Columns | Open Diary

Imperial Destiny

As the country approaches the presidential election in November, it is becoming sufficiently clear that the American personality is deeply fractured, almost to the point of being schizoid.

Swapan Dasgupta | 12 Jul, 2024

EVER SINCE I first visited it in 1975 as a wide-eyed tourist, Washington DC has struck me as a capital city that exudes power. Those familiar with certain parts of central London will recognise the similarities with parts of what is called the Hill. Both have a distinctly imperial ambiance, except that London exudes past glory and Washington is very much in the present.

Without necessarily getting into the question of whether or not the US is actually a declining power— as is often suggested by a range of leaders from countries that are wallowing in multipolarity—it is worth noting that there is still a lot of reserves left in the imperial fuel tank. What, however, is lacking is the all-round acceptance by the American people of the country’s imperial destiny. As the country approaches the presidential election in November, it is becoming sufficiently clear that the American personality is deeply fractured, almost to the point of being schizoid.

Maybe I am over-reacting. In vibrant democracies, the run-up to a crucial election often witnesses an emotional civil war in the country which settles down after the winner has been announced to everyone’s satisfaction. True, there are notable exceptions, and we are witnessing once such exception in France. I fear that the deep divisions in France are very reminiscent of the 1930s which resulted in a Republic unable to counter the German challenge.

Is the US on the verge of something broadly similar? The question arises because it is becoming increasingly clear with every passing day that President Joe Biden doesn’t have what it takes to steer the mighty American state over the next four years. In the normal course, the baton should have been passed to his Republican challenger. Unfortunately, there is a significant section of the American political establishment that will not countenance the return of Donald Trump to the White House. They will do everything in their power to prevent it, including, I fear, transgressing the bounds of fair play.

Over the past week, I have been attending a National Conservatism convention hosted by the Edmund Burke Foundation in Washington DC. The event has turned out to be principally a gathering of leaders and activists who have attached themselves to the Trump campaign. There is even a recruiting table for those young conservatives who want to make a future in the Trump administration, so sure are they that their man is on the cusp of overturning what they see was the flawed verdict of 2020.

I don’t know enough of the byways of American politics to be certain that there is going to be a regime change in November. What interested me about the NatCon gathering was, first, the ideological issues that preoccupy the American right and, second, the forces and issues they identify with in the rest of the democratic world. There was, for the first time, an Indian presence in the convention, a pointer that as far as the American right is concerned, India, along with Hungary and Israel, count among the states where the right exercises state power. At one time, the list also included Poland, which is now perceived by its right as having reverted to German occupation (including the attendant persecution of Polish nationalists), and the UK, where the Conservative Party was viewed as being divided between its liberals—indistinguishable from the enemy camp—and the true right. Consequently, the mood in the convention was a blend of high expectation, tinged with sadness.

Perhaps sadness is a wrong expression. Today’s American right isn’t the same as the movement that William Buckley initiated in the 1960s and the tradition that Russell Kirk dissected in his scholarly studies of American conservatism. Nor to be fair, is it an offshoot of the beleaguered Confederate tradition of the American South. As far as I can gauge, this is a movement fuelled by strident American nationalism, to which has been added a Christian religious underpinning, a distaste for permissive immigration policies and, finally, a visceral hatred of the woke culture that has felled America’s liberal establishment. Add to this support for Israel, a distaste for America carrying the can for the European Union—this translates into a belief that it is none of America’s business to overthrow Vladimir Putin—and a deep suspicion of China, and you get an idea why these American conservative activists are supporting Trump.

Trump isn’t their man; he is their platform for undertaking a programme to reshape American society. The convention was an occasion to give these convictions some intellectual heft. I was privileged to observe the process.