Credibility and Consequences

During his presidency, Richard Nixon argued that public opposition to the Vietnam War was undermining the American negotiating position. The reasoning was that if the North Vietnamese leadership saw large sections of the American public taking an anti-war and pro-withdrawal position, they would interpret that as a lack of American resolve to fight against them, and would therefore be more intransigent. After all, if American involvement was hurting Nixon’s electoral prospects, didn’t that pressure him to make a deal quickly? And if there was a serious possibility that Nixon would be gone by the start of 1973, why not just wait and see, in the hope of getting a better deal from an administration more anxious to withdraw? I believe that regardless of consequence, it was fine and even imperative to oppose the war, but Nixon’s reasoning was sound in logic if not morality: had there been a Democratic nominee in 1972 with a boldly pro-withdrawal stance and a serious chance of winning, it would only have made sense for the North Vietnamese negotiators to stall. As it happened, George McGovern was not that guy, and so this hypothetical would remain so.

Now, as then, we are faced with a deeply crooked President who rose to power on a wave of reactionary cultural grievance. But there is a difference: 2028 will not be 1972. We are almost certainly going to win that year, and people can see it. If they are smart, they are accounting for it. That fact alone gives us a great deal of leverage.

The strength and reliability of a government’s word is a critical factor in its ability to make the deals and exert the leverage which allow it to pursue an agenda at home and abroad. By altering expectations of the future, both the government and opposition can affect how much credibility the government has. This opens several options for undermining the current regime, but also carries danger for the next Democratic president. In the here and now, I see no reason to avoid using our advantage.

If the president attempts to strike a deal which is immoral, and the calculus of the other party can be shifted with a statement of future intent, then give that statement. Declare that organisations which collaborate with the regime by transforming themselves into propaganda outlets will be punished. Declare that a future Democratic administration will tear up Palantir’s contracts. Promise punishment of those who sell out their fellow human beings to ICE. When possible and prudent, apply this to foreign policy as well. If the regime strikes a deal with another country that throws Ukrainians, Palestinians or any other group of people under the bus, make it clear that such a deal will be torn up in the first week by a Democratic administration. (That said: don’t promise consequences you obviously can’t realise, because that undermines your credibility and therefore improves the regime’s negotiating position.)

Once a Democrat is at the helm, after the inauguration, the whole dynamic flips around. It will be us suffering from a lack of credibility, both at home and abroad. Let us picture what the next president will be getting into, come 2029. We don’t know what the next few years will hold, but we know what has been done already, which gives a decent picture.

This administration has gutted the administrative state, dismissing thousands of qualified civil servants with little warning and no good reason. If we are to rebuild it, which is so necessary for achieving liberal policy goals, then we will need to recruit old and new workers. To do that, we will need their trust that their job will be secure for more than the next four years. How will we get it?

American science, particularly in the medical field, has also been severely diminished by government action. RFK Jr., who denies the bedrock of public health science, has made himself an ally of humanity’s greatest and oldest enemy: disease. Lost progress is invisible and its victims usually hidden from us, but we know from history and reason that in slowing the progress of our knowledge, the administration has condemned countless people to die from diseases which might have otherwise become treatable. If we want to mitigate that, we will need to accelerate our scientific progress, which means more research funding and more researchers. But our researchers have been burned already. If we want them coming back, they need more than just good pay: they need a guarantee they won’t be burned again.

The choice to emigrate to a foreign land always requires a measure of faith and hope. In making that leap, immigrants documented and undocumented alike embody and renew the spirit of America. The barbaric manner in which new arrivals and long-time residents have been treated by this regime is first and foremost a humanitarian disaster and a moral outrage. But it has also done enormous damage to America’s reputation as a safe place to start a new life and realise one’s aspirations. For the future of a country which depends on immigration and more importantly, for the peace of mind of millions of foreign-born Americans and their families, something must be done to rebuild trust after such a betrayal.

Finally, there is the elephant in the room: foreign affairs. The United States has disgraced itself before the eyes of the world. It has condemned countless people to die and spits upon international norms of morality. But the fact that the US is acting in such an erratic fashion contributes to a growing perception that it is incapable of a coherent long-term foreign policy, and that deals signed with the Americans are not worth the ink they are written with.

