I thought I might discuss another facet of our modern political discourse and rhetoric this week. I was talking to a southern conservative, briefly (what?), who thought it odd I would describe Musk and Trump as "establishment billionaires." Let's discuss why one might say so.
It obviously wouldn’t seem odd to liberal, progressive, democratic leftists to call them “establishment billionaires.” They’re billionaires with ties to the highest echelons of business and finance, while their elite social status makes them contemptuous of laws, voters, political systems. But for conservatives of the sort one commonly finds especially in the southern USA, it does. Why? I suppose it’s due to our mixed economic system with markets and non-market regulations, programs, policies giving people the opportunity to associate the “establishment” with either. Liberals tend to associate the economically powerful and their market utopian ideology and rhetoric, hatred for the poor, hatred for democracy and for law they don’t control entirely, with the “establishment." In the liberal view, the “establishment" would be rather happier without democracy, law. Conservatives, in contrast, especially southern ones, are under the influence of the market utopianism of anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style and still follow the Reagan-era mantra that democratic government is the ultimate evil and the source of all social, economic problems. Conservatives seem to like the liberal left notion of being opposed to the “establishment,” like to be rebels, bad boys, agents of change, but to make it work with their ideology they must then re-define the “establishment” to mean political democracy, the US Constitution, US law, voters. Following fascist ideology, conservatives don’t see authoritarian conservative government as shoring up the (economic) establishment, the status quo, but as a revolutionary agent of change against a political “establishment” of fusty old democracy, constitutions, law, voters, that sort. So where liberals see figures like Musk and Trump as representing all the worst features of establishment power, likely to perpetuate and accentuate all the worst elements of the status quo, many conservatives see them as anti-establishment rebels changing the status quo in positive ways. Conservatives see plutocrats, oligarchs, mobsters, fascists in a positive light as “anti-establishment” rebels, want to help them take control of the USA, reasoning that if democratic government is evil, incompetent, inefficient, ineffective, then non-democratic government must be the way to go.
Of course, a funny point I've mentioned before is that only some conservatives oppose democracy because they view it as an “establishment” that supports the status quo. Other conservatives oppose democracy for the opposite reason: they’re concerned voters can use it to change the status quo. Conservatives, Republicans manage to appeal to both by rhetorically focusing on their shared hatred for democracy, their love of fascism / gangsterism (in so many words) without dwelling on whether it’s meant to change or perpetuate the status quo, make struggling people better off or worse off. Although in the liberal perspective, and I suppose in common understanding, the “establishment” is meant to prosper under and thus support the status quo, I suppose one adept at conservative word play may propose an “establishment” that is trying to inappropriately change a laudable status quo. It’s the sort of seemingly outlandish but possibly effective rhetoric one sees also in Republican politicians, who having control of the White House, the Congress, and the Supreme Court, continue to talk rhetorically about a liberal, progressive, Democratic “regime” they must struggle against.
A more general point is to just appreciate that the thinking of liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, pro-democracy and anti-democracy sorts, anti-fascists and fascists, is so different in the USA right now even common term and expressions may have wildly different interpretations. It’s no reason to stop talking and reach for the nearest bomb, gun, knife, stone, stick. However, it is a good reason to slow down, talk carefully, watch for terminological equivocations where people seem to be talking about the same thing but really aren't. Say it differently, when in doubt. If you’re interested at all in trying to communicate with conservatives, right wingers, Republicans, don’t assume any common ground as values, morals, ethics, words, language. Talk to them as though they had just dropped in from an alternative realm, some other plane of existence. And take it slow.
