Surface-Level Expressions

Last night I remembered this Mel Tormé cover of Donald Fagen’s “The Goodbye Look.” Originally from Fagen’s 1982 album The Nightfly, the song tells the story of a 3rd world revolution, presumably happening somewhere in the Caribbean:

As you can hear, this isn’t a heroic tale with the revolutionaries as its protagonists. Characteristically for Fagen, the story is told obliquely, from the perspective of a narrator who is not unreliable so much as stuck in a self-imposed, ethically dubious position. The song is an imperialist’s lament, basically. It’s unclear what the narrator’s exact position is, but from his aloofness and repeated reference to “the big casino” as a local landmark, it seems likely he’s a businessman of some sort. We get no indication he’s a member of the actual government being overthrown, but he’s clearly very worried - and disapproving of the change in power.

The song begins with him fondly recalling when he first arrived:

The surf was easy on the day I came to stay On this quiet island in the bay I remember a line of women all in white The laughter and the steel bands at night

From his perspective, the island was once a tranquil paradise, where people--he does not distinguish between them--were happy. “Everyone” lived a life of luxury, sipping cocktails on the beach and dancing the night away. But the reference to an exotic island music style (and perhaps the “women all in white”) belies a conflict hidden in plain sight: a class conflict-- inflected by race--between the local population and the white (neo)colonists that see the island as a vehicle for the accumulation of capital. Now, it seems, that “tranquility” has been shattered:

Now the Americans are gone except for two The embassy's been hard to reach There's been talk and lately a bit of action after dark Behind the big casino on the beach

The rules are changed It's not the same It's all new players in a whole new ball game

Our protagonist knows his days are numbered, but he seems shocked by the complete reversal of fortune. The revolution came out of nowhere: he couldn’t see it coming even when the contradictions of the previous arrangement were blatantly obvious. It’s as if he never considered you could even have “all new players in a whole new ball game.” We often speak of bourgeois ideology in terms of its hold on the non-bourgeois, but the song implies that few are more blinded by bourgeois ideology than the bourgeois themselves. He continues, literally sickened from shock:

Last night I dreamed of an old lover dressed in gray I've had this fever now since yesterday Wake up darling they're knocking the Colonel's standing in the sun With his stupid face the glasses and the gun

Just as nationalization, land reform, and other forms of expropriation are depicted by capital as totalitarian moves, here “the Colonel” arrives to serve as a focal point for imperial self-righteousness about democracy, legality, and non-violence. The possibility that the overthrow of a neocolonial regime might have tangible popular benefits--and might even be organized by the exploited masses themselves--is not even considered. Instead, we hear only the racialized dismissal of a figure the narrator clearly sees as an aspiring dictator - because, after all, only a tyrannical demagogue would infringe upon property rights. It is only with this misrecognition that the narrator begins to see historical parallels to his situation:

I know what happens I read the book I believe I just got the goodbye look

Then, in a tossed-off line rich with subtext, he asks:

Won't you pour me a Cuban Breeze Gretchen?

The Tormé version changes “Gretchen” to “baby,” but either way we’re reminded that our colonial protagonist is a man, who depends upon women--white and otherwise--to mix his drinks, wash his clothes, and listen to his endless pontificating. Even with his (and presumably her) life in danger, he can’t be bothered to make his own cocktail.

Time is almost up, but there’s one more chance to get out alive:

I know a fellow with a motor launch for hire A skinny man with two-tone shoes Cause tonight they're arranging a small reception just for me Behind the big casino by the sea

Desperate to flee before the ominous “small reception” that awaits him in the evening, the narrator makes plans to escape by boat. We never learn whether he succeeds, but the final lines remind us that it doesn’t really matter:

I know what happens I read the book I believe I just got the goodbye look

Now that we’re a few days out from Bruenighazi, I thought it might be time to explore an as-yet undiscussed issue that the incident has brought to the fore. I should state first off that what follows should absolutely not be read as a defense of Matt Bruenig’s firing. However questionable his language and actions online (and frankly I think this latest brouhaha was pretty tame), they do not justify the unceremonious firing of a unique and valuable voice on the left. One can take issue with his coarse rhetoric and penchant for unrelenting twitter “attacks” (not a fan of the word but Bruenig didn’t exactly shy away from fights) while also firmly believing that Demos was wrong to fire him. He should be reinstated, but if Demos is unwilling to admit it goofed and hire him back, some other left organization or publication should take this opportunity to snatch him up right quick.

With that out of the way, I’d like to propose that Bruenighazi is in many ways indicative of the US “new new left” at a strategic crossroads. At least since Occupy, left formations have found common cause in a sort of agonistic anti-liberalism. This stance was not only understandable given the utter failure of the Obama administration to live up to even a fraction of its promise, it was also strategically wise. With liberalism at least partially discredited (or even “dead,” as Jacobin ambivalently proclaimed in an early issue), the time seemed ripe for legitimately left-wing forces to carve out a space of their own. Jacobin was once explained to me as a “left troll” for liberals: a way of keeping them intellectually honest and publicly demonstrating that the Democratic Party doesn’t occupy the leftmost position on the US political spectrum. In general, I think this description holds for much of the “new new left,” which has spent the last few years in a project of equal parts critique and distinction.