This credibility issue will not become less severe in a few years on its own; it is the natural consequence of a political landscape which has polarised between progressive liberalism and fascism. A coherent foreign policy across Democratic and Republican administrations is impossible at this point. A coherent anything spanning such administrations seems impossible. There are virtually no areas of agreement between such different worldviews. And so, the answer should not be to find some impossible compromise between irreconcilable visions for society, but to resolve the deadlock in our favour for posterity. Achieving this will be complicated and will take a great deal of time. If we want to rebuild organs of human progress and conduct effective foreign policy, we need a way to signal our resolve and coming victory well before it actually arrives. What we need, then, is boldness, speed and decisive justice.

There are many good reasons to put criminal members of government on trial once we return to power, the most important being commitment to the basic principles of justice. But in pursuing that justice, we also send a message to those who we would like to work with: this is a new government, with very different objectives from the last, and it is here to stay. We should not confuse this signalling with victory, any more than we should confuse the Nuremberg trials with the end of Nazi sentiment in Germany; it will be a long process, as I said before.  

Some have described the regime as attempting a strategy of ‘cargo cult authoritarianism’, in which they mistake reproducing the symbols of a consolidated authoritarian regime (personalistic displays, troops in the streets, audacity and the like) with actually achieving that regime consolidation. I think this is a reasonable description of how it has behaved, but I think it’s worth noting that this kind of signalling does actually have an effect, even if a lot of the effect is the negative backlash it produces. We saw that in the early months of the administration, all kinds of elites were willing to prostrate themselves before the regime and collaborate, presumably out of some sense that consolidation was inevitable and was already happening. The strategic error was in mistaking the signalling with the actual victory. 

What I’m suggesting is that a ’cargo cult democratic renewal’ which uses symbols like bold reform and major house-cleaning to give off a sense of a long-term return to constitutional democratic government might give the next Democratic president forward momentum on their agenda. The other hallmarks of democratic renewal, such as a flourishing of third spaces and increased social trust, simply do not have the same narrative impact as events with clear personalities and individuals involved. However, we cannot trick ourselves into believing that consequences are all that is necessary. In the background, there must always be the other less glamorous efforts to overcome the fascist degradation of our politics.

Finally, it must be said that one important indicator of the future government which I haven’t mentioned yet is the approval rating of the current one. After all, a deeply unpopular government is not likely to win reelection, which in our case would be bad in its own right, but also would result in negotiation partners pulling back from us. This means that maintaining the popular support of the people will also be critical for our project. I’m not endorsing a morally vacuous popularism too terrified to go against public opinion on questions of morality, in part because if one looks to the UK, such an approach has clearly failed. I think the right approach comes from finding ways to set the narrative instead of bending to it. This should involve not just public statements but also government policies which remain true to liberal principles.

As I approach the end of this piece, I realise now that I haven’t said much about how we, the ordinary people, can take all this into account. So, how can we? Well, I’ve had many conversations with people, mostly overseas, who have no idea about how much internal opposition there is to the regime. Every time a major protest like the regular No Kings rallies gains international attention, they are very surprised and become much more optimistic about America’s future. Large protests, much like the acts of resistance seen in Minneapolis, work to shift the narrative, but not only that; they change the calculus for decision-makers in corporate boardrooms and foreign capitals, in just the same way Nixon feared. When the regime cracks down, it generates more resistance. When it is forced to yield, it’s a sign to the would-be collaborators that the regime might not be so consolidated after all, and that maybe it’s not the best investment.

Another thing I can suggest is frank and open discussion about legal consequences for the men and women who have destroyed so many lives in just over a year. Make it into something respectable, something mainstream, something the media will no longer be able to ignore. Through speaking of the future, you can play a small part in manifesting it.

The road ahead will be difficult. The current regime will have done incredible damage not just to institutions, but to the lives they are charged with defending. We will never be able to undo what was done. There will be some who never forgive us. But maybe, if we possess the will, the vision and the strategic thinking, we can repair the damage. The first step to that will be to reveal to the world a small glimpse of what is to come: a future in which the treasury-looters, library-burners, kidnappers and marauders never again lay claim to the temples of democracy.

Featured image is His declaration of independence Puck magazine cover