so only if and when Israel and a reconstituted Palestinian Authority reach agreement on a two-state solution that establishes mutually acceptable borders and security guarantees for Israel?
3. The US must tell Israel it won’t tolerate “…  the rapid settlement expansion and one-state reality that Israel is now creating ….” (Friedman doesn’t call for Israel to end all “expansion” of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, or say what the US should do if Israel creates new settlements or “expands” existing ones, nor does he call for the removal of any Israeli settlers. I suppose Friedman would leave this last issue for Israel and the Palestinians to negotiate.)
4. Finally, Friedman says, “Trump could also say that his administration will be committed to sponsoring peace talks for a two-state solution — with the Trump peace plan for a pathway toward two states from his previous presidency as the minimum starting point but not ending point. That, the parties themselves must negotiate directly.” (Friedman says Trump “could” do this but says Trump “should” or “must” do what he proposes in items 1-3. Also, I’m not sure what “sponsoring” peace talks entails. I’m also not sure what Friedman expects to happen if the US doesn’t say it will “sponsor” peace talks. Should another country do that? Which one(s)? Should the UN do that? Would “sponsoring” peace talks be conditional on Hamas releasing all remaining hostages? On Israel releasing its Palestinian prisoners, particularly those who could form the core of a new Palestinian Authority or participate in peace talks? Do Hamas or Mahmoud Abbas have any role to play in any of this?)

Here’s a link to an article in the 8 June edition of The New York Times asserting that the central ideology of fhe Trump version of populism is what the author calls “anti-maferialism”.

The author’s name is Nathan Levine. I haven’t been able to find out much about him except that he was affiliated with The Heritage Foundation at some point and that he publishes a a newsletter on Substack called The Upheaval under the name N.S. Lyons.

As the author describes it, anti-managerialism is the effort to enhance the freedom of the people in general by reducing the power of public and private sector bureaucratic organizations. Those bureaucratic organizations include the federal government, big businesses, big law firms, media outlets, and universities.

In the article, the author says “… our democracy has been usurped by a permanent ruling class of wholly unaccountable managers and bureaucrats.” He says anti-managerialism is a popular reaction “…to decades of frustration with mainstream conservatives’ failure to deliver results ….”

Levine cites a 1941 book by political philosopher John Burnham as the origin of this movement. As summarized by Levine, Burnham said:

“… [T]he exponential growth of mass and scale produced by the Industrial Revolution meant that in both corporation and state it was now those people cleverest at applying techniques of mass organization, procedure and propaganda — what he called the managerial class — who effectively controlled the means of production and would increasingly come to dominate society as a new technocratic oligarchy.”

According to Levine, Burnham’s book “… made an especially significant impression on George Orwell, who remarked that a managerial class consisting of ‘scientists, technicians, teachers, journalists, broadcasters, bureaucrats, professional politicians: in general, middling people,’ hungry for ‘more power and more prestige,’ would seek to entrench ‘a system which eliminates the upper class, keeps the working class in its place and hands unlimited power to people very similar to themselves.’ “

Levine goes on to say that, by the 1980s, some thinkers on the right believed “the managerial class had risen to elite status, just as Burnham predicted. This managerial elite now occupied positions across the heights of society, from government agencies to the boardroom and the faculty lounge, and was generally united in espousing liberal-progressive ideological beliefs.”

Today, according to Levine, “… only by delivering a decisive blow to the unity and control of the bureaucratic ‘deep state ‘through evicting swaths of the managerial class could the left’s structural power be successfully undermined. … Hence the administration’s determination to reassert presidential authority over the administrative state, seeing this as an urgent restoration of democratic accountability.”

If this sound like an interesting topic for discussion, here are a few questions I think Levine’s article raises:

1. Is the Trump administration following Levine’s playback?

2. If so, are they succeeding?

3. So far, who has benefitted from the anti-managerial movement? Who is bearing the cost?

4.To the extent the Trump administration is succeeding, will that success be reversed after Trump leaves office?

5. In what respects is this reduction of the power of bureaucratic a good thing?

There will be no Beyond Labels meet in on Monday, May 26; the library will be closed in observance of Memorial Day.

Our next meeting will focus on the current Supreme Court cases regarding birthright citizenship and deportations.

One of the important sub-issues that draws these two subjects together is the question of how broadly a judge’s ruling should apply—only within the local district in which a judge sits, in the regional circuit, or nationwide. In the past (I think) these have been pretty clear. But some recent Trump Administration cases has refocused attention on the issue:

• If a district judge enjoins or temporarily restrains an executive branch action as being likely unconstitutional, should other similarly situated parties be able to rely on that ruling? Or does everyone have to file their own petition for temporary relief?
• Can a “class “ receive protection before it is certified?

Given the fast pace of parallel, and sometimes irreversible, actions, waiting for a full trial, then circuit court appeal, then Supreme Court decision can take years.
I’ll post some links to some related reading as a “comment “ to this post by Wednesday; others are welcome to do so as well.