To put it in terms of a famous slogan, the point behind this project was to win over the intermediate, while also uniting the advanced and isolating the backward. I think it’s fair to say that in this formulation, “the intermediate” refers to left-liberals - the fragment of the Democratic base that earnestly supports things like single-payer healthcare, strong labor rights, and social welfare programs. Anti-liberalism was formulated as a way of displaying, often through biting, ruthless commentary, the fact that Democratic politicians (and many liberal pundits) actually despise such popular policies and have no intention of promoting, let alone implementing them.

But left anti-liberalism was not just a long-form exercise. For every article or blogpost, there were hundreds of tweets directed squarely at the individuals deemed most guilty (often deservedly so!) of moribund liberalism. On twitter, political commentary occurs in real-time and there is a seductive power in deconstructing liberal claims with lightning-fast speed and acid-tongued wit. If anti-liberalism was about drawing attention to the contradiction between Democrats’ nominally social democratic aims and their actual policies, twitter may be the place where this disjuncture became most evident. And few were more adept at anti-liberal tweeting than Matt Bruenig. Armed with data and righteous anger, he took the left-wing fight to some of the liberal punditry’s most prominent figures - and ultimately, was fired for it.

Matt Bruenig should not have been fired. But I think the anti-liberalism he represents and that is still very much of staple of US left tweeting, commentary, and strategy, is in crisis. Ironically, this is because of a genuinely positive development - the Sanders candidacy. If anyone is laying bare the fault lines within liberalism today, it is Sanders - merely by existing. In unapologetically embracing social democracy (and displaying the widespread support for it), he has enraged the liberal commentariat and driven the Democratic leadership into fits of disbelief. The “new new left” undoubtedly played a role in priming the pump for Sanders’ successes - but his candidacy is rendering its anti-liberalism redundant. When mainline Democrats mock the idea of free college and balk at the very notion of universal healthcare, anti-liberalism is no longer necessary as a rhetorical and political strategy. Liberalism is already tearing itself apart.

The Sanders candidacy has shown definitively that many liberals will never be converted to social democracy, let alone socialism proper. However much they may trot out their left bona fides in an an attempt to convince us that Hillary Clinton is actually good, they simply cannot countenance a truly left-wing upsurge nipping at their heels. Part of this is due to identity: believe it or not, there are people who actually define themselves as Democrats and see Sanders as an interloper hell-bent on destroying the “party unity” necessary to defeat Trump. Part of it may also be due to lingering effects of The End of History - they may see socialism as an outmoded form of politics of which the Sanders candidacy is an unexpected but futile last gasp. And part of it may be that they honestly believe in moderation and incrementalism. But whatever the reason, the point is that the vast majority of right-liberals (which is the way we ought to think about them) are totally beyond hope. If anything, this election has shown both their unflagging dedication to the Clintonite status quo and their total lack of good faith engagement with legitimate left critics - who, at this point, aren’t just fringe characters but a huge portion of the 2016 Democratic electorate. Right-liberals simply aren’t going to change their mind. You might even call them backward.

This brings us back to Bruenig’s tweets. Perhaps there is a value in continuing to engage with the backward while the intermediate are clearly searching for an alternative: it’s possible I just don’t see it. But it seems pretty clear to me that Joan Walsh, Neera Tanden, and their army of online supporters were never going to come over to Team Bernie - which means that arguing with them was bound to get deeply personal, if only because it was utterly pointless. Don’t get me wrong: it can be loads of fun to mock the intellectual naivete and political cluelessness of liberals on twitter. I’ve certainly been known to do it. But actively seeking out conflict and constantly engaging in a fruitless back-and-forth with the easiest of targets isn’t a way of building support for socialism. In fact, it may actually endanger the new left politics by driving the intermediate back into the arms of the backward. I think we’re kidding ourselves if we don’t admit that Bruenig was frequently kind of a jerk. I can absolutely understand how his behavior would turn people off - and in any case, right-liberals are more than happy to seize upon intemperate statements to accuse lefties of online harassment and the like.

Those of us on the left would never spend our days debating National Review columnists or Trump voters on the internet. I think we should start seeing right-liberals the same way: they’re stuck in their ways and we have little to gain (and a lot to lose) by focusing on them. Some of these people (Tanden certainly springs to mind) have substantial political power - and they’re more than happy to exercise it when they smell blood in the water. That doesn’t mean we always have to adhere to some bourgeois notion of civility - it’s perfectly OK to be barbed in our commentary, especially when dealing with the powerful. But I also think there’s a fundamental difference between more long-form critiques and the kind of raw anti-liberalism we see on twitter. Both can be used to speak truth to power, but the former is a lot less likely to lapse into the sort of circular, unproductive pattern that exploded with the Bruenig firing.