Not Everybody Can be a Cheerleader – Splice Today

Were all fundamentally the same. We want quiet enjoyment, mobility, access to technology, an education that wont turn us into indentured servants, and the opportunity to find a job that isnt overly dreadful. We want to live reasonably well in the time we have. And were not afraid to work hard to earn that living. But we also want serious men and women in power making good decisions. We want to feel theres still a semblance of justice and decorum in the country and that were being represented. We all generally agree on this no matter our ethnicity or our politics, but even Democrats dont agree on Joe Biden.

Were facing social entropy, an economic prison, federal dysfunction, continued pandemic, people chosen not for their skill but for their capacity to be inoffensive, and endless identity strife. Biden didnt create these things, but he rode them to power. And his transition choices are making us wonder whether theyre firmly on the docket for the next four years. We wonder whether hes deliberately and unnecessarilytrolling the rightand mollifying the left with his cabinet picks instead of choosing people who will do the best job possible.

It seems like Bidens still campaigning at full velocity, not for the presidency but for influence over an increasingly divisive Democratic party no longer united by the threat of a second Trump Administration. And no matter who comes out on top in that struggle, we worry that the country will not be governed well (or at all) and that most Americans will continue to suffer. At this point, those of us who voted for Biden have to answer a hard question. Our real vote was actually not Trump. But what did we votefor? Whatever it is, were about to get it.

We knew this would happen. It always does when threats external to the polis are finally neutralized and the aristocrats turn back to their internecine rivalries and power games. Its a pattern that unfolds in every political culture to the extent that its almost a given. Only, in our present situation, the nobles, at least on the left, are ideologically-driven identity groups, each convinced that their time has now come and that Biden owes them royal favors.

They might be right. But the president-elect has no doubt already discovered that one cant be all things to all people all the time. Hes inevitably making some happy, while others feel rejected and betrayed. As a philosophy student once said to me in Prague, In Europe, weve always known: not everyone can be a cheerleader. Not everyone gets picked for the squad. Not everyone gets paid (or paid off) for ones efforts. Not everyone gets appointed consul, even if Incitatus just got the job. Some kids end up going home, dying their hair black, and practicing viola on game nights. Others have to wait until they can try out again. Still others wind up unjustly short-changed forever, whether they have it coming it or not. It all depends. Ask Alexander Vindman. Then ask Michael Cohen. Then ask Michael Flynn.

But the American people knowjust as Biden must knowthe extent to which social inequality and ethnicity play into every political decision such that the issue of racism remains influential in the United States. For all of Trumps offensive campaign race-baiting, Biden has been the primary beneficiary. The political and social divisions in America have recently made a lot of people money and put others in the poorhousea new mode of class mobility that giveth livelihoods and taketh them away, depending on who gets called out and by whom. One could look at that and reasonably argue that those forces would inevitably elevate any Democratic candidate following a Republican administration like Trumps. But not without incurring certain political obligations.

Playing on social perceptions of race and class will probably keep benefitting people until the country calms down and focuses on other ways of making itself miserable. TheOverton Windowkeeps shifting. In four years, well still be screaming about race. But whos making money off that screaming and whether theyre doing it from under a bridge, from Capitol Hill, or from a podium in a newly built University of California lecture hall remains an open question.

No one seriously doubts the fact that race and class have always been conflated in the American political imagination, but issues of racial identity have become so fraught in recent years, especially during Trumps tenure, that we often see politicians speak of one in terms of the other. For example, Marco Rubiorecently describedBidens cabinet picks as people who went to Ivy League schools, have strong resumes, attend all the right conferences & will be polite & orderly caretakers of Americas decline." He doesnt mention the transition teams intense focus on the skin color of potential nominees, but theres a strong anti-political-correctness subtext to his language verging on a dog whistle.

At a recent press conference, Biden promised significant diversity in high profile positions, while refusing to give specifics or names. Still, regarding the positions of secretary of state, treasury secretary, defense secretary, and attorney general, CNNquotesan anonymous source familiar with the transition discussions admitting that They're absolutely not going to have the top four Cabinet positions be white. Absolutely not. That would be anathema.

Many Republicans must feel less than delighted about admissions like this. But as the same CNN article notes, The bar to meet both the ideological and diversity goals is high. And Biden's concerns about plucking too many Democratic members from the Housenow that his party has a more narrow majorityhave complicated the conundrum. Its no doubt very difficult to placate the implacable, especially when theyve got a political hook in you and feel that they were instrumental in your rise to power. Itll be entertaining to watch what happens. Itll be less entertaining to see it happen in a way that results in further national disintegration.

Originally posted here:
Not Everybody Can be a Cheerleader - Splice Today