If I had to choose a motto to depict, by and large, the international scenery, I would opt for the above-mentioned aphorism. The chaotic landscapes burgeoning, throughout the various geopolitical spectrums, is a quite appropriate representation when it comes to describing the dynamics of implosion on the crossroads between domestic and international politics. The state of diffuse fragmentation which has taken hold of the decaying world order is not self-contained and restricted in scope anymore, it’s a shared political plight cutting across regime differences, geopolitical spheres and conventional political consensuses. The eroding political legitimacy, the ideological splintering and the spread of incivilities and violence have become hallmarks and levers in mundane and international politics. Therefore, the issues of civil concord, consensual and accommodation politics are hardly tested with the strengthening of ideological and political differences and their manifold incidences on the very understanding of contemporary politics.
The late French and American political scenes epitomize, each in its own way, the deepening ideological divides and their impact on the very functioning of their respective political institutions. There is a growing discrepancy between the democratic institutions, the diffracted civil and political landscapes with their clashing worldviews, subcultures, lifestyles and the weakening of civic credos. The French political scenery is testing the ability of the republican institutions to adjudicate the ongoing political conflicts and reset the balances of civility and polity. Political differences are not only souring, but they are stifling the civic life and preempting the possibility of reconciliation around the canons of democratic civility. What’s worrisome is the inability to reinstate the common good in divided times, and retrieve the sense of citizenship and its working ethics. The political and constitutional deadlocks jamming public life in France are not owed to institutional aporias, they are the outcomes of basic covenantal breakdowns that are weighing down heavily on public life and the future of civil peace in the country. Nonetheless, the successful organization of the Olympic Games testifies to the ability of France to project itself into a more confident political future and transcend the morose, self-destructive, anachronistic and stifling legacy of ideological panopticons.
The late political developments in the US revolving around the incoming presidential elections are highlighting the furtherance of normative discrepancies, the questioning of the American civil religion and the constitutionality of public life, the deliberate undermining of national sovereignty and the dynamics of estrangement which have frayed the national tapestry, challenged the basics of American patriotism, and overlooked the disparaging effects of de-industrialization, the decoupling between financial economics and the real economy, the unregulated migrations, and their impact on America’s cultural, societal and national cohesion. When the democratic left justifies its politics of stigmatization and moral dismissiveness towards what it labels the “white trash” who have become “strangers in their own land,” as aptly expressed by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild, one shouldn’t be amazed that the very rules of Democracy (equality, recognition, power-sharing, moral reciprocity… ) are manifestly subverted and putting at stake its viability, the civil peace and the future of the Union.
What’s disquieting is the blindness of ideological self-righteousness and the lack of political intelligence aside from the moral disqualification of such political posturing. The Democratic Party has progressively driven the political wedges within its bounds and at the national level, under the spur of its radical fringes. The ascent of Donald Trump into politics owes to the breakdown of the civil credo and its impact on the American political life, the destruction of bipartisanship and its highly deleterious outcomes. It is the blunt expression of a disintegrating national narrative. President Biden’s emblematic political career was the typical example of what the beltway political culture was about for decades, bipartisanship and accommodation which undergirded the legislative and political life all along. Paradoxically enough, the democratic left is pursuing its unhindered course towards extreme polarization and outright dismissal of bipartisanship.
The inaugural featuring of Vice-President Kamala Harris is of bad omen, since she is already flaunting her unalloyed partisanship and inability to uphold neutrality and promote a consensual political life that is earnestly requested at this stage. The re-engineering of the Republican Party around the populist agenda of President Trump and the strengthening of political cleavages nationwide are far-reaching since they outstrip the mundane politics of a pacified democracy and question the mainstream political narrative and the dictum of the Republican order, “a Republic if you can keep it.” The populist Right is already in a revolutionary mood and highly tempted to overstep the checks and balances of a tattered political canopy. The moral callousness of the extreme fringes of the democratic left are blinded by ideological mantras and totally dismissive of the consensual politics of the US. Their ideological irredentism reflects the political immaturity of their members, their malevolence and pliability to international power politics and their machinations.
The visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington-DC was extended to highlight US solidarity with Israel after the pogrom of October 7, 2023, and circumvent the politics of discrimination targeting Israel and blaming it unilaterally for the tragic fallouts of the war in Gaza, while overlooking the instrumentalization of the civil population and the civilian infrastructures by Hamas and its Iranian handler. The questionable absence of Vice-President Harris during the congressional speech of Prime Minister Netanyahu calls forth her views, ideological proclivities and ability to assume her role as a fair umpire whose role is to favor accommodation, preempt radicalization, seize on the ongoing war to help negotiate a viable peace plan and extract the region from the clasp of Iranian power politics and Cold War rivalries.
The latest inter-Palestinian meeting of reconciliation between Palestinians hosted by Beijing partakes of a well-known Chinese stratagem that betrays China’s international political inexperience, improvisation, vulgar instrumentalization and short-lived diplomacy. One has to recall the Saudi-Iranian brokered deal to come to terms with the flimsiness of these scenarios and the flawed promises of a totalitarian and aggressive imperial diplomacy. Totalitarian power brokers are, by definition, unfair and cynical arbiters who are unfit for conflict mediation. Moderate Palestinian leaderships who objected to Iranian and Chinese instrumentalization opted for an alternative political course jointly with the United States, the United States Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Otherwise, the Lebanese political landscape and its Syrian ancillary testify to the inherent equivocations and falsehoods of Iran’s political posturing and simulated diplomatic moves in the Near East. Iran has no other intention but to validate its bolting expansionism, destroy civil concord throughout the Middle East, leverage Shiite power politics, exploit Sunni Radicalism and foster endemic instability. The scope of its diplomatic maneuvering narrows to marking time, pursuing the politics of destabilization externally and repression internally. Lebanese political feuds are being nurtured by Hezbollah and its acolytes to destroy the chances of political reconciliation, remodel the demographics and the country’s systemic equilibriums, and challenge its national legitimacy and the moral stature of its Christian pillars. Their ultimate objective has crystallized and is openly acclaimed by Shiite mainstream politics: annihilate Lebanon as a national entity and oversee the completion of the Iranian subversion strategy. The politics of deliberate polarization is no hazard, it’s purposefully designed to destroy the remaining immunities of a bludgeoned country.
