Donald Trump & The Liberal Hydra | ArtiFact 64: Benjamin Studebaker

Donald Trump's 2024 win surprised many pundits, but not Benjamin Studebaker, who had assumed the worldwide incumbency crisis in 2024 would ultimately come for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

His newest book, "Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies", builds on his previous work on the chronic crisis of liberal democracy. In ArtiFact 64, Benjamin Studebaker and author/filmmaker Alex Sheremet discuss their reasons for expecting a Trump victory, the question of political polarization, and where liberal democracy goes from here. You can also watch this discussion on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/j1nENjZNwu0

Read Alex Sheremet's essay on why Donald Trump was poised to win: https://www.automachination.com/joy-kamala-harris-lose-2024/

Buy Benjamin Studebaker's "Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies": https://www.amazon.com/Legitimacy-Liberal-Democracies-Benjamin-Studebaker/dp/1399534688/

Get the B Side to this conversation: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B Side Topics: Why Allan Lichtman's "Keys to the White House" failed; pollsters had no courage; modeling presidential elections on fundamentals; the psychology of modeling; how blame is shifted on to the electorate; assessing a very mixed economy; did white collar workers punish Kamala Harris for 2023-24 layoffs; the housing market as independent of inflation metrics; why voters assess incumbents on a purely relative basis; politics of memory; inflation-adjusted median family income has not returned to Trump-era benchmarks; are liberals dropping out of politics after Trump's win; why MSNBC and other outlets are losing subscribers; why the fear narratives failed; the story of 2024 is a racial shift towards the GOP; Benjamin Studebaker on what sort of disagreement nation-states tolerate; the nature of political polarization; how political leadership has ceased to lead; folk legitimation vs. official legitimation; expanding notions of inequality

Learn about and contribute to our film, "From There To There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-film-the-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

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Read Alex Sheremet’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

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Timestamps

0:00 - Alex Sheremet's new film is out; introducing Benjamin Studebaker and his new book; why we expected Donald Trump to win

4:39 - Benjamin Studebaker on Democrats' headwinds; COVID & inflation; Democrats destroyed their chances years ago

8:13 - Alex: Democrats who sound/act like Kamala Harris NEVER get elected; there are no Liz Cheney/Alberto Gonzalez voters; polling was stable and consistent in favor of Trump

15:52 - sexism & the Kamala Harris campaign; many voters saw Kamala Harris as a weak woman, whereas few voters would dare think of Hillary Clinton as weak; why Kamala Harris was seen as a "DEI candidate"

20:45 - the global anti-incumbent bias in 2024; Mexico's AMLO and Claudia Steinbaum as exceptions to this backlash

25:20 - Trump's racism surrounding Haitian migrants vs. Kamala's racism in using, then ignoring migrants; Kamala's identitarian failures; Democrats are behaving like mob bosses, and voters don't want it

34:22 - Democrats assume voters accept their racial narratives about the GOP; why Democrats dehumanize non-party voters; previewing Allan Lichtman's Keys to the White House

36:36 - Benjamin Studebaker's thesis on the legitimation strategies of liberal democracies; the nature of escalating disagreements in embedded democracies; Trump and Obama as the aesthetic trappings of change; Studebaker's conception of a legitimation hydra in deep pluralism

48:25 - Kamala Harris taps the legitimation hydra with her contradictory promises; Trump has power as a non-incumbent, but loses as an incumbent; incumbency is increasingly a disadvantage for politicians

53:37 - defining deep pluralism; does it necessarily lead to polarization; deep pluralism creates issues for state capacities; embedded democracies imply no living memory of previous systems; the limits of an electorate's imagination

01:03:05 - legitimation in illiberal, authoritarian states

01:08:30 - amoral political theories leading to emergent morality; John J. Mearsheimer and state survival; survival is yet another key human value; how Israel partisans can come to exactly opposite conclusions with identical values; although everyone is watching Iran, Egypt and Jordan can just as easily collapse

01:18:20 - the role of art in politics, politics in art; art and infantilization; corporatist art; genuine art vs. fandom; fandom in politics; art as needling the status quo; Alex: art is a NECESSARY retreat; how great art is a service; Bruce Ario as a service-oriented artist

Tags: #election2024 #politics #trump