On Horror and Competence

Our current crises point to a larger collapse in an awareness of statesmanship. I don't expect anyone to be a policy expert, but it does seem that the body politic doesn't have an idea where to start with the world around them. Accusing someone of playing a video game badly is as much a problem to voters as throwing your political opponents in jail. Two things I recently felt helpful for learning to talk about economics and foreign affairs:

• John Ganz, "Trump's Third-Worldism" – I'm not the biggest fan of the phrase "Third World," as it has connotations that the habits of countries are holding them back. This is an excellent read, though. A question that can be earnestly asked: since we're so rich, why can't we just import cheap goods and lower prices artificially? And the answer that this post hints at is nuanced: even though depending on state imports opens up vast avenues for corruption, maybe this is something a developing country could benefit from. If you don't have the industry and need certain goods, this could be the beginning of an import substitution regime. If a much more developed country tries it, though, it is an attack on that very country's development. The goods are already there–you're destroying your own capacities.
• Leonard A. Schuette, "The New Right's Grand Strategy After Trump" – How does a nation go about creating a foreign policy? Despite the not-so-hidden imperialism of the liberal international order, it has some stated principles which at least on paper work for the benefit of all. The people in and around the White House have a different conception entirely. Schuette: "The postliberals want to enforce a Catholic conception of the common good and morality. Idolizing the American founding, the Claremonters propose radical, counterrevolutionary action to restore government by consent, shatter the administrative state, and cultivate civic virtue. The national conservatives embrace Christian nationalism and seek to bulwark the homogeneous nation-state from threats from liberalism." I think this article does a great job of showing how building a foreign policy can be a technical matter, but this summary of postliberals, Claremonters, and national conservatives is too generous. They're all posting Nazi memes on X or defending Nazis. These divisions are more or less excuses to have a power struggle, and the results of that infighting were very visible recently.

On the Aesthetics of Horror

A few weeks ago The White House put up a social media post featuring the President, in a grainy black and white photograph, standing on the roof of the White House. The President does not seem like he is in the right place, but he is standing above everyone. At the top of the photo are the words "DEPORTATIONS ARE SPIKING," a direct quote from a news source. The White House tastefully highlights their purpose by separately saying "DEPORT. DEPORT. DEPORT. DEPORT."

It is not always helpful to say this is "evil" or "bad." Clearly someone thought this aesthetic works. That it proclaims success, maintains and enhances power, turns perceived weakness into strength. Some of us look at this as a crime against humanity and recoil in disgust. Others see truth and justice, a point they have scored against their political enemies.

The above reddit user offers an interpretation of this photo that I didn't initially think about: "a leader wants to be seen as a faceless horror out for people." At first, I recognized this from the time Trump went to the roof of the White House and no one knew what he was doing up there. It was interpreted by many as a sign of the President's cognitive decline, and I understood no less than the White House seeing that and trying to turn it on its head. "The President who went to the roof that you accused of having dementia," they seem to be saying, "was actually on top of everything. Look! He does deportations! Lots of them!"

The White House wants to project confidence and competence. In this case, the horror many feel comes precisely from what seems to be confidence and competence being weaponized against the messier facts of human existence. Not everyone can be worth 6 billion dollars, be immune from prosecution, and publicly muse about being President for life. Quite a few are stuck in paperwork limbo, forced to be refugees. Others have second-class citizenship. They are denied rights but continually told they are lucky. I know a number of us who are secure in their rights and legal privileges but not much else. I know some giving everything who only get doubts and skepticism. That is another kind of nightmare, where what you do doesn't count no matter what.

It took me a little bit to realize another reason why I didn't see this post as a form of horror. In my life, I'm used to horrible things happening out of carelessness and neglect. I recently had to deal with a relative who was defrauded. They had been complaining they weren't receiving the documentation they needed. When, finally, someone else went and found the documents and identified the fraud, that person didn't receive a thank you. Thousands were nearly lost and there was no acknowledgment of what was done to help. The horror, here, is weaponized incompetence. I can safely say multiple people would not have been able to eat if the fraud hadn't been found and addressed.

Of course, for the relative, weaponized incompetence is competence. Someone else did what is needed! But for the rest of us, this creates panic, if not terror. Massive vulnerabilities are dealt with not just through competence, but trust. Trust is carefully built over time and needs respect to flourish. And the horror, on a deeper level, for me is knowing there are some people who will abuse trust because they can. They don't want to have to think about you, they just want whatever it is done. The weaponized incompetence of this relative, I submit, is closer to how the President and White House operate. There are many situations they don't know about and could not explain to you with any degree of knowledge or expertise. But they want a number to proclaim and everything flows from that.

Horror, I'm thinking now, is beyond competence or incompetence. I'm drawn to the reaction of the reddit user. There's something about the facelessness of the President, the facelessness of the deed, that's the more fundamental story of this White House meme. A meme which will be forgotten with the flood of other "shitposts" (yes, that's a technical term now) the White House has unleashed. You want to deport everyone–you want others to revel in that fact–yet you have no idea where you are.