So two recent things on Michael \u201cDecius\u201d Anton, Machiavellian \u201cFlight 93 Election\u201d author turned White House pet intellectual.
First, the man\u2019s own foreign policy manifesto and then this beat-sweetener from Vanity Fair.
Let\u2019s start with his \u201cAmerica and the Liberal International Order\u201d. Basically it\u2019s his introductory remarks to the \u201cforeign policy community\u201d, arguing that the course he\u2019s charting is well within their norms, practices, and ideals. As for what that course is, it\u2019s down in the \u201cReforming the Liberal International Order\u201d section. I read that once and got the sense it was a real monumental shift, but when I went to write it down I couldn\u2019t really put my finger on what it consisted of and honestly I still can\u2019t, which is about what you\u2019d expect from a diplomatic theorist with a Straussian background, I suppose.
Basically giving up on democracy promotion as a goal in itself, reserving it for when democratization furthers other goals, \u201cin a place where and at a time when we have the capacity to water it, and it is in our interest to do so\u201d?
Orienting around controlling a (possibly illiberal) periphery for the sake of a core \u201cliberal international order\u201d, identified with old NATO, \u201cThe \u2018liberal international order\u2019 is thus better termed the \u2018liberal rich-country order\u2019 or\u2014if you prefer foreign policy jargon\u2014the \u2018liberal functioning-core order.\u2019\u201d?
I mean I get that, but it\u2019s really hard to picture what it means in practice. South Korea was an authoritarian periphery for most of the Cold War, now it\u2019s a reasonably liberal international core, Turkey was a kind of authoritarian periphery even when it was in old NATO, now it\u2019s becoming less Western liberal core because it\u2019s becoming more democratic. What would this doctrine do, or have done with that? If Wahhabists AND Communists both rise in Indonesia or Malaysia, what does that mean to the US and how does it react under this operating philosophy?
But I guess a lot of diplomacy is about strategic vagueness to be filled in later. In pettier notes:
Now the beat-sweetener. Tells what his job is (N.S.C. senior communications director), what that involves (distilling Trump\u2019s foreign policy \u201cmessage\u201d and figuring out how various state ideological apparatuses can promote it), who had an equivalent role before him (Ben Rhodes, apparently). Gives some color: guy likes Machiavelli, guy likes suits. One colleague says \u201chuh, really?\u201d, a mentor says \u201cI could see it\u201d. Is he alt-right? Nah but there\u2019s overlap. One guy says the themes carry over and the difference is sophistication.
The one really interesting thing here is the recurring theme of California. The mentor talks about Anton\u2019s elegaic take on the lost Republican middle class California. Anton gives quote to confirm it. An essay is linked for more support. And remember quoting Sailer. Remember what I said about Sailer the other day, how the California transformation explains him.
So, that\u2019s Trumpian intellectualism: not Breitbart, but Sailer.
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